All Be Safely Gathered In

We celebrated harvest festival at my parish church in Tooting last week. We were doing it a fortnight later than might have been expected (harvest is usually celebrated on the Sunday closest to the Harvest Moon, which was on 1 October this year) and we are an urban parish, but whether we live close to the land or are confined to the cities it’s important we remember where our food comes from, to be grateful for the farming community and to give thanks for ‘harvest-home’.

 

I was brought up in the rural East Riding of Yorkshire. In those days, the farms still came down into the villages themselves and the farmers’ houses were surrounded by barns, haystacks, agricultural machinery. Because of its arable crops, the East Riding is known also for its husbandry of pigs. Until new housing started to push the farms out of our village itself, we lived close to pigs. Fifty yards or so away. Over the farm wall. (They’re intelligent creatures.) The sights, sounds and, sometimes, smells of farming life were all around us. 

 

Inevitably we celebrated harvest-home every year. Every year at the appointed time, the churches would fill with farm produce, much specially baked for the occasion. And the farmers would be dragged by their wives into church: maybe the only time in the year that they came. My twin brother and I used to sing in the choir. We had a great organist and the rector would train the treble and soprano voices himself after school, pulling out of his cassock an old descant recorder to find the pitch and, when necessary, melody for us. The size of the children’s part of the choir varied: we were usually around eight to ten voices. The adults were good: one of the farmers’ wives had the most beautiful and trained soprano voice. We had tenor, bass and alto singers too. So, though a small rural parish, we could easily do part-singing. At harvest and other important festivals, we would belt out – with gusto and some skill – Stanford’s great setting of Psalm 150: O praise God in his holiness, praise Him in the firmament of his power. 

 

But we were also loaned out. I remember the excitement of travelling in the inky black and autumnal chill of the night to sing at evensong harvest festivals in the churches of Skipsea, closer to the coast than we lived, and Sigglesthorne. At Skipsea the harvest suppers were particularly memorable and lavish. I must have been nine or ten at the time but I remember them well. We could certainly sing to match the occasion and the farming communities were kind to us for our efforts. The food was great. 

 

It feels a long time ago now and my life has become very urban. But like most who can trace their generations back through parish registers and census records in England, I know that my ancestors once worked the land for their living, as labourers and small-scale tenant farmers: in Norfolk and, by the mid-nineteenth century, Lincolnshire. Several were non-conformist preachers too. My great-great grandfather, Benjamin, was a tenant farmer in Fulstow, north Lincolnshire and a mechanical engineer, manufacturing and selling corn-dressers in his home county and in Yorkshire (corn-dressers separated wheat from chaff). He died in 1888 and his interest in the farm was sold, along with all the farm equipment. His youngest son, my great-grandfather, Walter, was apprenticed as a butcher but himself became a tenant farmer, and was farming in south Lincolnshire until his death in 1933. He's my last direct connection with the land. Twelve years ago, I found myself – perhaps surprisingly – running the exotic animal disease unit at DEFRA. It was fun, as part of my duties, to visit farms and talk to farmers, about bluetongue controls and other such measures. An all too brief reconnection with my childhood in the East Riding and with my ancestors’ farming history.

 

Harvest-home, then, is always a thoughtful and necessary time for me, even in the city. Last Sunday, we weren’t, of course, able to sing the great Victorian hymns of harvest thanksgiving: We plough the fields and scatter and Come ye thankful people come. The pandemic has put paid to all congregational singing – for the time being at least. But the words still echoed in my mind, easily recalled from childhood: Come thou Church triumphant come / Raise the song of harvest-home / All be safely gathered in, / Free from sorrow, free from sin, / There forever purified / In God’s garner to abide / Come ten thousand angels come / Raise the glorious harvest-home.

Amen to that.

 

John

24 October 2020

Δραστηριότητες επί της πανδημίας

Οι λέξεις έχουν κι άλλο φλούδι

πάρα μέσα

όπως τα μύγδαλα

κι η υπομονή.

 

            *

 

Μέσα στον άγριον άνεμο

ψηλά, ψηλά,

απ’ το ύψος του λευκότερου γλάρου – 

ελευθερία.

 

Οι αναγνώστες του μπλογκ μου στα αγγλικά ξέρουν κιόλας ότι αυτό ήταν το πρώτο καλοκαίρι από το 1996 που δεν επισκέφτηκα την Ελλάδα. Προσπάθησα πάντως να αναζωογονηθώ μέσω των τριών μπλογκ που έγραψα για μια φαντασιακή εκδρομή στην πατρίδα σας. Κι όντως, όταν έληξαν τον Ιούλιο τα γενικευμένα περιοριστικά μέτρα, κατάφερα να περάσω μια εβδομάδα στο Γιόρκσιρ, όπου μεγάλωσα και που το αγαπάω πολύ. Επρόκειτο για τις πρώτες μου διακοπές εκεί από το 1985! Δεν πιστεύω ότι αντάλλαξα συνειδητά το Γιόρκσιρ με την Ελλάδα (είναι, άλλωστε, δυνατόν να αγαπάει κανείς ταυτόχρονα δυο χώρες), αλλά τα γεγονότα έχουν τη δική τους ιστορία.

Τα τρία 'Ράιντινγκ' 

 

Αφού επισκεφτήκαμε τους γονείς μου, που είχαν μόλις βγει από τη σχεδόν απόλυτη απομόνωσή τους στο σπίτι στο Ανατολικό Ράιντινγκ (East Riding) του Γιόρκσιρ (ο νομός ήταν παραδοσιακά χωρισμένος σε τρία μέρη – το ‘Ράιντινγκ’ σημαίνει ‘τρίτο’ στη γλώσσα των Βίκιγκς), κατευθυνθήκαμε στο Βόρειο Ράιντινγκ για να περάσουμε μια εβδομάδα σε μικρό εξοχικό σπίτι στην άκρη των Yorkshire Moors. 

