Ok so I’m little late with the write up but here it is, a summary of our summer trip/holiday to Greece to collect Kitsos.
Kitsos is a 1982 Toyota Corolla Coupe; it’s been Danai’s (my Greek girlfriend) fathers car since new and was their main family car until 2002ish. It was replaced with a Peugeot 307 and since then has been only run occasionally. The costs of environmental taxes and insurance to keep it as a second car were quite high but as a loved family car they didn’t want to just ‘get rid’ or scrap it so it remained garaged. When I first saw a picture of it and said it was a cool car it I thought nothing more about it. This turned into being offered the car, but realistically I thought I can’t get a left hand drive car in Greece and get it back to the UK, its just too far and well how? Well I must have had some beers and plan for a summer road trip was hatched. I posted on RR to ask if I was insane or if it sounded like a good idea, typically RR’ers were full of encouragement. So one way flights were booked, Danai’s dad sorted out European (green card) insurance and we (Danai and I) booked some time off work. So is it really a good idea to go to Greece to collect a 1980’s Toyota?… well there’s only one way to find out!
This is one of just 4 photos I saw of the car prior to the trip, Danai’s dad with Kitsos.
Sun 7th August
6.20am get up as usual for work (exceptionally tired from packing the night before)
7.30am – 7pm Work frantically to try and get round my frankly unrealistic days work and have to give up and call it quits in order to get my train. I’m supposed to finish about 6pm and also worked flat-out through my 1hr unpaid lunch and yet am still told I will face disciplinary action upon my return. Not the best start to a holiday ever but what the heck, off we go.
I pick up Danai from her flat and race back to mine for the quickest shower ever and jump in a taxi to Leeds station.
We get the 8.45pm - 11.16pm Leeds – London Kings Cross train (Caught with 5min to spare) and finally I feel like we are on our way.
We arrive on time but I know the timetable is tight, we run around Kings Cross like mad looking for the tube station and not having a clue which line to go on. We waste precious time deciphering the underground map yet somehow manage to catch the LAST tube to London Bridge.
12.12pm we catch the First Capital Connect to the Airport and breathe a sigh of relief. Some random guy and his girlfriend get on talking loudly ‘awl savern an that’, being boisterous in our otherwise empty cartridge. They look like trouble but instead give us bottles of Becks and Smirnoff ice and have a drink with us for a few stops, pretty random and very welcome.
Mon 8th August
We arrive at Gatwick about 1am and just kip down on the floor for a few hours until check in opens. It felt pretty strange booking in one suitcase full of tools (socket set, 1mtr extension bar, multimeter, screwdriver set, random grips, wire cutters etc) and another with tent and sleeping bags and some presents for her family and friends). All our clothes and a laptop were in two bags literally as big as they allow for hand luggage.
We catch the 5.50am orange aeroplane which lands us on time about 11am in Thessaloniki where Danai’s dad was waiting to collect us with the 307.
About an hour’s drive later we arrive in Katerini. We were super tired out but before I even had a chance to take the luggage in or introduce myself to Dania’s mum her dad was opening the garage to show me the car ‘Kitsos’. First impressions were good but I was rather too tired so we had a siesta. Later we went to the beach so looking at the car would have to wait.
Tue 9th Aug
Danai’s father drove us to a local beach in Kitsos so I got a chance to see the car properly. It seemed to run nicely.
We had a swim in the sea and then chilled out with a beer on the sun loungers. Danai’s father can only speak a little English and I can’t speak Greek so Danai was translating. We were three in a line on the sun loungers with Danai in the middle translating side to side like the umpire at a tennis match. In normal circumstances her translating is flawless however we encountered some difficulty trying to talk about car parts. She was struggling with the names of the car parts in Greek (since they use a lot of French for these apparently) and didn’t know the English either so a game of charades ensued. It took about 10min of hand gestures, noises and guesswork to work out that Danai’s dad had found a new set of spare spark plugs for the car.
It was decided it was time for me to test drive the car. I was like YAY and ‘oh flip’ all at once. Danai’s brother in law was to be the brave instructor.
Hercules took me to a quiet area for some initial practice. Setting off on the ‘wrong’ side of the road and all the junction rules being backwards was VERY strange. I did the classic going for the window winder to change gear a few times, it’s just so automatic. Anyhow the getting used to the physical layout of a new/different car was OK and I adjusted to that fairly quickly.
