Driving Athens to Istanbul
 

Thinking about driving rental car from Athens to Istanbul & on to Cappadocia. What are roads like through Macedonia?

When i drove this i went wholly thru Greece via Thessoloniki to Turkey - no Macedonia on direct route i think.

I also am showing this route through Greece, but my map shows the southrn part bordering the sea to be Western & Central Greek Macedonia. How was your drive?

Yes that part of Greece is also called Macedonia but i thought you meant the country of Macedonia.

I drove a while ago and though it was long the roads, the main road along the coast was fine.

At that time there was a snafu at crossing turkish border and can be if relations deteriorate over Cypress, etc. but think it's smooth sailing now.

It's a (boring, but mostly empty and fast) motorway as far as the eastern suburbs of Thessalonica. My map shows it's a patchy mix of occasional motorway eastwards from there to the border, interrupted by lorry-choked undivided highway. But the main motorway is being built at a heck of a pace, and every map I used last year in the area was out of date, so the link might be almost complete now.

With Bulgaria now in the EU, most lorries might now be going straight from Istanbul to Sofia: up to last year, a lot of the (immense) Turkey-Northern Europe freight traffic went through Greece and Italy because, with fewer borders that way, it used to be faster.

The road building bonanza is a minor inconvenience if you get off the motorway, and in the stretch between Olympus and Thessalonica you really must: Vergina wins my prize hands down as Europe's best archaeological site.

There's often really good, fast, bilingually-signed, roads that don't show on maps you might have - but also stretches of older (generally untrafficked) bits, where it's advisable to brush up on your ability to read Greek, both upper case and lower case. A few basic phrases will come in handy too: few people we asked directions of had ever seen the point of learning a foreign language.

We drove from Athens to Istanbul 10 years ago. The road was excellent. Restaurants along the way were good.

It was June and very hot. I took a break somewhere along the way and went for a swim in the Aegean Sea.

Do it. Istanbul will amaze you.

I guess driving Athens to Istanbul can be difficult but deriving in Istanbul is really terrible. You should call your hotel to pick you up. otherwise you will have a lot of trouble finding your hotel. If you have not decided your hotel you can look at the website (www.adaistanbul.com) I hope you will not have any problem in Istanbul.

Nice travels...