Ο ρεικότοπος εκείνος είναι πανέμορφος: υψηλός, ανεμοδαρμένος, αυστηρός, καλυμμένος με ροζ ερείκη και πράσινες φτέρες,  με καλά ποτισμένες κοιλάδες να τον διασχίζουν (οι οποίες λέγονται «Dales» - μια άλλη λέξη των Βίκινγκς). Εδώ βρίσκονται σκορπισμένα κάποια από τα πιο όμορφα χωριά της Αγγλίας. Κι επίσης όμορφη και δραματική είναι η παράκτια γραμμή: από τους γκρεμούς του Φλάμπρο (Flamborough) σε αυτούς του Γουίτμπυ (Whitby) και του Στέιθς (Staithes). 

Yorkshire Moors

Μέχρι την Μεταρρύθμιση το Γιόρσκιρ ήταν αξιοσημείωτα θρήσκο. Σε πολλά μέρη εντοπίζονται τα ερείπια και τα απομεινάρια σπουδαίων μοναστηριών: αυτές οι μονές έθρεψαν κάποιους από τους πιο σημαντικούς Άγγλους αγίους: όπως κι ο άγιος Αίλρεντ (Aelred) στο Ρίβο (Rievaulx), ο άγιος Τζεντ (Cedd) στο Λάστινγχαμ (Lastingham), η αγία Χίλντα (Hilda) στο Γουίτμπυ. Στο Γουίτμπυ ξεκίνησε τον έβδομο αιώνα κι η αγγλική ποίηση, όταν η Χίλντα αποφάσισε να ενθαρρύνει το ποιητικό χάρισμα του ποιμένα Κάιντμον (Caedmon). Καθώς ταξιδεύαμε στην περιοχή αυτή, άρχισε να παίρνει σχήμα μία ιδέα για να γράψω ένα βιβλίο για τα βήματα της Χριστιανοσύνης στο Γιόρκσιρ: μόλις τελειώσω τη μεγάλη λίστα των ελληνικών πρότζεκτ μου.

Γουίτμπυ - μονή της Αγίας Χίλντας

Λάστινγχαμ - ίδρυση από τον Άγιο
Τζεντ

 

Περάσαμε υπέροχα στο βορρά. Αλλά τίποτε δεν επανορθώνει πραγματικά την απουσία του ελληνικού καλοκαιριού: των μικρών θαυμάτων του και των αρωμάτων του, της ευκαιρίας να συναντηθώ με φίλους, να κουβεντιάσω με ξένους, να μιλάω καθημερινά τα ελληνικά. Όπως ανέφερα τον Απρίλιο στο προηγούμενό μου μπλογκ, περνάω πολύν χρόνο, αυτό το χρονικό διάστημα σε κάποια πρότζεκτ σχετικά με τον Γιάννη Ρίτσο. Αυτό που φαίνεται τώρα στο προσκήνιο είναι μια ιδιαίτερη συνεργασία: συνεργάζομαι με τον βραβευμένο Άγγλο ποιητή, Ντέιβιντ Χάρσεντ, ο οποίος θαυμάζει τον Ρίτσο από την έκδοση των πρώτων αγγλικών μεταφράσεων τη δεκαετία του 60, για τις καινούργιες διασκευές του των ποιημάτων που έγραψε ο Ρίτσος κατά τη διάρκεια του κατ’οίκον περιορισμού του μεταξύ του 1968 και του 1970. Αυτή την περίοδο ο Ρίτσος έγραψε εξαιρετική ποίηση: συλλογές όπως Επαναλήψεις, 18 λιανοτράγουδα της πικρής πατρίδας, Κιγκλίδωμα, Πέτρες, Χειρονομίες, Διάδρομος και σκάλα, Νύξεις και Χάρτινα Ι. 

Η δουλειά της μετάφρασης (είναι η δουλειά του Ντέιβιντ – εγώ συμβουλεύω μονάχα) χρειάζεται την προσεκτική ανάγνωση των κειμένων και συζήτηση για τη σημασία (-ίες) του ποιητή. Τη φωνή του Ρίτσου σε αυτή την περίοδο τη βρίσκω πολύ συμπαθή – εν μέρει εξαιτίας των περιοριστικών μέτρων που αντιμετωπίζουμε κι εμείς σχετικά με τον κορωνοϊό, εν μέρει διότι είμαι κι ο ίδιος σε κακή φυσική κατάσταση αυτούς τους πρόσφατους μήνες. Στην αρχή του μπλογκ αυτού παρέθεσα δυο μικρά ποιήματα που έγραψε ο Ρίτσος καθώς αιρόταν ο κατ’οίκον περιορισμός. Όσο απεγνωσμένος κι αν ένιωθε καμιά φορά ο Ρίτσος, υπάρχει πάντα η ελπίδα της ελευθερίας και η ποίηση μπορεί να είναι μέρος της λύσης. Οι θαυμάσιες μεταφράσεις του Ντέιβιντ θα αρχίσουν να εκδίδονται του χρόνου. Τι μεγάλη απόλαυση που ασχολούμαι με το πρότζεκτ αυτό!

 

Λόγω των εντάσεων που προκάλεσε η Τουρκία, η Ελλάδα ήταν περισσότερο  στον νου μου απ’ ό,τι περίμενα εξαιτίας της απουσίας μου. Ο Κέβιν Φέδερστον κι εγώ οργανώσαμε τη συγγραφή και την αποστολή μιας επιστολής στους Τάιμς και, με παρέα άλλους που τη συνυπέγραψαν, γράψαμε ξεχωριστά άρθρα προς υποστήριξη της Ελλάδας στον βρετανικό και διεθνή τύπο και για συγκεκριμένες δεξαμενές σκέψης. 

