Athens – Burst Tyre on the Motorway and Other Excitement

One handy thing about travelling with Richard anywhere is that there’s always drama. And I was delivered drama once again on this trip, which was all rather exciting. As we were driving along the motorway, or more specifically as Richard was driving, there was a little bangy noise which I correctly identified as something was broken. We were just before a toll booth and so we stopped off to investigate the matter, with the timing being quite fortunate.

The rather helpful guy at the reception desk at the toll station, which I don’t think is a generally onerous role and so needs extra excitement, came over to help. He we are with two experts looking at the tyre, which I had already identified as broken so I didn’t see what more work needed doing on the investigation.

Richard remembered that there was a spare tyre in the boot. It seemed that we might be able to put this on and manage the situation ourselves. Richard is a man of action and his engineering background, specialising in keyboards, would inevitably come in handy.

And here he is athletically putting the tyre into the right place, rolling it like a professional. This plan didn’t work as we couldn’t get the existing tyre off (I say we, but I was basically just the photographer) and so Richard phoned the car hire company. The lady spoke English, but the toll guy (as I’m now calling him) dealt with the entire conversation in rapid-fire Greek and we had no clue what was going on. Richard had been hoping to speak to the lady at the end of the call to gain a better understanding of the situation, but I imagine that the toll guy was trying to make life easier. I wanted to sit in the car, but Richard reminded me it was jacked up and he hadn’t remembered to bring any chairs to sit on which I thought was poor planning on his part. If he is to be a true traveller, he needs to bring a mobile lounge with him.

I think this next photo tells something of a story, as it’s now dark. The toll gates looked rather lovely as the sun set over the broken car. The toll guy, who really was doing a marvellous job at helping us, came over to say that the repair man was around fifteen minutes away. At least we had a solution coming now.

There was some thinking about the situation whilst we waited. The toll guy spoke sufficient English to let us know what was going on and helpfully queried if I was cold as I didn’t have a coat on. He also asked Richard why we’d come to Greece when it was cold, although I think the toll guy and I have a different understanding of what the word hot means.

Then the repair man turned up with a proper jack. No selection of canapes or anything though for us to nibble on. I had expected Richard to have some sort of lounge option for car hire so that we received some treats, but it transpired that he hadn’t. But, here is the car all successfully repaired and we were ready to roll with the temporary tyre in place, with the whole arrangement taking 90 minutes to have got sorted out.

Thanks mostly to me for recording the incident for posterity, the toll man for being so helpful, the repair guy for fixing it and to Richard for the excitement. After investigating the broken tyre, it seems that there had been a nail in it which must have fallen out, hence the quick deflation. Richard noted, after the event, that he did think there was the sound of something as we had been driving around all day, but as it was a hire car a random noise would have been hard to investigate. And with Richard at the helm, what could possibly go wrong? He remains very fortunate that I’m often around to take photos and be the voice of calm reason. As for the good news, Richard had taken out insurance to cover this sort of incident, so the €400 he would have been charged was reduced to €0.