Getting used to the road markings (well lack of) and road signs was harder. Round-a-bouts were OK just strange. What really got me were the x-road junctions. Here we are so used to having the central white lines continuing across them for priority traffic and thick stop lines on each give way entrance. In Greece these lines are not painted (or are super faded) and instead there are a pair of stop signs for give way and nothing on the other entrances. This is OK once you are used to it but its VERY unnerving to go zooming across assuming priority because you didn’t see a stop sign on your side.
The short test drive of town and freeway driving went fine really but boy was I bricking it. The engine pulled well and the car drove lovely. After we went out for beers with Danai’s old school friends and got merry.
Wed 10th Aug
We spent the day visiting Mt Olympus with Danai’s sister, brother in law and niece. A lovely day out but not car related so just 1 picture of me sliding over a freezing cold waterfall. Man! That was cold.
Thur 11th Aug
Spent the morning with Danai’s family which again is off topic for RR car forum but….
... out of all the choice of rides Melina, Danais’s niece just wanted to drive the cars :-)
In the afternoon we decided to take our first independent trip out in the car, just a short run to the local beach. We enjoyed a relaxed beer and grabbed a photo opportunity in front of mount Olympus.
Nervous face?
Checking out the car.
Chilling out, it’s a Holiday too yeah.
Trying hard to look relaxed.
Photo opportunity.
Click
Fri 12th Aug
So after a few days with Danai’s family we took off to halkidiki, a more tourist holiday region. We also had some friends from Leeds that had moved out there so we went to see them, a place called Vourvourou on the second peninsula Sithonia. We chilled out by the sea and camped near by. This was followed by an evening of Greek beer, Tsipouro and shots of Raki, accompanied by a table full of food, yum.
Looks like a fair shake down run (for both driver and car).
Kitsos has aspirations of towing a caravan, I set up the tent.
Sat 13th Aug
We spent the day out at a lovely beach. In the evening we met our friends again, they hire boats out for the tourists so when one came back in a bit early we took it out for a blast for an hour or so.
Sun 14th Aug
We decided to drive the long way back around the peninsula.
Goa beach bar near Sarti is a lovely sandy bay with clear water. We relaxed for a few hours which was lovely. Kitsos is usually to oldest car in the car park even here.
When we go to set off though we find satnav’s screen is cracked! Err that’s quite bad timing. It was the touch screen that was cracked not the actual LCD. All the letters and buttons above the crack wouldn’t work but the bottom section of the screen did so we managed to program it with some ingenuity.
We carried on and had a lovely fresh fish and octopus supper in Porto Koufo and a smooth run back to Katerini only interrupted by some goats being herded across the road by a dog!
Mon 15th Aug
The day was spent the day with Danai’s family at the beach and we had a lovely family dinner by the sea. Then it was time to pack and get ready for the mammoth trip. Oil, water and tyre pressures were checked, the tank was filled and fingers were crossed.
Tue 16th Aug
3.30am we set off on the empty highway towards Igoumenitsa. Many tunnels later and after a journey of switching the interior heaters on for each climb to keep engine temperatures down; we made it to the ferry port. Filled up with fuel again and boarded the boat for the 24hour journey to Venice.
We set up our small tent on the deck of the ship and bedded down for the night.
Wed 17th Aug
We got up after a welcome 8hrs of good sleep. The boat sailed right past Venice giving us a really good view of the city, almost like a pleasure cruise. We parked the car just outside the town and caught a bus into Venice. We spent the whole day there seeing the sights and eating pizza etc.
At about 5.30pm we got back to the car park. The cracked satnav again became a problem as the change country button was in the not working section of the screen. I worked out that going into settings and factory resetting the unit made it ask the county again so Austria was selected and then we could put ‘Innsbruck’ in and go. Except the ‘I’ was in the not working bit too….flipping heck. A town with letters we could enter in the satnav that was close to Innsbruck was selected and off we went.
The weather was sweltering and at 6pm the tarmac temperature was unbelievable, an arm out the window just felt hot air. Also we were starting to climb towards the alps so the engine was working quite hard. Even going a slowish 90kph was maxing out the temperature, so the heating had to come on and we slowly roasted, the heat in the car was simply unbelievable. We could go faster and still have the temperature in the normal range though so it does work very effectively.
As we got to the Alps the sun was going and the air was cooler so we didn’t need the heat on. The scenery was spectacular. Another fuel stop and we ploughed on to Innsbruck. We camped in a place called Natters. Well I say camped but the site was closed by the time we got there so we cleared the back of the car out, put the rear seats down, put sheets over the windows and camped in the back of the car.
