Greece on a Polish Licence — Slower Motorways, Tougher Island Roads

For Polish drivers, Greece is one of the easier countries to arrive in. You stay on the right, your EU licence is valid for up to 12 months and no IDP is needed, and the road signs are the familiar European set. The surprises are smaller and more specific.

Start with speed, because it runs the opposite way to most trips abroad. Greek motorways are capped at 130 km/h, which is actually slower than the 140 you are allowed on stretches of the A1 and A4 at home — so this is one of the rare cases where you ease off rather than speed up. Towns are 50, the open road 90. Enforcement is a mix of fixed cameras and roadside radar, and about 10 km/h over the limit costs in the region of EUR 40, normally paid on the spot.

The real adjustment is the surface, not the sign. Greece is rated only moderate for driving conditions, and away from the toll motorways you will notice it fast: patchy tarmac, faded lane markings, unguarded mountain bends, and local overtaking that can feel reckless by Polish standards. On the islands the lanes narrow further, scooters appear from nowhere, and you may have to reverse a hire car onto a ferry under a watching queue. Drive to what you can see, not what the limit allows.

The alcohol limit is 0.05 — looser than Poland’s strict 0.02 — but that is not a licence to relax. Summer policing along the coast is aggressive and the penalties reach licence confiscation, so treat it as a no-drink rule. Fuel is about $1.92 a litre, cheapest at supermarket stations, and 112 reaches every emergency service.

Two quick checks before you set off make the trip smoother. Run your documents through the Driving Permit Checker to confirm nothing is missing, and if you want to picture the cost of a slip on a camera, the Speeding Fine Calculator does the maths. Download offline maps for the islands, where the signal thins out, and keep your first hour gentle.