Δεν έχω υψηλές προσδοκίες για τη Βρετανική κυβέρνηση (η οποία κρατάει αποστάσεις), αλλά η έκβαση της πρόσφατης συνεδρίασης του Ευρωπαϊκού Συμβουλίου ήταν καλύτερη ως προς τα συμφέροντα της Ελλάδας απ’ ό,τι περίμεναν κάποιοι από εμάς. Καθώς επανεκκινούν οι εξερευνητικές επαφές (εάν, πράγματι, επανεκκινούν), διακρίνονται δυο σημαντικές δοκιμασίες στον ορίζοντα. Πρώτα, πώς θα αντιδράσει η Τουρκία; Θα στραφεί στις πιο προκλητικές πρόσφατες δράσεις της ή θα συνεχίσει τα «ομαλά» επίπεδα προκλήσεων στο Αιγαίο ή θα σταματήσει πραγματικά να προκαλεί τους γείτονές της; (Η έκδοση του καινούργιου NAVTEX από τους Τούρκους, καθώς και η τουρκική δράση στα Βαρώσια, υπονοεί ότι αυξημένη πρόκληση είναι η προτιμώμενη επιλογή του Ερντογάν.) Και δεύτερον, αν η Άγκυρα επανέλθει στην τακτική των προκλήσεων πώς θα αντιδράσει τον Δεκέμβριο το Ευρωπαϊκό Συμβούλιο; 

Ανάμεσα σε πολλά ασαφή πράγματα δυο πράγματα είναι πεντακάθαρα: οι στρατηγικές φιλοδοξίες του Ερντογάν (καθώς και η εχθρότητά του στη Συνθήκη της Λωζάννης) είναι πραγματικές και η Ευρώπη έχει ανάγκη μιας ανάλογα στρατηγικής απάντησης. Οι Γάλλοι το κατάλαβαν αυτό. Η ελληνική διπλωματία θα πρέπει να παίξει τις επόμενες εβδομάδες έναν πολύ ενεργό ρόλο μέσα στην Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση καθώς και με το ευρύ δίκτυο των συμμάχων της. Αν μη τι άλλο, πρέπει να είναι συναρπαστική και απαιτητική στιγμή για να είναι κανείς Έλληνας διπλωμάτης. Η ελληνική δημοκρατία μόλις έστειλε στο Λονδίνο τον καινούργιο της πρέσβη, κ. Ιωάννη Ραπτάκη.  Του εύχομαι κάθε καλό στην αποστολή του. 

 

Τζων

15 Οκτώβρη 2020

A Magical Tour of Greece. Part 3: Mountains

In my gloomier and lonelier moments in the ambassador’s office in the ugly concrete block of the Athens Embassy, I would part the bomb curtains at the windows and look wistfully at Mt Hymettos, recalling the Psalmist’s words: ‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help’. It was always a comfort, of sorts. Since my very first visit to Greece, I have associated the Greek mountains with the real spirit of the country. So it is inevitable that this —the third and final stage of my imaginary (and compensatory) tour of Greece— should see me on mountain paths, a stick in each hand and a well-provisioned rucksack and tent on my back. 

I am not a ‘natural’ mountain-walker. I suffer from vertigo, which can sometimes become acute. When the fear overtakes me, I have to shuffle —on all fours or on my backside— across saddles and ledges and rocks which may pose no problem at all to the luckier hiker. It's not dignified. But I love mountains. I love the exhilaration and hard graft of the ascent, the odd expectation of the unexpected, the contact with nature, the satisfaction of the commanding view from the peak, the gentle descent back to plains and valleys. I was introduced to the Greek mountains by my classics teacher, Gerald Thompson, in 1984. Gerald had climbed every significant peak on the mainland and on the Aegean islands. His walking guide to Aegina can still be bought on that island, and his wonderful guide to walking on 42 Aegean islands (which was finished in 1987 but never published) is available on-line here. Gerald believed that you only encounter the real Greece if you take to your feet, absorbing the landscape at human pace and investing your own toil and sweat in it. I’ve never seen fit to disagree.

On Olympos - aged 20

Over the years, I’ve walked a lot (though never enough) in Greece: Olympos, Taygetos, Athos, Tymphe, Parnassos; the Vikos Gorge, the Samaria Gorge; across and around several smaller islands. As in parts one and two of this magical six-day journey, I want to turn now to peaks I’ve not climbed. These four journeys are my four priorities for when Covid-19 goes and we are once again free to roam physically over the unsurpassable landscapes of Hellas. On this journey, I’m taking with me the indispensable Cicerone guides: The Mountains of Greece by Tim Salmon and Michael Cullen, and The High Mountains of Crete by Loraine Wilson, together with the relevant 1:50,000 maps by Anavasi, a compass, a whistle and a pocket torch. Put your boots on and join me.

1. Mt Smolikas, Macedonia

Mt Smolikas from Mt Tymphe

I first saw Mt Smolikas on a circular walk of the Vikos Gorge and Mt Tymphe in 2016. We had left our bags at the refuge on the saddle near Astrakas and were walking towards the Drakolimni, the ‘Dragon’s Lake’. (You can find an account of some of that walk here). As we climbed higher, it became clear that the lake above us was on a plateau bounded by rock and ravine. Mt Gamila towered to our right. Through the ravine (a vertiginous fissure in the rock), even higher mountains arose to the east of us, daunting in their scale and majestic in their appearance. Another spur of the Pindus Mountains! As I worked out in my head the map of what we were seeing, I realised that the main peak must be Smolikas. It immediately moved towards the top of my list of challenges and I planned to do it with friends last September, but was prevented by health problems.

At 2,637m (8,650ft) Smolikas is the second highest mountain in Greece, after Olympos. It is craggy at the peak, but otherwise lushly forested (black pine, beech, Balkan pine) or covered in grasses. Patrick Leigh Fermor has left us a powerful description of hiking in this area in the summer of 1972, in his correspondence with Deborah Devonshire, In Tearing Haste. But the most enchanting account is by Tim Salmon, in Part II of The Unwritten Places. This describes how Salmon came to join the Vlakh shepherds in their annual transhumance of flocks from the village of Samarina, on the high slopes of Smolikas, down to winter pasturage in Thessaly. An amazing account. I shall not attempt anything so dramatic. A drive to Palioseli, followed by two or three days on the mountain, with one or two nights in the refuge. Wonderful.

