By the gods of Olympus, I must say I am
impressed with how many blondes have cropped up
in countries like Greece! I would grant you
there are more golden tress gals there than in
all of Skandinavia, but you’ve got to agree
also, it’s only a matter of preference, right?
You get tired of your black or brown locks
sooner or later, so what better thing than to
become a blonde since everyone knows that
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. All it takes is
one visit to your hairdresser-or not even! That
is a far cry from the mandilla-covered head of
the heavily wrinkled black-clad grandma four or
five generations ago.
Athens and the whole country are in a state of
flux for sometime now, wounded by the aftermath
of the debt rate concealing by the Goldman Sachs
derivatives a corrupt government bought into
back in the early 2000s, and one sure sign of it
is that car owners can’t concentrate on any one
issue at the time, as they posture in stoical
anticipation of what’s to come-the countdown to
the impending default-the most brutal of
austerities that rivals ascetism, or the return
to the drachma, all of which are as bad an omen
as one can gather in a flock of witches. It may
have not been as bad had had Germany, which now
dispenses the cash to save euro’s economy had
not been exempted from paying its dues to
Greece, meaning the WWII reparations the Allies,
during the London Debt agreement decided in 1953
as a whopping $95 billion as decided by the
final treaty signed in 1990, which stipulated
that after Germany had paid the circle of
biggies like France and England, it did not
have to pay anything to the rest of the dummies
such as Greece, which incidentally held-up the
Axis’onslaught for six whole months and cause
its machine to pull into the Soviet Union by
mid-winter, which as we know, ended in disaster
for Hitler.
So current Greek philosophy, which may derive
from the ancient philosophical school meeting
under an arch (stoa) and thus taking the
name Stoic, is, why bother washing the
car when there’s no guarantee that tomorrow will
come? Cars line up streets mainly in the
suburbs, block after block, from Kalithea to
Pangrati and from Kifissia to Glyfada thirsting
for a soaking which never comes. Even if the
default doesn’t happen, someone, without fail
will hit your vehicle in the narrow streets they
ride or park indiscriminately-particularly those
in Plaka that surrounds the Acropolis, which no
way can you widen without adulterating its
flavor-and as Athenians get confey with larger
cars year in-year out, and not because of wealth
either. Even if you’re lucky enough not to have
this happen to you, the blistering dust blowing
from the North African coast will corrode them,
bringing their untimely doom.
Europe’s generosity promised pumping another
€100 billion into the Greek economy and reduced
the value of what bondholders held as a
bona-fide commitment, to 50%, asking for much
more austerity from those who burden of losing
most of their incomes to cuts and taxes, levies
and surtaxes every time Europe decided to offer
money. But the oddity was that while their
government accepted the offer in return for more
hardship of its people, and while all
politicians flocked around that European
‘offering,’ the people, in a plebiscite, gave a
vote of confidence to the austerity-pushers. So
there!
Enough about the economy! Notwithstanding what
goes on in the political and economic arena,
Greece will never cease providing a welcome mat
to visitors and tourists and will never cease
being the language which gave not only
civilization but over 4,000 words to the
English and most any of the world’s languages..
Antiquity provides a plethora of sites across
its land-and as we know-even beyond, of marble
marvels, of symmetrical structures, of imposing
statues of incredible art to see, whether one
wanders to Cape Sounio traveling eastward from
Athens, where sunset is an astonishing sight or
to Kythera, where that wondrous mechanism buried
for centuries on end is a telltale of
indescribable discoveries millennia earlier.
Needless to mkention the Acropolis with the
magnificent Parthenon albeit stripped of inch of
the freeze, the Caryatids building in the
adjacent area, and of course, the Propylaea, the
entrance to the Rock of Fortitude. While in that
area, do not omit to visit the brand new
Acropolis Museum, a marvel of glass, where
standing on one floor, you can view all the
action below.
Perhaps a seven to ten day Mediterranean or
Aegean cruise will serve the traveler best,
since it will afford him an overview of points
of interest across the islands in the sea that
separates Greece from Turkey, simultaneously
affording them Greek sites outside Greece’s
boundaries, such as Byzantine locations in
Istanbul (Constantinople,) Izmir (Smyrna,)
Anatolia and Pontus, as well ancient cities such
as Ephesus, a city in inland Turkey which was
rebuilt seven times between the Hellenic and
Roman era, with its 2-story Library, the
12,000-seat Odeon and the 17,000-seat stadium,
plus a remarkable water distributing system of
carrying it into the town, in the days when the
sea reached ithe port of this land-locked bundle
of ruins. Louis ruises, a Cypriot-based company,
Celebrity Cruises, the former Greek-owned
Chandris Lines and a number of other European
cruise lines can accommodate your needs.