Thur 18th Aug
We used the campsites lovely shower facilities in the morning and made a sharp exit.
Today’s aim was simply to cover some ground, as many miles as possible. The drive through Austria was amazing and the car seemed to be running well.
We stopped in the evening at Karlsruhe (Germany) for no particular reason than it was near our route we were hungry. It was a fairly ordinary place but we had some nice steak for dinner and used the internet to find our next camp site. We pressed on to Koblenz and just camped down for the night really tired.
Fri 19th Aug
We made an early start and got back on with the driving. We stopped in Leuven about 9.30am and had a wander round. It was a pretty little place and the waffles for breakfast were amazing.
Traffic was heavy round Luxembourg but we had a fairly smooth journey to Oostende. We had heard nice things about the Belgium coast but it wasn’t that inspiring. The sun, sand and stiff breeze were quite pleasant though and we did park next to an interesting motor.
We stopped in Dunkurque for our dinner at a bar with WiFi and a mains socket. So the phone charged and we got online and booked a channel crossing (£31) for just after midnight.
We sailed Calais to Dover catching an hours kip on the boat and then just drove on into England. It was quite strange to swap sides of the road again and sitting in the ‘Wrong’ seat too.
We arrived at my brothers girlfriends flat in Battersea, London about 4am and crashed out in the spare room.
Sat 20th Aug
After a welcome lye-in we did a touristy day in London. After a quick photo…
It was nice to see these classics out earning a living on the banks of the Thames.
Sun 21st Aug
There was this event called ‘The Retro Rides Gathering 2011’ taking place near Cheltenham. Well that’s on the way back from London to Leeds isn’t it? So it would be rude not to right. So…
And Kitsos parks up amongst friends proudly flying the Greek flag.
We had a really cool day, here are our highlights…
Kitsos RHD brother was powering up the hillclimb.
And this 309 was special to me being a perfect example of my first car. Same colour, trim and options.
After a great show we headed onwards to Leeds. Got home about 7.30pm and were very happy. Very happy although less happy about being back at work in the morning.
Just to summarise….
… that was a fair old trip, a really great trip and not really any problems either, result.
Readers Rides Thread: 1982 Toyota Corolla DX Coupe (Kitsos)
Kitsos is a 1982 Toyota Corolla Coupe; it’s been Danai’s (my Greek girlfriend) fathers car since new and was their main family car until 2002ish. It was replaced with a Peugeot 307 and since then has been only run occasionally. The costs of environmental taxes and insurance to keep it as a second car were quite high but as a loved family car they didn’t want to just ‘get rid’ or scrap it so it remained garaged. When I first saw a picture of it and said it was a cool car it I thought nothing more about it. This turned into being offered the car, but realistically I thought I can’t get a left hand drive car in Greece and get it back to the UK, its just too far and well how? Well I must have had some beers and plan for a summer road trip was hatched. I posted on RR to ask if I was insane or if it sounded like a good idea, typically RR’ers were full of encouragement. So one way flights were booked, Danai’s dad sorted out European (green card) insurance and we (Danai and I) booked some time off work. So is it really a good idea to go to Greece to collect a 1980’s Toyota?… well there’s only one way to find out!
This is one of just 4 photos I saw of the car prior to the trip, Danai’s dad with Kitsos.
Sun 7th August
6.20am get up as usual for work (exceptionally tired from packing the night before)
7.30am – 7pm Work frantically to try and get round my frankly unrealistic days work and have to give up and call it quits in order to get my train. I’m supposed to finish about 6pm and also worked flat-out through my 1hr unpaid lunch and yet am still told I will face disciplinary action upon my return. Not the best start to a holiday ever but what the heck, off we go.
I pick up Danai from her flat and race back to mine for the quickest shower ever and jump in a taxi to Leeds station.
We get the 8.45pm - 11.16pm Leeds – London Kings Cross train (Caught with 5min to spare) and finally I feel like we are on our way.
We arrive on time but I know the timetable is tight, we run around Kings Cross like mad looking for the tube station and not having a clue which line to go on. We waste precious time deciphering the underground map yet somehow manage to catch the LAST tube to London Bridge.
12.12pm we catch the First Capital Connect to the Airport and breathe a sigh of relief. Some random guy and his girlfriend get on talking loudly ‘awl savern an that’, being boisterous in our otherwise empty cartridge. They look like trouble but instead give us bottles of Becks and Smirnoff ice and have a drink with us for a few stops, pretty random and very welcome.
