Greece's Escape to a Dream

GREECE a photographic journey alongside poets and travellers

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ΕΞΙ ΕΝΔΙΑΦΕΡΟΜΕΝΟΙ ΣΤΗΝ ΛΙΣΤΑ ΓΙΑ ΤΗΝ ΕΘΝΙΚΗ ΑΣΦΑΛΙΣΤΙΚΗ

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When a traveler return at home, let him not leave the countries where he hath travelled altogether behind him, but maintain a correspondence by letters with those of his acquaintance which are of most worth; and let his travel appear rather in his discourse than in his apparel or gesture, and in his discourse let him be rather advised in his answer, than forward to tell stories; and let it appear that he doth not change his country manners for those of foreign parts, but only prick in some flowers pf that he hath learned abroad into the customs of his own country.

Francis Bacon Of Travel

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And Alcinoos rose and spoke to the assembly: “I urge you, leaders and guardians of the Phaeaces, listen while I speak the words my breast commands me.

This stranger, I do not know who he is, from east or west, came to my house returning from a thankless journey at sea and is entreating for our aid to return to his home. Let us, as we have done before, prepare our escort; because no one who has come to my house has stayed here long lamenting for lack of help to travel. But come, let us draw a trusty black ship to sea, on her maiden

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voyage, with a crew of fifty two young men, the best according to our common judgement. And lock the oars to the rowing benches; and afterwards come to my house to find spending meals; I shall feed one and all. These o command; and the other sceptered chiefs come to my beautiful quarters that we shall welcome the stranger in our halls, and no one should decline. Also invite the divine bard, Demodocus; because the god has given him the art of song to give delight, when his soul stirs him to sing�.

Homer

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reece appears as a small country on any world maps; it lies in the Eastern Mediterranean basin, at the south-eastern edge of Europe, straddling the crossroads among North Africa, Asia Minor and the European continent.

Greek people were the first perhaps to seek and find the beauty hidden in harmony, as well as the usefulness of specialist knowledge.

They placed man at the side of gods and they created their gods in such a manner as to seem like guides, protectors and yet assessors of human behavior.

That was probably the reason Greeks have struggled historically for the perfection and justice of human behavior.

That was perhaps why they built their temples, their houses, their ships as they did; the reason they became experts in medicine, artists, scientists, travelers, philosophers, athletes.

That conceivable explains the reason they learned to win in battle and to employ a unique strategy in order to conquer almost the entire world known to them. Perhaps that was the reason they wrote such poetry, devised such myths, and invented written history.

They proved the power humans acquire when they know themselves deeply and when they respect nature, the gods, and their fellow humans.

The Greek sea-locked landmass helped and rewarded them: it provided them a placid homeland in which to live and create. And they themselves had to struggle sometimes against the natural elements, which destroyed lives, houses, places and fortunes

indiscriminately. On the other hand, they were able to enjoy the warmth of the sun, which they believed proceeded overhead as a god on a golden chariot pulled by four white horses.

Yet of a night they would study the star-studded sky and invent stories and myths about those the gods placed forever on the firmament and who gave their names to stars.

They speculated that everything on earth, in the air, in the sea, everything in the sky, on the sea-bottom or in the sub-soil, has a name, a history and even its own myth.

Greeks of yore understood the value of peace only too well because in various historical periods they were subjugated and forced to live under the yoke of foreign conquerors and occupiers for centuries. For that reason the national anthem is a hymn to freedom.

In this way Greeks attributed to tangible quality to the spirit of freedom and the value of democracy.

They have always preferred to live in peace; chosen to sail across all the seas of the world, to have a good time to prosper, to make friends across frontiers. They choose to present and disseminate to the other people all the have been able to learn through the centuries. They are happy to open their homes and courtyards to welcome friends and strangers, and to organize feasts and festivals.

And millions of foreign people arrive in Greece each year from every corner of the world, showing their love and respect for the natural beauty or the remains of the long history of this small corner of the planet.

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The islands

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nce the river Okeanos encircled a flat, single-continent Earth; thus wrote Hesiod. Our perception has changed since them. The Earth, we know, has a well-known spherical (or pear-like) shape and blue-green colors, and continents have drifted apart. These continents are still encircled by Okeanos.

Greece is practically encompassed by the Mediterranean, a sea perhaps less truculent than the Mythical Okeanos, yet more of a seductress.

On her waters boats under the blue-and-white ensign still travel, seagulls soar and dolphins ride on the spume.

These dolphins, legend say, would carry lost fishermen to safety and with them a thousand wise fables since the times of Aesop, about seatossed sailors and mothers and beloved beauties waiting for them by harbor.

