Re: GPS Greece
- From: steve <SJgerdemann@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 06:50:55 -0700 (PDT)
On Mar 13, 4:13 pm, Mike Lane <inva...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
On Thu, 13 Mar 2008 21:52:42 +0000, steve wrote
(in article
<ce671429-b446-4d54-9cdc-e25e9e5f0...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>):
We are planning a trip to Greece this April and will be driving. We
would like to use a GPS but it appears that GPS systems don't have
maps available for anything but Athens. Is this true? If it is why? If
not can we rent something while we are in Greece?
Yes it is true, and no you can't rent anything else. Sorry :-)
I've driven to Greece a few times now and always take a GPS to help us
across Europe. If you have a Garmin with the latest City Navigator mapping
installed then as you say only Athens and the environs are covered down to
street level. (Don't knock this though - it's a godsend if you happen to want
to drive through Piraeus!) A few other places are included in this -
strangely enough Patras is covered which is quite useful if you are arriving
or departing by ferry to Italy.
Other places though you can more or less forget your GPS - the main roads are
covered by the base map but that's all. I wouldn't worry too much though -
it's not a great problem. Greece has not got much of a network of minor roads
like other countries in Western Europe. There's normally only one main road
from one place to another. Your sat nav will tell you what direction you're
heading and you approximate position. If these are OK then you can be fairly
sure you're on the right road.
As to why the mapping doesn't cover Greece, the reasons are historical and
complex and I'm not sure you really want to know the full answer. Here goes
though with a rather glib explanation:
Roughly speaking the problem is that up to about 10 years ago Greece has been
in quite considerable political turmoil. Since WW II it has had its own civil
war, an on-going conflict with Turkey, a military dictatorship, all followed
by a few years of fragile and uneasy democracy and final joining of the EU.
This all resulted in a great feeling of paranoia particularly concerning the
perceived hostile intentions of their neighbour Turkey (which incidentally
was being armed by the Americans during the cold war). This has had an
unfortunate side effect that any accurate surveying has been done solely by
the military, and all accurate maps have been controlled by them. Most Greeks
are still convinced that they are in imminent danger of an invasion by
Turkey. (Be careful in Greece if you enquire about this though - it's a
*very* sensitive issue)
When I first went to Greece in about '98 it was impossible to buy any
accurate maps at all. There was a rumour at that time that as a tourist you
could obtain maps if you applied in person to some obscure department of the
Ministry of Defence in Athens. I never did try this :-) In recent years since
Greece's membership of the EU things have lightened up considerably and
decent maps are beginning to appear. It will be a few years though before
these become fully digitised. You can get more info about mapping (paper and
digital) here:http://www.anavasi.gr/en/
Well sorry for the long answer but you did ask :-)
--
Mike Lane (UK North Yorkshire)
To contact me replace invalid with mike underscore lane
Thanks for the information. This Christmas we used a GPS in Hungary,
Czech & Slovakia. I would have thought that former Eastern Block
countries were less likely to have GPS maps. What I really liked about
using the GPS was that it eliminated the stress of navigation
especially in cities. It would deliver us right to the door of our
B&B.
Steve
.
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