Mon 8th August
We arrive at Gatwick about 1am and just kip down on the floor for a few hours until check in opens. It felt pretty strange booking in one suitcase full of tools (socket set, 1mtr extension bar, multimeter, screwdriver set, random grips, wire cutters etc) and another with tent and sleeping bags and some presents for her family and friends). All our clothes and a laptop were in two bags literally as big as they allow for hand luggage.
We catch the 5.50am orange aeroplane which lands us on time about 11am in Thessaloniki where Danai’s dad was waiting to collect us with the 307.
About an hour’s drive later we arrive in Katerini. We were super tired out but before I even had a chance to take the luggage in or introduce myself to Dania’s mum her dad was opening the garage to show me the car ‘Kitsos’. First impressions were good but I was rather too tired so we had a siesta. Later we went to the beach so looking at the car would have to wait.
Tue 9th Aug
Danai’s father drove us to a local beach in Kitsos so I got a chance to see the car properly. It seemed to run nicely.
We had a swim in the sea and then chilled out with a beer on the sun loungers. Danai’s father can only speak a little English and I can’t speak Greek so Danai was translating. We were three in a line on the sun loungers with Danai in the middle translating side to side like the umpire at a tennis match. In normal circumstances her translating is flawless however we encountered some difficulty trying to talk about car parts. She was struggling with the names of the car parts in Greek (since they use a lot of French for these apparently) and didn’t know the English either so a game of charades ensued. It took about 10min of hand gestures, noises and guesswork to work out that Danai’s dad had found a new set of spare spark plugs for the car.
It was decided it was time for me to test drive the car. I was like YAY and ‘oh flip’ all at once. Danai’s brother in law was to be the brave instructor.
Hercules took me to a quiet area for some initial practice. Setting off on the ‘wrong’ side of the road and all the junction rules being backwards was VERY strange. I did the classic going for the window winder to change gear a few times, it’s just so automatic. Anyhow the getting used to the physical layout of a new/different car was OK and I adjusted to that fairly quickly.
Getting used to the road markings (well lack of) and road signs was harder. Round-a-bouts were OK just strange. What really got me were the x-road junctions. Here we are so used to having the central white lines continuing across them for priority traffic and thick stop lines on each give way entrance. In Greece these lines are not painted (or are super faded) and instead there are a pair of stop signs for give way and nothing on the other entrances. This is OK once you are used to it but its VERY unnerving to go zooming across assuming priority because you didn’t see a stop sign on your side.
The short test drive of town and freeway driving went fine really but boy was I bricking it. The engine pulled well and the car drove lovely. After we went out for beers with Danai’s old school friends and got merry.
Wed 10th Aug
We spent the day visiting Mt Olympus with Danai’s sister, brother in law and niece. A lovely day out but not car related so just 1 picture of me sliding over a freezing cold waterfall. Man! That was cold.
Thur 11th Aug
Spent the morning with Danai’s family which again is off topic for RR car forum but….
... out of all the choice of rides Melina, Danais’s niece just wanted to drive the cars :-)
In the afternoon we decided to take our first independent trip out in the car, just a short run to the local beach. We enjoyed a relaxed beer and grabbed a photo opportunity in front of mount Olympus.
Nervous face?
Checking out the car.
Chilling out, it’s a Holiday too yeah.
Trying hard to look relaxed.
Photo opportunity.
Click
Fri 12th Aug
So after a few days with Danai’s family we took off to halkidiki, a more tourist holiday region. We also had some friends from Leeds that had moved out there so we went to see them, a place called Vourvourou on the second peninsula Sithonia. We chilled out by the sea and camped near by. This was followed by an evening of Greek beer, Tsipouro and shots of Raki, accompanied by a table full of food, yum.
Looks like a fair shake down run (for both driver and car).
Kitsos has aspirations of towing a caravan, I set up the tent.
Sat 13th Aug
We spent the day out at a lovely beach. In the evening we met our friends again, they hire boats out for the tourists so when one came back in a bit early we took it out for a blast for an hour or so.
Sun 14th Aug
We decided to drive the long way back around the peninsula.
Goa beach bar near Sarti is a lovely sandy bay with clear water. We relaxed for a few hours which was lovely. Kitsos is usually to oldest car in the car park even here.
When we go to set off though we find satnav’s screen is cracked! Err that’s quite bad timing. It was the touch screen that was cracked not the actual LCD. All the letters and buttons above the crack wouldn’t work but the bottom section of the screen did so we managed to program it with some ingenuity.