And so many other stories about young children who learnt to swim fearlessly with dolphins and to fish on the open sea almost from their birth.

Not that these waters are never roused. They grow wild and angry in winter. For that reason, since ancient times, children had to learn Homer by heart. Thus, they would know in life how leads become men and how they became heroes, like Odysseus: having in their hearts in equal parts their duty and the longing for each one’s Ithaca.

For this sea is the home of dangerous Sirens, who enchant, but also of Cyclopes – who must be deceived.

Shores sometimes open up in lace-like coves and harbors. Elsewhere they form endless miles of a mosaic of many colored, rounded pebbles; or they rise in precipitous ridges and sea caves.

And everyone in this country has at some time climbed such rocks, either to scan the sea from a vantage point or to make a wish as the sun sets in the water.

Others have climbed those rocky ridges – far from pirate and spume – to make their lives there, in their unassuming houses and small plots of vineyard and olive grove.

Yet each cobbled path leads to the sea; which, playful as she is in the hot afternoons of summer, keeps in her bosom, not only beautiful shells and precious sponges but also sunken cities and vessels unmanned by storm and gale.

Three thousand years, three thousand isles, and as many towns and cities by the sea; and as many anchorages – some large merchant ports, others small leeward pleasant harbors.

And as many ancient temples and Christian chapels, built on the ruins of temples or a stone’s throw away.

And where the sea does not reach, there are lakes and rivers. Endless ancient myths and folk tales have sung the beauties of the Nymphs and Nereides who bath in their waters. But, over the centuries, battles have been fought around them – for victory and survival.

People in fishing villages still work hard from the early hours of the morning. They mend nets with their bare hands under the sun. But when work is over, they start to talk among themselves and play backgammon in small coffeehouses – all in one company – over a glass of ouzo, raki or tsipouro.

And they ever seem to scan something beyond the horizon, to hope for something – from a small window set in a house of their own, built of stone and love.

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I wish I had more time for Greek: - If I had my way & wor an axiom maker & Lawgiver, I would cause it to be understood that Greek is (or a knowledge of it) the first of virtues {‌.}

Edward Lear Letter, 17/12/1861

Rhodes: Koskinou 14

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Arkoi (Dodecanesa)

A Greekish isle, and the most pleasant place that ever our eyes beheld for the exercise of a solitary and contemplative life.

Anthony Sherley His Persian Adventure (1601)

Mykonos

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Eyes and ears are evil witnesses for men if they have souls which do not understand the language.

Heraclitus of Epleseus

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Kalymnos

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Santorini: Vivid pictures on a background of Greek blues – both of the sea and sky. These islands can create countless instant paintings in their own pigments: infinite shades of blue, blinding white, a whiff of green. Such lively colors on window shutters, on courtyard gates, on the objects of daily life are cheerful brush-strokes which add beauty to the lives of modest people.

Within sea caves there is a thirst there is a love there is an ecstasy {‌.}

Giorgos Seferis Sketches for a Summer

Zakynthos

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It is the rejoicing in the short voyage – the charm of these coastal sailings along the indented shores of Hellas, with a renowned land over which stirring memories soar always on the horizon.

Louis Bertrand La Grece du soleil et des paysages (1920)

Mykonos: “Petros the pelican� at Paraportiani church

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Santorini

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Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear Old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

Willian Wordsworth The World is Too Much with Us.

Zakynthos: Shipwreck Bay 25

The merry Greeks are worth all the other nations put together.

I like to see them, to hear them; I like their fun their good humor, their paddy ways – for they are very like Irishmen.

All their bad habits are Venetian; but their wit, their eloquence and their good nature are their own.

Sir Charles Napier

Paros 26

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Lefkada

Much like, as when the beaten marine, that long hath wandered in the Ocean wide, oft soust in swelling Tethys saltish teare {‌.} Soon as the port from far has espied. His cheerful whistle merrily doth sound and Nereus crowns with cups; his mates him pledge around.

Edmund Spenser The Fearie Queene

Corfu: The small island of Pontikonisi is a characteristic scenic spot and reference point for the town

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The sea at fault – not possible.

Odysseas Elytis The Signal Book

Skopelos 30

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Peaceful coexistence in Greece: humans and animals enjoy a serene and colorful life in the countryside

Skopelos 33

Beauty lacking grace satisfies only, but does not possess; like a bait lacking look.

Capiton (2nd c.)

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Rhodes

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Santorini: Fira Caldera

{‌.} And the brute dolphins plunge until in some cliff-sheltered bay where wades the choir of love proffering its sacred laurel crowns, they pitch their burdens off.

