The Most Beautiful Villages of Greece and the Greek Islands [antikvár]

I ¦fihir'^riL'jríi-fi' li Greece is many cultural microclimates with a common theme of amazing power. Consider these facts: Greece the political entity we now know is not very old; it came into being when the Dodecanese were handed back from Italy by the British in 1947, while much of the mainland was still part of the Ottoman Empire at the turn of the century. It is a country which has never existed before: it started as a collection of bickering city states which were subsequently subsumed into greater and by no means exclusively Greek political entities from Alexander's day on, while in more recent times it has been carved up among foreign occupiers. But there has never before been a nation state called Greece. And yet the idea of Greece, the spirit of Greekness, is one of the most durable in history. Open an Athenian newspaper today and it will include words written precisely as Homer, or those who preserved Homer's words, wrote them at the dawn of literature 3,000 years ago (and indeed 'idea' is one). And when St. John began his gospel, 'In the beginning was the Word', he penned a sentence that no Greek today is likely to have much difficulty in reading and understanding. But it can be a mistake to draw too many expectations from the classics when approaching Greece for the first time. The rapidly dwindling band of those who have any acquaintance with them are liable to be disappointed if they land in Greece expecting daily classical resonances, though they will of course find the odd archaeological site. Speaking for myself, it was my love of Greece that inspired my interest in ancient Greece and the classics, not the other way round. There is also a tendency to overlook and underestimate the more recent Byzantine/Crusader and, for that matter, Turkish past. The real testimony to the amazing durability of Greekness can be found in the daily lives and villages of Greece. In the language, of course, of these for so long separated people, in the teachings and influences of the Greek Orthodox church, but above all in the cafés and tavernas. They may drink raki and nibble pre-prandial grilled octopus in Aegean villages, while in Ionian ones both are virtually unobtainable, ouzo and olives being preferred, but both sets of people are undeniably Greek, of the same culture and way of life. Much of the beauty of Greece and its islands lies in the fact that it is on the edge: not too different, but still a refreshing change. Its people are ^ ^any of the homes ofMonemvassia (above) i 1 yj- ript ripe for tasteful restoration.