2. Mt Dirfys, Evia

Mt Dirfys

At 1,743m (5,725ft) Mt Dirfys is outside the top 50 peaks of Greece. But it’s on my list for sentimental reasons. First, I love Evia (Euboea) - particularly in its richly forested north-western half - and have spent many happy holidays here. The roads on this island are among the most dramatic and beautiful in Greece, whether cantilevered at the coastal edge or cutting through the central spine of forested mountains. Dirfys, Evia’s highest peak, dominates the island’s south-eastern reaches, its conical shape instantly recognisable. This was also one of Gerald’s favourite walks and he would describe with great animation how on his treks there in high summer he had often been lifted clear of the ground by the astonishing funnelling of the meltemi wind through the ravine. A little danger always adds spice to a walk. Gerald advised taking accommodation at the village of Steni Dirfyos, which is ‘squeezed between the two mighty jaws of the ravine’, and setting a day aside for the walk to the peak - called Delphi - and back. As on the greatest walks in Greece, the combination of forest, seascape and barren crags is evidently majestic. Of the ‘astonishing view’ at the peak Gerald says this: 

[it] justifies and rewards all the hazards and efforts involved in the ascent. The whole island lies submissive at one's feet. […]. To the west the boundless dark forest sweeps down to the fertile plain and the tranquil waters of the Euripus, across which you may identify the mountains of Attica, and if the visibility is good, the huge bulk of Parnassos beyond. On the inhospitable east coast the cliffs plunge sheer into the turbid inky waters of the Aegean, while southwards, enfolded in clouds, range upon range rolls down to Carystos, even then to continue in a regular chain via Andros and Tinos into the Cyclades. 

To witness the sublime in exchange for a day’s labour sounds a good bargain to me.

3. The White Mountains of Crete

I don’t think you can be a British lover of Greece and not want to walk the mountains of Crete: whether the White Mountains in the west (2,453m / 8,050ft), the central peak of Psiloreitis - anciently called Ida, where Zeus was born (2,456 m / 8,058 ft), or the eastern heights of Mount Dikti (2,148m / 7,047ft). Crete - the Great Island - is incomparably beautiful and is incomparably rich in archaeology, history and fable. But its magnificent mountains acquired a new layer of narrative during the Second World War, as the centre of resistance activities by allied servicemen and Cretan fighters. The hide-and-seek wireless activities of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), the famous Cretan runners, the clandestine movements of servicemen on and off the island, the kidnap of General Kreipe - all of this modern derring-do has added significantly to the island’s ancient mythology, and has incidentally enhanced the appeal and stature of walking in these great mountains: mountains which always seem, whether by land or by sea, to be of continental scale. The indispensable book is, of course, George Psychoundakis’ The Cretan Runner, in Patrick Leigh Fermor’s translation. But W. Stanley Moss’s Ill Met By Moonlight and Leigh Fermor’s own Abducting a General are also must reads. 

After the war, many of the servicemen who served on Crete came back to walk the mountains; and many who hadn’t served there were inspired to follow in their footsteps. Two of the best accounts of Resistance-inspired hikes are by Xan Fielding and Dilys Powell. In 1959, Powell was on Crete, staying with the British School at Athens in Knossos, when she decided she wanted to trace - in reverse direction - part of the route taken by Kreipe and his kidnappers. Her gruelling journey by foot over Mt Ida, from Nithavris to Anoyeia, is brilliantly recorded in chapter VI of The Villa Ariadne. 

But in this magical walk, I want to concentrate on the White Mountains. I guess that everyone who loves Crete has their favourite part of the island. For me the Great Island is at its best in the west. The White Mountains are majestic: here they form the island’s spine, opening up incredible ravines and gorges to north and south, and meeting the sea on the west coast in the most spectacular fashion. Here the heave and movement of the land are evident in the displacement of ancient harbours, the twisting and turning of rock formations. I think the best guide to the White Mountains is The Stronghold: Four Seasons in the White Mountains of Crete by Xan Fielding. From January 1942 to January 1944, Fielding was an SOE officer on Crete. After the war, he returned and spent a year (1951-2) in the White Mountains, living alongside its inhabitants and becoming even more intimately acquainted with the terrain. I have myself walked already in this roughly semicircular area (which he called the ‘stronghold’ because of its defensive capacity) - along the extraordinary Samaria Gorge. But I haven’t done the high peaks. With Fielding as my inspiration and Cicerone as my practical guide, I shall do so now. If I’m lucky, I shall get to see - in these six magical days - something of all four seasons in this amazing landscape. I shall make sure to have in my hip flask a saving draught of tsikhoudia. 

The White Mountains

4. Aroania and Cyllene, Peloponnese

My final climb takes me to the Peloponnese. In 2015, I undertook a long walk in the southern Peloponnese, partly to tread sections of the route walked by Paddy and Joan Leigh Fermor and recorded in chapter 1 of Mani, and partly to conquer Taygetos (2,404m / 7,887ft). On that occasion, I vanquished my vertigo and got to the top. But the most memorable part of the walk was when we emerged unexpectedly out of a dense, cool beech forest to find ourselves in paradise: an alpine meadow ablaze with colour (wild plants of every description in bloom), sweet from the rivulets of fresh water flowing out of the mountainside and alive with the buzzing of bees and insects and the flapping of butterfly wings. (My blog of the time has more about this walk here.) 

Mt Chelmos from Lake Doxa

On this occasion, however, I want to walk in the north of the peninsula, to tackle the second and third highest peaks of the Peloponnese. In Corinthia, bounding the sea to the north and Arcadia to the south, there is a mighty ring of mountains, which trap a series of high water basins and plateaux. I have stayed in this area several times, at a lovely village called Goura, high above the Feneos plain. That plateau is now arable land, but it was once a huge lake, connected underground to the famous Stymphalian Lake, which still exists. The plain of Feneos is trapped between Mt Chelmos (anciently Aroania) and Mt Zirea (anciently Cyllene), both of which are good for walking. I’ve been some of the way up Zirea by jeep: to a beautiful mountain plain, where wild horses were running free. But the peak (2,376m / 7,794ft) has escaped me. It needs to be tackled. The other side of the plain is bounded by Mt Chelmos (2,355m / 7,726ft). This mountain presents an almost sheer face to Feneos (spectacularly so at the beautiful Lake Doxa) and needs to be approached from the other side - from the pretty mountain resort of Kalavryta, where history famously records that the banner of defiance was first raised at the Monastery of the Holy Lavra, at the start of the Greek War of Independence, 25 March 1821. 