W.B. Yeats News for the Delphic Oracle

Zakinthos

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{….} there sleep Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep

Fournoi

Percy Bysshe Shelly Hellas

Skopelos 38

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It is the sea – and who shall dry her up? – which breeds the ever – renewed purple sap, as valuable as silver, the dye of garments

Aeschylus Agamemnon

Paros: Naousa)

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Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder a part of experience. He that traveler into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goes to school and not to travel

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Francis Bacon Of Twravel

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Rhodes: koskinou

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Mykonos

{‌.} and they stood up and went to the shore, and quickly dragged the black ship to land.

Homer The Odyssey

Patmos: Pachia Ammos

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Most strangers are given to understand the whole island is enchanted {‌.}

Bernard Randolph Present State of the Islands in the Archipelago (1687)

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Santorini: Fira

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Rally Aigaion

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Strongly it bears us along in swelling and limitless billows.

Nothing before and nothing behind but the sky and the ocean

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge The Homeric Hexameter described and exemplified

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Chios

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Nature and the mainland

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ature and the landscapes of the Greek mainland appear to be constantly in flux up to a point where, at higher elevations, the views are harder to the eye.

Plains and hills in flower in the early going, gentle and fertile farmed hillsides later, small plains and vales again, and then mountains with strange rock formations, gorges, streams, short waterfalls, dark caves, lush forest of rare trees, and higher up snow-capped peaks winding rough tracks, difficult trekking routes and steep rock faces.

Houses are built of stone and wood. Villages seem to gain uncertain footholds on mountainsides rich in plane, pine, fir and chestnut-trees. Gracefully curved stone bridges rise above crystal-clear rivers; rare birds and small wild mammals hide in the forests.

The inhabitants of the mainland have from ancient times until recent historical periods built castle-like towns and tower houses with embrasures and defended themselves against invaders generation by generation.

The hard life of centuries in mountainous Greece has given birth to people of endurance, of few words but warm in heart, who are still in battle, but for their daily needs.

Their songs tell us about the struggles of strong men, the border watchers of Hellenism, the bridges built with great

labor over rivers, the beautiful maidens, the pains of battle, the pangs of love, the toil of daily life – and of their merrymaking and wine-drinking parties.

They always dance in a body, joined in brotherhood, proud.

Their traditional consumers are sometime embroidered with flowers, sometimes with breast-chains.

Monasteries have been built like eyries on the top of sheer cliffs or monoliths. The monks and anchorites, needing to secure their isolation from worldly matters, took their abodes to the rocks of Meteora, or to Mount Athos, where they set up their own monastic communities, which women have been forbidden to enter for more than a thousand years.

There they pray, praise god, paint holy icons in the Byzantine mode and cultivate the land.

Nowadays, old village houses have opened their doors to development. Little by little people flee big cities to live in small mountain communities and help to revitalize them. They repair or rebuild the stone houses and mansions, decorate them with the hand-woven or lace linen they find in old chests and cook, using otherwise forgotten recipes preserved by old women.

They all gather to recreate what once was. On saints’ days old customs revive and traditional festivals take place.

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They play music with traditional music instruments, still sing the old songs particular to each area and dance wearing their forefathers’ costumes at the village square.

The mainland villages, either overlooking the sea or built on high slopes, which nowadays attract at their mansions and guest-houses many visitors. The locals will show tourists how they harvest olives and citrus fruit, how they feed the animals, how they fish in lakes and rivers, how women weave and young men gather and press grapes for wine- making; in short, the course of daily life.

Visitors participate in and are gratified by the company, either at the small coffee-house under a plane tree in summer, or in front of the fireplace in winter; and they can combine the rural experience with what modern life may provide, such as river rafting, trekking or snow-skiing.

Before they leave for the cities, they buy local cheese and home-made pasta foodstuffs, wine, olive oil, woven articles and souvenirs among the thousands of beautiful items of Greek folk art.

They will always remember the beauty of the places where they were warmly received, the gnarled and tired hands of locals – and the gently smiling eyes of wise old men.

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Navarino

Ye shades, where sacred truth is sought; Groves, where immortal sages taught where heavenly visions Plato fired, and Epicurus lay inspired {‌.}

Alexander Pope Two Choruses to the Tradegy of Brutus

Evrytania: the river Agraphiotis

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Scattered on the level grass or winding through the grove Plato there and Minis pass, there stately Pythagoras and all the choir of love

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W.B. Yeats The Delphic Oracle upon Plotinus

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Crete: the Samaria gorge

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Kardamyli

Illyrian woodlands, echoing falls of water, sheets of summer glass, the long divine Peneian pass, the vast Akrokeraunian walls.

Tomohrit, Athos, all things fair, with such a pen, you shadow forth to distant men, I read and felt that I was there.