We carried on and had a lovely fresh fish and octopus supper in Porto Koufo and a smooth run back to Katerini only interrupted by some goats being herded across the road by a dog!
Mon 15th Aug
The day was spent the day with Danai’s family at the beach and we had a lovely family dinner by the sea. Then it was time to pack and get ready for the mammoth trip. Oil, water and tyre pressures were checked, the tank was filled and fingers were crossed.
Tue 16th Aug
3.30am we set off on the empty highway towards Igoumenitsa. Many tunnels later and after a journey of switching the interior heaters on for each climb to keep engine temperatures down; we made it to the ferry port. Filled up with fuel again and boarded the boat for the 24hour journey to Venice.
We set up our small tent on the deck of the ship and bedded down for the night.
Wed 17th Aug
We got up after a welcome 8hrs of good sleep. The boat sailed right past Venice giving us a really good view of the city, almost like a pleasure cruise. We parked the car just outside the town and caught a bus into Venice. We spent the whole day there seeing the sights and eating pizza etc.
At about 5.30pm we got back to the car park. The cracked satnav again became a problem as the change country button was in the not working section of the screen. I worked out that going into settings and factory resetting the unit made it ask the county again so Austria was selected and then we could put ‘Innsbruck’ in and go. Except the ‘I’ was in the not working bit too….flipping heck. A town with letters we could enter in the satnav that was close to Innsbruck was selected and off we went.
The weather was sweltering and at 6pm the tarmac temperature was unbelievable, an arm out the window just felt hot air. Also we were starting to climb towards the alps so the engine was working quite hard. Even going a slowish 90kph was maxing out the temperature, so the heating had to come on and we slowly roasted, the heat in the car was simply unbelievable. We could go faster and still have the temperature in the normal range though so it does work very effectively.
As we got to the Alps the sun was going and the air was cooler so we didn’t need the heat on. The scenery was spectacular. Another fuel stop and we ploughed on to Innsbruck. We camped in a place called Natters. Well I say camped but the site was closed by the time we got there so we cleared the back of the car out, put the rear seats down, put sheets over the windows and camped in the back of the car.
Thur 18th Aug
We used the campsites lovely shower facilities in the morning and made a sharp exit.
Today’s aim was simply to cover some ground, as many miles as possible. The drive through Austria was amazing and the car seemed to be running well.
We stopped in the evening at Karlsruhe (Germany) for no particular reason than it was near our route we were hungry. It was a fairly ordinary place but we had some nice steak for dinner and used the internet to find our next camp site. We pressed on to Koblenz and just camped down for the night really tired.
Fri 19th Aug
We made an early start and got back on with the driving. We stopped in Leuven about 9.30am and had a wander round. It was a pretty little place and the waffles for breakfast were amazing.
Traffic was heavy round Luxembourg but we had a fairly smooth journey to Oostende. We had heard nice things about the Belgium coast but it wasn’t that inspiring. The sun, sand and stiff breeze were quite pleasant though and we did park next to an interesting motor.
We stopped in Dunkurque for our dinner at a bar with WiFi and a mains socket. So the phone charged and we got online and booked a channel crossing (£31) for just after midnight.
We sailed Calais to Dover catching an hours kip on the boat and then just drove on into England. It was quite strange to swap sides of the road again and sitting in the ‘Wrong’ seat too.
We arrived at my brothers girlfriends flat in Battersea, London about 4am and crashed out in the spare room.
Sat 20th Aug
After a welcome lye-in we did a touristy day in London. After a quick photo…
It was nice to see these classics out earning a living on the banks of the Thames.
Sun 21st Aug
There was this event called ‘The Retro Rides Gathering 2011’ taking place near Cheltenham. Well that’s on the way back from London to Leeds isn’t it? So it would be rude not to right. So…
And Kitsos parks up amongst friends proudly flying the Greek flag.
We had a really cool day, here are our highlights…
Kitsos RHD brother was powering up the hillclimb.
And this 309 was special to me being a perfect example of my first car. Same colour, trim and options.
After a great show we headed onwards to Leeds. Got home about 7.30pm and were very happy. Very happy although less happy about being back at work in the morning.
Just to summarise….
… that was a fair old trip, a really great trip and not really any problems either, result.
Readers Rides Thread: 1982 Toyota Corolla DX Coupe (Kitsos)
Ax GTi Turbo