While tackling these two mountain ranges, I am very keen to understand how they fit into the so-called Peloponnese Way, a long trek which goes from the northern coast of the peninsula at Diakofto to the coast of the Mani in the deep south. The Anglo-Hellenic League has invited Michael Cullen, who has written about this route and walked it many times, to come and talk to us in London on 4 November (we’ll post details about the event here in due course). 

Mt Gamila near Astrakas

Walking is often an enjoyable solitary pleasure. But actually, I prefer to walk with friends - especially if we’re all more or less equally fit, more or less equally determined. Since I am a know-nothing classicist and literary geek, I am always glad to have friends walking with me who are botanists or zoologists, who can tell me what things are, how nature fits together. Human memory is weak and fallible if we can’t name things. So when the weather is perfect and the walking is good underfoot and my fellow hikers tell me the names of plants and insects and birds in Greek, then I am in the highest heaven. Then the unity of the Greek language and Greek nature is sealed, and the doxology is being sung.

************************************

In these three parts of my blog, I have taken you on a magical, complex, impossible six-day journey, to fill the time I would have spent in Greece at the end of June. My flight and my trip have now been definitively cancelled. For me the Greek summer will certainly have to be a state of mind. But I hope you will agree with me that to imagine the Greek summer deeply - by land, by sea and on mountain peaks - is not a bad substitute for being there. Thank you for sharing this journey with me. 

John

A Magical Tour of Greece Part 2: Islands

In this magical six-day tour, I am finally - after 36 years of travelling - visiting all of the significant places I’ve yet to see and experience in a lifetime’s pilgrimage across Greece. In part 1 I ‘completed’ the mainland, in a wonderfully rich tour of monasteries, citadels, ancient theatres, forts and market-towns - all set in ravishing landscapes, girt by the sea and the mountains; indented with secretive inland lakes. All of this was done in the blinking of an eye, leaving me time still to explore islands and mountains. This time I’m boarding my magical boat, to hop across unknown islands, somehow impossibly keeping within my six-day timeframe. I’m taking with me my trusty Blue Guide and Durrell’s Greek Islands.

The Pagasitic Gulf

I’m starting my journey at Volos on the Pagasitic Gulf. My ultimate destination is Limni on Evia (Euboea). But like Jason or Odysseus, my journey will not be a simple one; we will not be going in a straight line. In my years of wanderings in Greece, I’ve visited every archipelago - 32 islands in all; I know the joys of island-hopping. The Sporades, the NE Aegean, the Dodecanese, the Cyclades, the Argo-Saronic, the Ionians: all beautiful names, conjuring subtly different memories. But on this magnificent journey I aim for new adventures. None of the places I visit, except my points of departure and arrival, are known by me. As Tennyson’s Ulysses puts it: ‘All experience is an arch wherethro'  Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades For ever and forever when I move’. 

The ship I’m boarding is called Argo and she is a magic craft: magic because she not only travels at very high speeds (as her Greek name suggests), but because she is a shape-shifter, embodying, as we go, four thousand years of Hellenic seafaring. The route we will trace across the oceans mirrors the outline of a butterfly’s wings: as it happens, that is the shape of my favourite island - which we shall not visit on this trip. (I have to keep some semi-secrets.)

On this sea journey, I shall move from one archipelago to the next. One of the great joys of the Aegean and the Ionian is the clustering of isles and islets, and the roll-calls of island names. The poet Odysseas Elytis knew this well; these names have a magic all of their own. In the Gloria of his great poem ‘The Axion Esti’ the names of islands are presented together in a moment of lyrical rhapsody: ‘Each word a swallow to bring you spring in the midst of summer’. Mikis Theodorakis set these names beautifully to music for a single psaltis (singer). The names evoke music, poetry and all the senses: the sights, sounds, tastes, touch and smells of the Greek islands. So as you read my lists of islands, think also of Elytis’ great poem and Mikis’ masterful setting of it, and dream.

Skopelos - Skiathos - Alonissos

As I leave Volos, Argo is a pentekonter: she has fifty oarsmen, twenty-five on each side, and a single mast in the mid-ships. She was built of pines from Mt Pelion. The Roman poet Catullus may be wrong to call her the first ship but it was certainly Athena who made her ‘with her own hands…to scud…at every breath of wind.’ On Volos’ foreshore the sea-nymphs and a few tourists watch us as we leave. We are headed directly for the Sporades. Apollonius tells us that Jason passed by Skiathos, hugging the coast as he headed north to fetch the Golden Fleece. But I shall land there.

Streep tease on Skopelos

The Sporades are the last cluster of islands that I got to know. I spent three wonderful days on Skyros in 2015, commemorating the centenary of the death of the poet Rupert Brooke. He’s buried there in a beautiful, remote olive-grove, a ‘corner of a foreign field that is forever England’, and had the good sense to die on the patronal feast-day of both Skyros and England.[1] The Mayor and islanders gave us wonderful hospitality. One morning, I rose with the dawn to jog along the east coast of the island, the sun shimmering marvellously in peachy shades of pink. 

This time, however, I shall visit three islands that are closer to the mainland and are strung out like the lower beads of a necklace. On Skiathos, I want to trace the novelist Alexandros Papadiamantis (1851-1911) and to idle some time away on Koukounaries beach, described by Durrell, who knew a thing or two about idle loafing, as ‘by common consent the finest in Greece’ (even the normally austere Blue Guide agrees). Next in the chain is Skopelos which was discovered by the producers of Mamma Mia! and has, I guess, never been the same since. There are probably worse ways to spend a few hours than camping it along to an Abba soundtrack in search of beaches trodden by Meryl Streep. A boat trip to the chapel of Agios Ioannis beckons. Alonnisos, the most easterly of the larger islands, is the centre of the Sporades Marine Park, where hugely important work is underway to conserve the endangered Monk Seal and other marine species (see Hellenic Society for the Study and Protection of the Monk Seal). A visit to the scientific centre at Gerakas Bay is a must.   