Alfred Lord Tennyson To E.L., on his Travels in Greece

Bay of Navarino

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The sun went swiftly up the bronze sky, forsaking, the beautiful unfurrowed sea to give light to the immortals and to mortal men, above the fruitful land {‌.}

Homer The Odyssey

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Thessaly: Meteora

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Endless Sunday mornings in freezing winter sunlight; a few children’s voices stopped on the mule track and the province whitewashed, sparkling in the void, in this suffocating transparency

Yannis Ritsos Winter Clarity

Lesvow: Molyvos

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Prespa lakes

And take th’ Alcaic lute; or thine own Horace or Anacreon’s lyre; Warm thee by Pindar’s fire {….}

Ben Jonson Ode to Himself (1631)

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Methoni Tower

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There is a unique wild-palm grove by the superb beach at Vai. A genuine exception to the Greek landscape, it lies a few dozen kilometres from the town of Aghios Nikolaos in eastern Crete.

I spent part of the night wandering about the shore.

The woods, the sea, everything was quiet. I breathed o balmy air.

I finally fell asleep towards morning; but alas!

I have come to Leucade too late: what would my dreams have been on this poetic shore thirty years ago!

Le Comte Joseph D’Estourmel Journal d’ un Voyage en Orient (1844)

Lefkada: Ammoglossa

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Peloponnese: Vathia

For which reason a foreigner who comes into Zagori marvels at perceiving close at hand such kindness of manner expressed in frankness and moderation, a kindness familiar amongst highlanders. This hold, not our compatriots only, but foreign travelers as well who have visited that land.

Three of those, Messieurs Poitevin, Charbonnel and B esseres of France, who have sojourned there, report at length upon the Zagorians’ unique prosperity amongst Greeks and declare that never have a people displayed manners more kind, affable and pure; and who wishes to know the droll and mirthful customs and character of ancient Greeks must needs scale those mountains.

Ermis o Logios (Greek newspaper), Vienna, 1 January 1821

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Epirus: Vikos gorge (central Zagori)

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Thessaly: Meteora

The Meteora soar twisting to the sky as a Byzantine litany ascends in quarter-tones to the Christ Pantocrator across a cupola’s concavity.

Patrick Leigh Fermor The Sounds of the Greek World

Thessaly: Meteora

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Peaks, depths, I’ve sought from you the Orphic Euridice; But what’s the primeval lust that moans inside of me? – That I could be a fisherman, rhythmically rousing with a pole your sleepy waters, poor Mesolonghi!

Kostis Palamas The Fantasy and the Heart

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Mesolonghi

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Epirus: The Plakidha (or Kalogeriko) Bridge in central Zagori

lands scarce noticed in historic tales:Yet in famed Attica such lovely dales Are rarely seen

George Gordon Lord Byron Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

Paros

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So what thou blind; but then the veil was rent.

For Jove uncurtain’d heaven to let thee live.

And Neptune made for thee a spumy tent and Pan made sing for thee his forest-hive {‌.}

John Keats To Homer

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Forest in Evros

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For where is he that hath beheld.

The peak of Liakura unveiled?

Lord Byron The Giaour

Corinthia: kastania

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Veroia, Elassona, Dhrama – towns I have loved, enclosed between hills or small camps, houses opening up but furtively towards the plain.

Nikos-Alexis Aslanoglou Ginning Mills II

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Kastoria

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Zagori: Papingo

So paly me o moiroloi (lament) of exile and infinite sadness, of that deep lonely yearning for a distant home and much-missed loved ones.

Let the sound of the clarinet rise and fall as the player improvises a taximi-theme like a shepherd playing to settle his flocks and his own soul-as night falls on the mountains!

Jim Potts Corfu Blues

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Skopelos

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Evritania: the river Agrafiotis

{….} the calm’d twilight of Platonic shades

John Keats Lamia

Crete: the Samaria gorge

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Forty-five master builders and sixty – odd apprentices.

Toiled through the long day to build the bridge of Arta {‌.}

Folk Poem

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Epirus: the legendary bridge of Arta over the river Arachthos

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Ancient heritage and art

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t has been said that in Athens of Classical times there were more statues than inhabitants.

This must signify something about the city – the cradle of modern European and Western civilization.

It would be difficult to express in words, ore even with pictures, what only one city, in only one period of its history, has to offer to those seeking fundamental truths about the works of the mind and the hands of man; when man thinks and creates in sound body, free soul, and unvanquished spirit.

