I'm not the world's most enthusiastic traveller. I travel, more than I want. It's part of my job. It's why I am in Athens this morning. I do it because I think it useful: not because I enjoy it. Candidly, the UK has more than enough to keep me amused when it comes to leisure travel for the rest of my life.<\/p>\n
But, there is always something to be learned, I admit, when travelling, and not always the expected. I grilled my taxi driver from the airport to hotel last night; they're always a good source of information. We covered the usual stuff I'd be concerned about; the economy, politics, tax, tax evasion, making ends meet, social stresses (poor guy, he must have wondered what hit him).<\/p>\n
Then we got to cars. The Mercedes felt oldish. I looked at the clock. 193,000km. I commented. He laughed. \"No\", he said \"that's 1,193,000km\".<\/p>\n
What? I looked incredulous, I'm sure. He promised me it was true: a 14 year old Merc taxi, one engine, second gear box. 1.2 million kilometres.<\/p>\n
Most cars that age in the UK get scrapped with 20% of that mileage.<\/p>\n
The secret was, he said, love it. I don't love cars any more than I love travelling (although I do make them last a long time). But it was an interesting point: if only we would better look after much of what we own - and have the chance to do so - not only would we be greener, but we'd be more local too, since that's where the servicing happens, and more skilful too.<\/p>\n
Maybe I didn't need to come to Greece to learn that. But it happened that way. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"