Samothrace - Ikaria 

As I leave the Sporades, Argo has performed the first of her metamorphoses. She is now an Athenian trireme, of the sort that the Assembly would despatch to deliver unreasonable instructions to subject islands at the height of Athens’ fifth-century empire. I used to cox rowing eights and fours at university, but on this occasion I have been asked to join the Athenian citizens as an oarsman. There are three banks of rowers: the thranitai, zygitai, and thalamitai. I am in the lowest rank, a thalamites, closest to the water. Cramped conditions, but good exercise. We are bound for Samothrace in the NE Aegean.

Sanctuary of the Great Gods on Samothrace

This was always one of the most mysterious islands. It’s a granite mountain: Poseidon watched the Battle of Troy from the peak of Fengari (1600 m). It has no natural harbour: disembarking remains a hazardous venture. And it was the home of a cult of the Great Mother and the Kabeiroi, Anatolian divinities also worshipped on Lemnos. (I visited the sanctuary there some years ago when it was deserted: it’s a dramatic and numinous site.) This was a mystery cult with rites of initiation. Initiands were asked to name the worst deed they had committed in their life and as initiates were rewarded by the promise of salvation from drowning. The remains of the sanctuary are substantial. Durrell memorably hated the thought of it and refused to step ashore (‘I felt the cannibals warming up the cooking pots’). I am made of sterner stuff - and, in any case, salvation from drowning might be helpful on this seagoing trip.

As I board Argo for Ikaria, she has shifted shape again. We are going to pass by the wealthy islands of Mytilini, Chios and Samos, on the sea routes from Constantinople to the Levant. Byzantine merchants used to ply their trade here, from port to port, and the Byzantine navy patrolled for centuries in ships called ‘dromons’, from which formidable Greek Fire could be thrown at hostile forces. Argo now has two masts, with 54 oars on each side, ranged in two banks: a ‘bireme’. We move fast.   

Ikaria lies in a SW-NE orientation, and from the air is dramatic (I’ve flown over it several times on trips to Samos), with a bluff spine of rock that thickens and appears to rise towards the SW. I know only two things about it: it is famous still for its hot springs and its people live very long lives. There are, it is said, more healthy people here over the age of ninety than on anywhere else on the planet. This is attributed to diet and to a relaxed pace of life. Sounds great.

Kalymnos - Nisyros - Kastelorizo - Karpathos 

I now want to head south to the Dodecanese: the last islands to be formally appended to the Greek state, in 1948. My most magical trip here happened several years ago. Our ferry from the Piraeus was cancelled and our early evening arrival was delayed long into the night. But we travelled by the light of a full moon, under a sable sky, ablaze with starlight. The ferry followed a silvery carpet of moonlight spread across the sea to Patmos. We arrived about three o’clock in the morning dazed by sleeplessness and the magic of it all. 

Caldera at Nisyros

On this trip, in the fierce Byzantine warship, I plan to stop off at small islands. First, Kalymnos, where I hope to meet some sponge-divers and learn about this ancient industry. Then to Nisyros, one of the Aegean’s spectacular volcanic islands. Like other such places in the Aegean, it has, they say, a strong smell of sulphur about it. The caldera is enormous: two miles in diameter. The main town of Mandraki looks lovely, with its kastro and Monastery of the Virgin Spiliani. Bypassing adorable Rhodes, we then head for Kastellorizo: the most remote of all the Greek islands. The Knights of St John were here too and there is even a Lycian rock-tomb. And though much damaged in the Second World War the main port-town looks enchanting. Finally, I want to see Karpathos. Durrell describes it as ‘mostly orchard and vineyard, rich in trees with plenty of water and shade’, and he loved its inland villages. The mediaeval settlement of Olympos, where the older women still wear traditional dress, sounds wonderful.  

Folegandros - Milos - Serifos - Kythnos 

As we leave Karpathos, Argo has changed again. We are heading to the Cyclades, islands long dominated by the Most Serene Republic of Venice. And although, on this trip, I shall miss Syros and Naxos, the two remaining centres of Catholic population, Argo has become a large Venetian merchant galley, a galea grossa da merchado, with rowers, masts and sails, and packed with goods. 

Serifos

As surely everyone does, I love the Cyclades. Island-hopping here, even with the massive rise in tourism, retains its enchanted quality. As you sail here, islands - inhabited and barren - pass by in prodigious number, rising and disappearing on the horizon. The sun sparks off the surface of the deep blue, and, as you come to land, the colours of the water change to magnificent shades of aquamarine, turquoise, teal even, with the seafloor rising rapidly to meet you through pellucid, crystalline waters. I want to visit four small islands - all unknown to me, and as I move from one to the next, I expect that the pace of life will slow, my cares will at least temporarily evaporate, and I will revel in things that have become pure essence: light, shade, an icy ouzo, some olives, a salt cheese…

Folegandros first, to see the dramatic location of the main town, the Chora. Then to volcanic Milos, where I shall remember some ancient history and reread Ritsos’ great poem The Annihilation of Milos, before settling to enjoy the astonishing beauty of the landscape and seascape.  Then to two other westerly islands, Serifos and Kythnos. At least from afar (I’ve passed it several times), Serifos looks like the  quintessence of a Cycladic island: rocky, barren, with its main village, Chora, a mass of brilliant white cubes, lifted up high and touching the sky. Kythnos is less dramatic, but like Ikaria, has thermal springs. The promise of a hydrotherapy centre and very few foreign tourists appeals. 

Angistri - Lefkada - Paxoi 

I’m now heading to the NW, to leave the Aegean. As we enter the Argo-Saronic Gulf, Argo changes again. She is now the spitting image of Admiral Miaoulis’ flagship ‘Hellas’, one of the combatants in the Greek War of Independence. The seafarers from these islands (Hydra and Spetses) and their comrades from the NE Aegean (Psara) played an important role in the harassment and containment of the Ottoman Fleet. Argo is proud now to be configured as a Greek frigate. 