A deep spirituality along with an intelligent clarity of thought characterizes the works of ancient Greeks, who apart from their gods believed in a similar manner in the abstract concepts they had created: in Eunomia (good order), Dike (justice with reason), Demokratia, Eirene (peace), Eros (love), Ploutos (wealth), Elpis (hope), Peitho (persuasion); they would respect such concepts in order not to include or suffer tribulations by Ponos (pain), Limos (hunger), Phobos (fear), Lethe (forgetfulness), Horkos (punisher of the perjured) or the Erinyes (Furies).

Every human sense and feeling, every action found its place in the Greek vocabulary, and was even deified.

Ceaseless toil towards beauty and health in body, mind and soul simultaneously was a dominant life value. Thus work and ideas of ecumenical value were born and Greeks their significant contributions to the arts and sciences and laid the foundations of democratic institutions.

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If one visits just one archaeological site anywhere in Greece – in Macedonia, in Crete, in Athens, at Delphi; If one stops to observe only for a few minutes just one simple article of daily use of a different era; If one reads just one paragraph of an ancient Greek text; If one listens to just one of the thousands of myths (about just one star of the millions in the sky), One will feel a deep emotional about the significance of what once was, but changed the world for ever.

Until the age of ten, children in ancient Athens, would be taught reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, poetry, dancing and music (harmony and playing the flute, the guitar, the harp).

They would also train in running, wrestling, long-jumping and also javelin – and discuss- throwing.

In Sparta, they learnt in the hardest and most disciplined way haw to survive hunger, cold and battle.

When they had grown up, the children of Athens could study, if they wished, geometry, physics, astronomy, medicine, arts (architecture, painting, sculpture, pottery-painting or metalwork), as well as rhetoric or philosophy.

It wouldn’t be unlikely for that country to give birth to a child who would become one of the most important philosophers of all time – such as Heraclitus, Plato or Aristotle; the creator of modern medical science, like Hippocrates; or the founder of atomic science, like Democritus.

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The child could of course become a mathematician – like Pythagoras and Eratosthenes, the latter the legendary librarian at the Library of Alexandria, the first formal library ever.

Our hypothetical child could become a master of various sciences – such as mathematician, physicist and engineer Archimedes or the law-giver, philosopher and poet Solon; a unique rhetorician such as Demosthenes; or the prototype of a statesman, like Pericles.

The child could become the founder of history and Journalism – like Herodotus- or a dramatic poet, such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, or the comedist Aristophanes.

If one had shown a gift for the arts, he could be like Pheidias, Iktinos or Kallikrates, who co-operated in the building and decoration of the Acropolis of Athens.

And if that child had been of noble lineage, and had had great teachers, set high targets, acquired a wide horizon of thinking and a genius for strategy and generalship, one could possibly become Alexander the Great.

There was a time when the power of a man would be determined by his power of persuasion. Men would not measure themselves against one another in any battle but that for the defense of democratic institution: rule by the people, equality and freedom; and also for the advance of the art of public speaking.

At other times the same men had to prove their mettle in real battle. In this way the won (or lost) wars, and could always defend their homeland as at Thermopylae: a band of few, three hundred in number led by Leonidas, against hundreds of thousands of invaders.

These people – and countless other distinguished men and heroes who were on occasion worshiped like gods- have become immortal and remained inspirational through the centuries.

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The monuments and works of art left to us adorn this country and the world’s large museums (such as the Louvre, the British Museum or the Metropolitan Museum of New York). The written word has been preserved for ever in the greatest libraries of the modern world.

When history ends, myth begins. And Greek myth will always carry within in the sperm of history. It was always easier to preserve valuable information in the minds and consciences of generations through myths.

The Argonautic expedition, the Giant Battle (Gigantomachy), the Titan Battle (Titanomachy), the descriptions of Homer throughout the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Trojan War, even Hesiod’s myth of creation, are the field of study for many modern scientists.

Many so-called tales proved to be correct when the archaeologists brought to light fins which verified ancient sources.

Most important of all are not the great archaeological sites; or the countless edifices standing for centuries side-by-side with newer constructions. Not the fact that archaeologists still make important discoveries at a regular rate; or that museums have warehouses full of finds which have not found a place in a room for visitors, or even the endless hours of talk guides have to give in front of each memento of a time past.

But it is the spirit of those people which transformed inanimate objects into points of light for timeless knowledge, and their philosophy of life, which showed that the struggle for beauty and truth through the transcendence and passion required by perfection – at whatever mortal people set their hand- begets progress, explains the significance of events and demonstrates each person’s better qualities.

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Attica: Amphiareion

{‌.} the Amphiareion, the most of oracles, hidden among pines and small hills, a little way inland from the sea.

