A German Take on Greece

Bernd Pesch
November 2012

German motorhomer Bernd Pesch writes about a visit to Greece with his wife Anni in October 2012

I am Bernd from East Frisia in Germany. I am retired and since 2 years my wife Anni and me are travelling through Europe with our motorhome. And searching the net I detected your webpage, the best I ever read up to now.

In October 2012 we stayed 4 weeks in Greece - as Germans. We did it, although we heard about too many bad 'facts' by the media, especially for Germans. From 2002 till 2004 we lived and worked in Larissa (Northern Greece) so we learnt a little bit how Greece is functioning, and your page is like a mirror of Greece for us. And today we are 'free' and so we wanted to see again our Greek friends in Larissa and the nice country. So in October we took the 'landline' to Greece via Serbia and inside Greece we drove about 3000 km cross-country. We heard about the changes, economy and security by our friends and we saw the changes during our travel.

Since 2004 the prices exploded by more than 150% plus. And the salaries dropped down during the last 2 years enormously. Our friend gets 800 Euros per month as a teacher and has to survive in Larissa with 3 children. She cannot afford diesel oil for the heating system of the house and installed 2 ovens, for which she needs nearly 3 tons wood in winter to warm up the house. 1 ton costs 1500 Euros.

In the northern regions, even in the nature parks, organized wood theft is going on, nobody cares about. We visited a Monastirio (= monastery or convent) near Larissa and heard by the chief lady that they lock the doors every night and leave the dogs out for protection. The amount of robbery did increase very much in that mountain region and the hunters of the small village, where the Monastirio is located, patrol every night with weapons through the hills to protect the village. I saw some of them by my own.

For me as a German, I must say I had not a single bad situation in Greece, although we did not often use a campsite, stayed overnight doing 'wilding' and spoke to many people. Maybe it was because we speak a little bit Greek or because we are 'shadowed' by our Rottweiler dog ... or simply luck. Everybody was super friendly, even the police passing next by our 'wilding location' gave friendly greetings. People surely do discriminate between 'higher politics' and 'simple people'.

By the way, I think we met Rod, the friendly British guy who wrote an article about security, in the Peloponnese. Best wishes to him, if possible. And we regret his bad experience in Germany; unfortunately the number of such incidents is increasing. But the German press is filtered, I guess. They do not name the real background and reasons for the increase in crime in German ... .always 'politically correct', a German phenomena. Sorry, but I do not want to become too much political.

Our intention was to stay during the wintertime on Peloponnese but we are back home presently, because our northern type dog could not stand the heat and got sick. May be we do another trial next winter to 'survive' in Greece some months, depending on the 'overall tactical situation'.

Your webpage with all information is outstanding, I love to read it. And please excuse that my English sometimes is a little bit peculiar, sorry, I am not a native speaker.