Angistri is a small, pine-clad island lying close to Aegina. It’s the only inhabited Argo-Saronic island I don’t know. I want to stop there briefly (lunch!) before we head NW to pass through the Corinth canal. This will be the first time I’ve gone through the canal itself. We are heading now for the Ionian Islands: the only part of today’s Greece that was ever ruled by the English. 

As we emerge into the Gulf of Corinth, Argo - to my surprise - changes again. Oddly, she starts emitting smoke. But she hasn’t caught fire. As we pass Itea, where on 29 September 1827, Captain Frank Abney Hastings destroyed an Ottoman squadron (the ‘Battle of Itea’), Argo has taken on the form of the ship he most famously commanded, the steam-corvette Karteria. Hastings was one of the first to realise the strategic importance of coal-fired steam-ships in the struggle against the Ottomans. I had the honour, in 2016, of handling the lengthy memorandum he wrote in the autumn of 1823 to Byron. One of the treasures of the Greek National Library, it begins: ‘I lay down as an axiom that Greece cannot obtain any decisive advantage over the Turks without a decided maritime superiority’. Quite right. He died of wounds sustained in action in 1828 and is buried on Poros; his heart is interred in the Anglican church of St Paul’s Athens. A true hero. 

Remembering him, I continue my voyage to the Ionian islands: at least those three that I don’t know. These islands are so very different from the Aegean islands. Lush, green, almost tropical; surrounded by cold waters. First Lefkada. Not quite an island, it's joined by a spit to the mainland. Here I want to see the inland villages and, at the island’s most southerly point, the 200ft white cliffs of Cape Doukato, where the poet Sappho is alleged to have killed herself - far from her homeland in Mytilini. (The legend has it that she was distraught at a failed love affair but she was in her seventies, ‘by which time’ as the incredulous poet Michael Schmidt waspishly puts it, ‘she might have been expected to have learned restraint’.) I head then to the island of Paxoi, which lies to the south of Corfu. I’m told it’s very beautiful.

Sappho jumped here. Perhaps.

Kythera - Evia

As I board Argo at the little port of Gaios on Paxoi, she has prepared for our voyage down the west coast of the Peloponnese to the most southerly of the Ionian Islands, Kythera. As we get going, she is once again under full sail, because she has taken the shape of a nineteenth-century British ship-of-the-line, a great war-ship built like Admiral Codrington’s flagship, HMS Asia. She is flying the white ensign.

Down the coast we go. As we pass the Gulf of Kyparissia, we slow almost to a stand. The shoreline here is the precious breeding ground of the endangered loggerhead sea turtle, caretta-caretta. I’ve seen these great creatures swimming in the sea at Zakynthos and I want to catch sight of them in this their most important habitat (see further here). I’m saying a prayer for their conservation. A little further south we approach the island of Sphacteria. We will not land. This island encloses Navarino Bay, where the decisive battle of the Greek War of Independence was fought, on 20 October 1827. The island, the bay, the town of Pylos are favourite places. Places for homage. 

Chora at Kythera

As we round Cape Matapan, at the foot of the Mani, we see Kythera in the distance. A rocky island. She has some remains, I believe, from the period of British rule (which ended in 1864). I want to explore this place at leisure. The Chora, by the sea, has a pretty kastro and inland, hidden from the view of pirates, is the mediaeval settlement, the Palaiochora. 

We’re back now in the Aegean and are heading for Evia, our final destination. In this last round of metamorphoses, Argo has become sentimental. She is  yearning for home and her return, her nostos. So she briefly resembles the battleship Averoff; then she looks like the battle cruiser Elli. But on these waters, she can’t forget either the Greek merchant marine: the dry bulk carriers, the ‘Aframax’ tankers, the ferries and catamarans, the ultramodern LNG carriers - the nerves and sinews of modern Greek seafaring. As we finally approach the pretty port of Limni on the beautiful island of Evia, we are once more under sail, in the form of a modern super-fast 60' trimaran. We will reach land gracefully. And the water trickling under Argo’s bows seems to whisper some words of Kazantzakis: 

‘Fortunate is the person who, before he dies, manages to sail the Aegean.’ 

We arrive at Limni as dusk falls. Fortunate indeed.

**************************

Part 3 (the final part) of my magical tour takes me to unknown mountain peaks. 

John

[1] The poet A.E.Stallings wrote beautifully about this event here.

Jason's Argo

A trireme

A Byzantine 'dromon'

A Venetian 'galea grossa da merchado'

Admiral Miaoulis' 'Hellas'

Hastings's 'Karteria'

HMS Asia

Battleship Averoff

A Magical Tour of Greece. Part 1: The Mainland

In the last few days of June, I have a return flight ticket to Greece. I was due to be taking part in the Nemean Games, but they have been cancelled. So I’ve been thinking about what to do with my six days in Greece. I realise, of course, that the Greek Government has set 1 July for the start of its contracted tourism season; even then, travel to Greece will be possible only if the disease is elsewhere under control and new travel protocols have been internationally agreed. I’m not kidding myself that I will be drinking in the Greek light (and enough glasses of tsipouro to brighten a sun-deprived northerner’s thirst) in six weeks’ time. 

But one can still dream. 

I’ve been regularly travelling in Greece for 36 years now and I often tell people I’ve explored every corner of the country. But that’s a gross exaggeration. There’s much, much more to see and do in this wonderful country than I’ve managed to date. So I’ve pulled out my ancient Blue Guide to Greece, my Oxford Archaeological Guide to Greece and my Mountains of Greece from off my shelves, and I’m ready to dream.

In six days I have a lot to cover. There are sites to see, islands to visit, walks to make. My dream tour will have to be a magical tour. In these six days, I shall cover every significant place I haven’t yet visited and I will steel myself to ignore all the wonderful places I already know. 

This is my magical dream-plan. Part 1.