With stops at Santorini and Mykonos, established
tourist stops, do not expect tours to
archeological sites, however, the island of
Patmos and Iraklion in Crete yield interesting
sites. On Patmos, after you ascend from the
seaside village of Hora, towards midway between
the top, is the cave in which Saint John wrote
the Apocalypse. At the top, you’ll find a
Byzantine monastery with a panoramic view of the
sea that surrounds it, once armed to the teeth,
ready to defende the entire island from
Saracenes and Moores who plied the waters as the
predecessors of the Pirates. It even features an
elaborate system of alerting the inhabitants of
the island of impending assaults with everyone
flocking into the monastery which doubled as the
island’s fort.
As you enter the port city of Rhodes, do not
expect to see the Colossus of Rhodes as the
colossal statue that dominated the harbor’s
mouth as ships sailed below it to reach land,
because it has not been there for eons,
destroyed most likely by an earthquake. But the
town is a most quaint one, past the most
impressive grand palazzo Moussolini had built
for his army’s occupational forces while the
Dodecannese isles were under Italian rule up to
WWII. The narrow, winding streets and bthe
yellow to light brown one-story houses are
charming and inviting. The Turkish-style Grand
Bazaar in the center of the town clashes with
the overall style of the island, but folks like
it because this is nwhere they can find whatever
they are looking for at an affordable price.
On the island of Crete, you must head for the
palace ruins of King Minos in the ancient city
of Knossos, surrounded by the modern capital of
Irakleion. Minotaur, composed of two Greek
words, Minos the King and Tavros, meaning bull,
and according to the ancient myth, lived in a
cave built by Daidalus and his son Ikarus, who
then were held captive by Minos lest they reveal
his secret. Also kept captive was the kingdom of
Aegeas of Athens, which had to send annually six
maidens and six young men as a ransom, who were
devoured by the monster. The sacrifice continued
until Aegeas son Thesseus joined as one of the
12 sacrificial youths on their sail to Knossos
and killed the beast. Right in the outskirts of
Athens there is a monument, not unlike a
miniature Parthenon called Thesseum in memory of
his feat.
Thought there are no scheduled stops by
cruiseliners to the island of Samos, the island
nevertheless is an important destination of
archeology, being the island where Pythagoras,
the famous mathematician who developed what is
still used in schools across the planet as the
Pythagorean Tablet, was born and kept a school
high on a hill above the modern village of
Pythagoras. Let us not forget that the island of
Samos off the coast of Turkey known as Anatolia,
where many Byzantine cities had thrived until
the demise of the Eastern Empire built by
Emperor Constantine the Great, the former slave
who wrote Aesop’s Fables, still being used in
school textbooks. Something that may not be a
common knowledge is that Samos is also the home
to Cleopatra’s Baths, where the famous last
Egyptian Pharaoh of the Ptolemei Dynasty, the
last descendant of Alexander the Great’s general
Ptolemeus used to spend her summers in the
company of Mark Anthony. In addition, there is a
Temple devoted to Zeus’ wife-sibling Hera,
called Heraion which attracted may
worshippers from all over Greece and Rome.
That’s not even considering islands of mystique
such as Delos, considered a sacred one, or Kos,
the island reportedly visited by
Hercules, in the Roman mythology, and
which, during the
Hellenistic period attained the peak of its
prosperity. Its alliance was valued by the
Pharaohs of Egypt, who used it as an outpost for
their navy to watch the Aegean. As a seat of
learning it rose to be a kind of provincial
branch of the museum and (Greek) Library of
Alexandria, and became a favorite resort for
the education of the princes of the Ptolemaic
dynasty. Among its most famous sons were the
physician
Hippocrates,
considered the father of medicine, whose oath is
still administered to physicians inducted into
the profession was born there in 460 BC.
In the center of the town, also called Kos,
there exists still the
Plane Tree of Hippocrates, a
dream temple where the physician is
traditionally supposed to have taught. The limbs
of the now elderly tree are supported by
scaffolding. The town has a 14th century
fortress at the entrance to its
harbor, erected in 1315 by The Knights of
Saint John of Rhodes (Commanderie St. John.) The
small city is also home to the International
Hippocratic Institute and the
Hippocratic Museum dedicated to him.
Near the Institute are the ruins of
Asklepieion, where
Herodicus taught Hippocrates medicine.
Kardamena is a popular resort for young British
holidaymakers and has a large number of bars and
nightclubs. A Major League baseball player and
executive, Al Campanis hails from that island.
