Road signs in Greece
 

Are road/highway signs in Greece posted only in Greek or do they also post in English?

We'll be doing a lot of driving and would like any driving tips you can offer. Thanks.

Most signs on major roads are in that politically charged English the Greek government affects, as well as Greek. So they include absurd attempts to tell us how to speak our language, such as "Athinai" for Athens and "Korinthos" for Corinth.

There's an immense programme of road building in many parts of Greece, and maps just aren't being printed fast enough to keep up. However, as far as I could see, all these roads are bilingually signed.

Off major roads, you'll still find a few road signs in Greek only. These roads ARE on the maps, and typically have very little traffic. So with a decent atlas and a bit of common sense, you'll have time to decipher the signs and learn to read Greek at the same time. The bad news is that in such out of the way places, few people speak anything other that Greek, though they almost universally bend over backwards to try to show you the way

There's only about a dozen letters different from our alphabet, and the few monoglossal signs are all in upper case. So if you're planning out of the way driving, a few minutes familiarising yourself with the upper-case alphabet (try http://tinyurl.com/5rl6hk) will be worthwhile

Agree with Flanner - you shouldn't have a problem finding your way. A lot of maps are however very poor, try to get a decent one like the Road Editions map. If the map has both Greek and "English" names, it helps a lot. The English signs often appear along the road after the Greek ones. Most villages have a name sign on entering the village and another to show you are leaving it, which can help in navigation. Even with a decent map, we found both villages and roads that were not marked on the map.

Also be aware that Greeks rarely seem to close roads when doing road works, or even on partially constructed roads. We have often set off along a decent tarmac road, only to find ourselves very suddenly on a gravel road, with bulldozers working along side. The gravel section can be a few hundred yards or several miles. Most likely you haven't taken a wrong turn and will return to tarmac eventually! Proceed with caution and look out for any hand written signs.

If in doubt, ask. People are generally friendly and even if they don't speak English, an approximation of where you are trying to get to, or pointing at the map, will usually result in an attempt to help.

Thanks, Flanner and Maria, We're looking forward to an interesting adventure. About Road Edition maps, I'm not familiar with them. Is it one map covering all mainland Greece or each area individually?

Most signs on major roads are in that politically charged English the Greek government affects, as well as Greek. So they include absurd attempts to tell us how to speak our language, such as "Athinai" for Athens and "Korinthos" for Corinth.

I don't understand your reasoning at all. The signs are not in 'English'. They are in Greek using the Roman alphabet. If you think they should have them in English then surely they should also have them in German, French, Danish etc etc - all the other countries that use this alphabet. Make for rather large road signs.

Why should they use English road signs in Greece?

The place names are of course the Greek names using the Roman alphabet but informational type signs are often translated into the English language. It's an embarrasing but useful fact, that many part of the world make it easy for English speakers not to need to learn a foreign language ;)

crckwc1, we just came back from a trip that included almost a week of driving on the Peloponnese, and not only on major roads. Our experience was very much as described above. I don't think we ever found ourselves in a situation where we couldn't figure out the road signs, and we know nothing more than being able to recognize and sound out some Greek letters.

I'll also second the recommendation for the Road Editions maps. There's one for Greece, but also some regional maps (we used the Peloponnese map). I don't know where you are and are ordering from. I saw them offered by some UK retailers. In the US, I ordered from the Savvy Traveller, a formerly bricks-and-mortar, now only online (sadly) retailer in Chicago.

http://tinyurl.com/6qy4fc

Finally, as noted, we did find a lot of construction and some places where the map wasn't completely up to date--for example, a newer, more direct road had been added.

ms_go,

Thanks for the link to Savvy Traveller. I've ordered a couple of the maps which they say will come "with all possible speed." Hope they get here by May 5 -- surely.

Thanks, too, for the heads up on new roads not shown on the maps.