Peter Levi The Hill of Kronos

Venus de Milo (the Louvre, Paris)

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{….} and when we sailed past Sounion, the holy cape of Athens {….}

Homer The Odyssey

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Attica: Sounion

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Ancient Olympia

{….} and this was a holy ground as I can clearly guess, full of blooming bay-trees, olives and vines {….}

Sophocles Oedipus in Colonus

Athens: Hadrian’s Arch

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Epirus: Dodona

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When one arrives at Olympia will come upon the river Alpheus, of much water and sweet, because seven rivers worthy of mention flow into it {‌.} Pausanias

Ancient Olympia

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Kos: the Asklepion

Kos, island where Hippocrates the physician lived; also called Meropis.

Suda Dictionary (10th c.)

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Bronze statue: Poseidon (or Zeus) of Artemision (National Archaeological Museum of Athens)

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And to the place above the heavens none of the poets has composed a worthy song of praise up to this time.

Plato Phaedrus

Epidaurus: the theatre

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The “Panathenaic procession”: Parthenon frieze by Pheidias

When the rose-fingered Dawn gave light {….}

Homer The Odyssey

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Bronze statue: Ephebe of Anticythera (National Archaeological Museum of Athens)

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Ancient Eleusis

Nay, it is not true that our beloved ancient faces of Attica on the reliefs at sun-kissed Kerameikos are dead; lads, old men and young maids are all alive, rejoicing in the light and air.

Lambros Porfyras Kerameikos

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O Attic shape!

Fair attitude!

With bride of marble men and maidens overwrought, {….} When old age shall this generation waste, Thou salt remain, it midst of other woe.

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom the say, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” – that is all.

Ye known on earth and all ye need to know.

John Keats Ode on a Grecian Urn

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Athens: Theatre of Dionysus

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Ancient Eleusis

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{‌.} on the temples of sweet-haired Heliodora a flowing crown of flowers to make.

Meleager (2nd – 1st c. BC)

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Acropolis: the Caryatids of Athens

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Green and golden siren {‌.} You sign your song in the rosy mist of the sea and the sunny space of the air and through the world it travels on a pungent breath of wind.

Lorentzos Mavilis Crete

Crete: Minotaur of Knossos (Irakleion Archaeological Museum)

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Athens: The Tower of the Winds

By this Apollo’s harp began to sound forth music to the Ocean, which watchful Hesperus no sooner heard, but he the day’s bright-bearing cart prepared and run before, as harbinger of light {….}

Christopher Marlowe Hero and Leander

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The Minotaur

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It is said that the ancient temple of Olympian Zeus was built by Deukalion, quoting proof that he made his grave in Athens, not far from the present temple.

Pausanias

Athens: The Temple of Olympian Zeus

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Athens: The Tower of the Winds

{‌.} and bright-eyed Athena came to Marathon and the wide streets of Athens {‌.}

Homer The Odyssey

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Athens: Hephaisteion

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Delos

And the poet lingers contemplating the stones, wondering silently are there among those crumbling lines {‌.} Those who have remained shadows of waves and thoughts against the infinity of the open sea {‌.}

Giorgos Seferis The King of Asine

Athens: The Academy

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He who raises the great stones sinks; I have raised these stones as long as I had the resolve.

I have loved these stones as long as I had the resolve.

These stone, my fate.

Giorgos Seferis Mycenae

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Athens: Theseion

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{‌.} if you want to make a copy of an El Greco keep in mind the mountains of Crete.

Nikos Engonopoulos The Painters and their Landscapes

Crete: Knossos

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Hear how learn Greece her useful rules indicts, when to repress and when indulge our flight: High on Parnassus’ top her sons she showed and pointed out those arduous they trod; held from afar.

Aloft, the immortal prize, and urged the rest by equal steps to rise {‌.}

Alexander Pope An Essay on Criticism, Part 1

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Acropolis: The Parthenon

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Kavala: Philippion

Once out of my nature I shall never take my bodily form from any natural thing, but such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make of hammered gold and gold enameling {‌.}

William Butler Yeats Sailing to Byzantium

Vergina

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Mount Athos

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Mount Athos: Panteleimonas monastery

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God, how much blue you spend so that we can’t see you!

Odysseas Elytis The Signal Book

Tinos: The Panagia Evangelistria

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Nightlife and culture

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ight, when to world was created, resided beyond the glorious Okeanos, on the edge of the Earth.

She was living in the heart of a quaint region eternally shrouded in dark cloud. One would have to fly on the wings of whirlwinds to reach the melancholy mansion of Night.

With the intervention of Eros (the gravitational force which binds elements together) she was united with Erebos (the deep darkness) to beget Aither (the celestial air which encompasses the Earth) and Day. Thus the myth of cosmogony. Since the Night begets Day. All colors are hidden inside of the night: the most brilliant, the most festive, the most phantasmagoric ones.