Moreover, if your preference is to view Greece
via motorcade, first heading south from Athens
and heading northwest, first stops must be
Olympia and Delphi, where the Oracle handed
Alcibiades, the Athenian leader who asked how
could he win over the Persians, the decree that
“the winner will be he who builds wooden
castles.” The General read through that cryptic
message and built ships, with which he bacame
victorious. Going Northward towards Thessaly, it
is advised to stop at the Olympus where myth has
it was the abode of thye Twelve supreme gods of
the Hellenic and Roman religion.
You’ll motor along the coast to the bridge
crossing the spectacular Corinth Canal, on the
Isthmus, visiting ancient Corinth, where St.
Paul preached. Two more major features today:
Mycenae, where 19th-century excavations revealed
impressions of the splendors so vividly
described by Homer. Admire the Beehive-like
Tombs, the Treasury of Atreus, the Lion Gate,
Europe’s oldest known monument, the remains of
Agamemnon’s Royal Palace, and the impressive
fortifications of the Citadel. Then, a short
drive to Epidaurus for a tour of its amazingly
well-preserved 2,300-year-old open-air theater,
where you can stand on any given spot, high or
low getting the same sound everywhere you might
sit. I ccan attest to that, having tried the
test when with a group with fellow-American
journalists some years back, we had Barbara
Bahni, a soprano who has performed repeatedly in
New York, sing from the center stage with us
strategically standing on random heights and
hearing her perfectly.
Spending the night in nearby Nafplion one can
enjoy the spectacular scenery on the way through
the Arkadian Mountains, for an afternoon in
Olympia, where the athletes of antiquity
competed in honor of the king of deities, Zeus.
You can pick up easily here the history of those
original Olympic Games as you walk among the
impressive remains of the Gymnasium and the
Temples of Hera and Zeus. Also visit the Museum
that displays Praxiteles’ magnificent statue of
Hermes. The hustle and bustle seaport of
Patras,and crossing the spanking new Rio-Antirio
bridge you will be riding along picturesque
fishing villages of the south coast of the
mainland (Attica) to mystic Delphi,
where the Oracle handed Alkibiades, the Athenian
leader who asked how he could win over the
Persians, the decree was that “the winner will
be he who builds wooden castles.” The General
read through that cryptic message and built
ships, with which he bacame victorious.
Devote an afternoon among the ancient sanctuary
of the Apollo in its dramatic setting on the
slopes of Mount Parnassus.. End the day with a
visit to the Archaeological Museum to admire the
Charioteer, an extraordinary 5th-century
BC bronze statue.
Going Northward towards Thessaly, it is advised
to stop at the Olympus where myth has it was the
abode of thye Twelve Supreme gods of the
Hellenic and Roman religion. As you head north,
passing
Lamia and Trikala to Kalambaka you arrive at a
surreal beauty of a landscape called Meteora
(the same as the Meteors which derives from that
Greek word.) The view is great below the 24
rock-hanging structures housing monastic orders,
featuring a unique collection of icons, but it
is breathtaking from the top.
Meteora, crowned with these five-hundred
year old monasteries which look like they are
inaccessable to anyone but James Bond are some
of the most amazing places on earth.
Some of them may admit women, but most are for
men’s eyes only. Women are advised to wear a
skirt where they are admitted, but never shorts
or pants as they are tabu. Forge north from
Halkidiki to the northern capital city of
Thessaloniki with its hundreds of Byzantine era
churches and monasteries, and take time for a
short excursion to the ruins of Pella, the
ancient capital of Macedonian king Philip,
father of Alexander the Great.
As you begin the trip southward towards Athens,
a highlight is Thermopylae, the site of the
heroic battle of Leonidas’ 300 doomed Spartans
against Xerxes’ massive Persian army. Thebes
should be on your itinerary, not only because of
its place as one of the three major city-state3s
to have flourished at different periods (the
other two are Athens and Sparta) but also the
setting of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. Also of
interest is Marathon, where 10,000 Athenians
defeated more than twice that number of Persian
invaders in 490 BC. The Marathon run originated
from the run of one of the Athenians who ran all
the way to Athens to announce their victory, and
and expiring after doing so.
The side trip towards the resort town of
Loutrakiin Evoia is worth your time for it
is famous for its mineral waters, beaches,
nightlife and a casino
Meteora where giant rock formations crowned
with five-hundred year old monasteries which
look like they are inaccessable to anyone but
James Bond is one of the most amazing places on
earth. Visit my pages on
Thessaloniki, the second largest and hippest
city in Greece, and also my pages for
Macedonia .The resort town of
Loutraki is famous for its mineral waters,
beaches, nightlife and a casino.
Next
Iussue: Turkey