Lit up, Greek nights begins as soon as work stops: friends meet up, couples join, festive companies amuse themselves, towns and cities put their lights on and liven up, young people sing and dance. They’ll go out to have dinner, attend a theatrical performance or a concert – or drink at a bouzouki bar.

And if in Athens they’ll prefer a bouzouki bar to dance the syrtaki and the zaibekiko; in Crete they’ll prefer “mantinades” and they’ll dance the pentozali; and in the Ionian isles they’ll sing at the “kantades”.

Each island in the summer has its own devotes: younger

generations prefer certain ones, older ages others. Those who opt for revelry will prefer some well-known islands, whereas others keep returning to those providing tranquillity.

In some corners of Greece, at some remote village, a night out merely means a stroll through the square or a short drive to the festival in a town nearby. On the less-frequented islands it might be a walk under the moonlight or along the quay of a small harbor; or maybe a meeting with friends at the taverna in front of seafood “mezedes” and smooth wine by the sea.

And there high jinks will erupt in time.

For an excursion into the wild nightlife or o cosmopolitan evening – the music, the latest clothes, abundant drink, few words, the challenge of luck at the casino – there are other places.

Mykonos is the queen of that night; but Rhodes and Corfu are its real princesses. Their night is both cosmopolitan and romantic. They exude a period atmosphere: either of the Knights of St John in Rhodes or the tradition of romantic poetry in Corfu.

In the larger cities, there is obviously something for everyone – from baroque and classical music to rock and jazz concerts, from theatre and ballet performance to restaurants representing the cuisine of almost every country in the world.

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Evenings can be either elegant and intellectual or light and diverting; Dionysiac, or calm and cuddly; or simply, unforgettably Greek.

In Greece, however things are, everything changes as soon as the sun sets. A t night fires burn brightly. Fires of the heart and love, fires of the summer solstice on St John’s day over which children are won’t to jump, or the carnivals fires.

On the evening of the Good Friday streets glow from the light of candles held by the faithful at the procession of the Epitaph; and the air is scented with myrrh and freshly – cut spring flowers.

And on the next evening – on the midnight of the Good Saturday, the evening of the Resurrection- the sky burns in the multi-colored fireworks that chase Night away from the hearts of people for one more year. It seems that in order for light of hope, love and the bright new day to be instilled in hearts, we must all first abandon ourselves to the tangled nets of the Night.

And in order to understand Greece one must observe closely, within all those colors, the Day, the Night and the new sunrise: the senses of Greece.

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I can think of few other examples in the world where a whole people knows and sings – with great emotion and deep passion – the words of poems written by the nation’s greatest poets (two of them, in the Greek case, winners of the Nobel Prize of Literature), where their (quite complex) words can be heard on the corner of every street, in the tavernas, wherever people gather.

Jim Potts Corfu Blues

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Crete: folk dances at Akrotiri (Chania)

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Lesvos: Molyvos

You are bringing your feet past the grave of the son of Vattos, who could sing well in wine timely to raise a laugh.

Callimachus (4th – 3rd c. BC)

Athens: barrel-organ

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To light a flame for learning in the hearts of youth I’ll begin my words Eros; He is the one who rekindles the fire of words.

Constantine Cephalas (c. AD 900)

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Cephallonia: folk dances

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Corfu Kapodistria

The rich regional diversity of Greek folk music is astonishing.

You only have to travel the short distance be ferry from Corfu to mainland Greece to Ioannina, to understand that one is dealing with two totally distinct musical cultures, one based predominantly on guitars and mandolins, the other on the folk clarinet.

Jim Potts Corfu Blues

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To you I run, Art of Poetry, you know somewhat of remedies; essays to numb the grief, in Fantasy and Word.

Constantine Cavafy Melancholy of Iason soon of Calendar, Poet, in Commagene; AD 595

Patmos

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Athens

When suddenly, in deepest night, you hear an invisible company passing by, with exquisite sons, with voices {‌.}

Constantine Cavafy God Forsakes Antony

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Thessaloniki

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Rhodes

Those stars, that glide behind them or between, now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen: Yon crescent Moon, as fixed as if it grew on its own cloudless, starless lake of blue; I see them all so excellently fair, I see, not feel, how beautiful they are!

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Dejection: An Ode

Corfu Matzaros

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About the beautiful Moon the stars quickly hide their radiant form, when from above she shines full on the earth {‌.}

Sappho

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Rhodes

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Athens: performance at the Herodes Atticus Theatre

The world is a stage and life but a song: you came, you saw, you departed.

Democritus

Athens: Herodes Atticus Theatre

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Performance at the theatre of Epidaurus

The dying tones that fill the air, and charm the ear of evening fair, from thee, great God, receive their heavenly birth.

John Keats Ode to Apollo

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Performance at the theatre of Epidaurus

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Rudolf Nureyev at Herodes Atticus Theatre

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Crete: Rethymno

‘Twas at the royal festival, for Persia won by Philip’s warlike son: Aloft in awful state the godlike hero sate on his imperial throne {….} None but the brave, none but the brave deserves the fair {….}

John Dryden Alexander’s Feast

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Santorini

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Piraeus: The Municipal Theatre

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Acropolis

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The annual meeting of the Pontos people

Large steadfast eyes! Eyes gently rolled in shades of changing blue, how sweet are they, if they behold no dearer sight than you.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Alcaeus to Sappho

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Santorini

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Rodos

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Messinia: The Dunes clubhouse

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Modern life

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aily life unfolds in hectic rhythm in the larger cities compared with smaller communities. Yet larger and smaller ones alike bear witness to history.

Inhabitants of Athens walk casually past monuments, ancient temples, Byzantine-era churches, the old streets of neo-classical houses.

Only when they walk, almost inadvertently, into the old quarter of Plaka, under the rock of Acropolis, or when they meet with friends for a drink of ouzo by the ancient Hephaisteion, or at Sounion on a sunny Sunday, do they realize where they live.

On a night, at their hometown or on holiday, they may find themselves at an ancient theatre or the courtyard of a Medieval castle. They live and work in modern cities built upon older or ancient ones, where their ancestors would discuss in public grave matters of state or the many mysteries of life.

Many are the cultural expressions and customs, the arts and crafts of the ancient inhabitants of this country that are still alive.

There are people who create hand-made artefacts. They

may use silver, gold or clay. Others make embroideries, musical instruments, knives, mundane tools of daily life.

Many old ways are still present in modern life. Each summer – predominantly at the ancient theatre of Epidaurus and at many other surviving ones throughout the country as well – drama performances bring back to life the ancients texts, the first theatrical texts ever, of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes. Not much of the vocabulary has changed since then. These ancient amphitheatres also hold various other theatrical performances and musical concerts of high quality.

Greece has learnt to live combining its present with its past – on realistic terms. It is at the same time a small and a large country, where ancient and modern infrastructures meet; and its soil there are yet many ancient treasures to be discovered.

But the country’s greatest treasure is knowledge, information, and the great value of life; a heritage modern Greeks have to preserve, to manage and to disseminate.

The works of people, ancient and modern, are judged – by goals and humans – through the centuries.

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Faliro: Stavros Niarchos Foundation Culturar Center

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{….} and then he heard the thud of sea on rock – the great wave dashed roaring towards land, breaking in great foam and covered all in froth {….}

Homer 190

The Odyssey

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Nafplio

Siren: Come, worthy Greek, Ulysses, come, possess these shores with me; The winds and seas are troublesome, and here we may be free {‌.} Ulysses: Fair nymph, if fame or honor were to be attained with ease, then would I come and rest me there, and leave such toils as these.

But here it dwells and here must I with danger seek in forth; To spend the time luxuriously becomes not men of worth {‌.}

Samuel Daniel Ulysses and the Siren (1605)

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Therefore, despite the apparent fractures, there is no history more continuous than the history of (the Greek) race.

This compound people, ancient, Byzantine and modern at the same time, speaking a language whose roots have remained unchanged since the time of Homer, remaining faithful to the religion of Constantine (which does not hinder it from possessing a practical and positive spirit), is the conclusion of an unbroken continuity.

Gaston Deschamps La Grece d’ aujourd’hui (1892)

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Athens 2004: The Olympic Stadium

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{‌.} but I know that no one has managed to outdo technically the ship of Delos, which had nine lines of rowers, reaching up to its main deck.

Pausanias

Athens: Monastiraki

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Athens: Olympic Stadium

Athens: Hilton Hotel 198

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The Athens Urban Railway

One day, as I was walking in the street of Philhellenes, the asphalt was softening underneath my feet and from trees on the square I could hear cicadas singing, in the heart of Athens, IN THE HEART OF SUMMER.

Andreas Embeiricos In the Street of Philhellenes

Korinthia: Alkyon Resort Vrachati

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Piraeus: Freattyda

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Thessaloniki

{‌.} Then, I think of the bay, calm underneath a sky that throbs, an air that’s gritty, beautiful today, tomorrow and another day.

Francis King Thessalonica

Florina: Pisoderi

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Niokastro & Pylos

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Lefkada

GREECE a photographic journey alongside poets and travellers