Mosaics at Daphne

My mainland journey starts in Attica and goes, somewhat schematically, clockwise around the country. In Attica, there are four monuments I have somehow missed over the years: the classical fortifications at Phyle and Aigosthena, the sanctuary of Demeter at Eleusis (I got to the site once just after closing time and looked glumly through the fence: Demeter must have felt similarly when she couldn’t find Persephone) and the Monastery at Daphne, which is now open again after a long process of restoration following the 1999 earthquake damage. All of these are, in different ways, important sites, but the one I am really desperate to see is the Monastery, with its magnificent mosaics, its gothic cloister and its interesting history (founded in late antiquity, rebuilt and gloriously adorned in the eleventh century and then occupied for four hundred years by the Franks as a Cistercian Monastery). I’ve seen the Nea Moni on Chios, Osios Loukas in Boeotia, the great mosaics of Thessaloniki and the Chora Monastery in Constantinople. Have I saved the best to last?

I will then cross the Isthmus of Corinth, much more slowly than usual. I have never found time to stop at the southerly end of the canal. But there the ancient sanctuary of Isthmia has long beckoned. I can’t take part in the Nemean Games this year, so why not dream about the Isthmian Games? Here, at the stadium attached to the sanctuary of Poseidon, one of the four cycles of Panhellenic sporting festivals took place every two years. I will limber up on the start-line of the stadium and recite some lines of one of Pindar’s Isthmian Odes. Perhaps the fifth Isthmian, to Phylakidas of Aegina, which starts with a promising address to “Mother of the Sun, Theia the many-named…”

Only a little down the coast is the pretty port of Kenchreai. This was the southerly port of ancient Corinth, giving the great commercial city access to the Aegean. The city’s ancient mole and warehouses have been found and excavated. The beach is lovely. I’ve passed it on many trips and looked gloomily at my watch, denying myself the pleasure of a visit. This time, I will stop, explore, swim and have a meal.

Villages of Arcadia

The Peloponnese is wonderful from north to south, east to west. Its landscape is magnificent: dramatic mountain peaks, verdant valley bottoms, craggy and sandy shorelines alike. Here nature and culture are indivisible. To retrace earlier steps in the Morea is not just to access memory, but to deepen knowledge, to refine sensibility, to ascend even higher stages of initiation into Hellenism. On this occasion I shall, however, steer clear of all the places I have so often revisited. My destination is Arcadia. A place so beautiful it made even death defensive: Et in Arcadia ego. Yes, I’m here even in Arcadia. I was last there in 1984. I was just sixteen. We climbed with wonder the commanding position held by Geoffrey of Briel, in fief of the Villehardouins, at Karytaina and admired the stone mansions at Dimitsana. But we were really bound for Apollo’s magnificent temple at Bassai: in those days, the building was not under its ugly plastic tent and it arose organically from its remote, mysterious mountainous site. But though we found the great temple, we didn’t then have time for three other archaeological sites: two in the mountains (Gortys and Arcadian Orchomenos) and one in the plain (Tegea). These are my Arcadian destinations. Τhe magic of this trip will be metamorphotic, turning late June into April: as in 1984, when I visited Arcadia in springtime, everything will be carpeted with wild flowers and the only sounds we will hear are the cry of goats, the flapping of butterfly wings and the buzzing of bees.

Nafpaktos

From Arcadia I will pass into the territory of Elis, avoiding Olympia and giving time and attention to the archaeological site of Elis itself. From there to Patra, where I will venerate the bones of St Andrew (those, at least, that are not hallowing Scottish soil) and pay a much overdue visit to the archaeological museum. Outside Patra the Rion-Antirrion bridge, which I have crossed many times but must now bypass, will be floating majestically above a low sea-mist. I will board a small boat. This is surely the best way to approach Nafpaktos in Aitoloakarnania (Greek names are the best). Outside the port, my brilliant tour-guide will re-enact in words and dramatic gestures the Battle of Lepanto (1571), where Don John brilliantly stopped the Ottoman Fleet (and Cervantes sustained a terrible wound). And I shall be thinking, as I always do in these waters, of Codrington and Hastings, as they decisively and finally ended Ottoman naval power in the Greek War of Independence. Somehow, I’ve never yet visited Nafpaktos, despite its history and its picture-postcard looks. Ανυπομονώ. Can’t wait.

From Nafpaktos, I continue moving up the left-hand side of the clock. The places I want to visit now in Aitoloakarnania and Epirus are towns I’ve missed in the past. Skirting on one side the Pindus mountains (Giona, where the resistance fighters held sway, and Panaitoliko), on the other the flatlands, lagoons and inland waters, I shall first visit Agrinio and then, only pausing to remember the beauty of the Parigoritissa and bridge at Arta, enter Epirus. This is the journey that Byron made in 1809 with his mate Hobhouse (he landed at Preveza and headed north to seek out the tyrant Ali Pasha). Ioannina on Lake Pamvotis and the beautiful villages of Zagori are favourite places, and I shall be sad to miss them. But I will be delighted to find myself in Konitsa, close to the border with Albania. This town is sited amphitheatrically - so I understand - above the valley where the Voidomatis (so cold, so crystalline, so beautiful where it rises in the Gorge of Vikos) meets the Aoos. In this part of Greece, I shall be sure to have with me a friend called Josh, who is knowledgeable about the rich musical traditions and songs of Epirus and knows many great Epirote musicians. 

'Little' Prespa Lake

I shall then cross into Macedonia, imagining myself to be one of Alexander’s famous cavalrymen. The battered old car (it’s a rental car, so it’s battered and old, but it’s magical - so this doesn’t matter) will take me to explore three unknown towns: Grevena, Kozani and Florina. I shall then head to the two lakes Prespa: Little and Large. I want to be shown them by someone who really knows them: who lives by them and understands them, who can tell me the Greek names of plants and fish and the mists that rise from the lakes (they must have names), explaining the history, ecology and mood of the lakes. From Great Prespa I will imagine - over the borderlands to the west - Lake Ohrid, with its monastery of St Naum and the famous Ohrid school of iconography. But Macedonia, as I know it, has more than enough to occupy me and I won’t ponder travels in foreign places too long. 

Continuing clockwise, I need to visit Pella, the administrative capital of Philip’s Macedon (I already know Vergina and Dion well), and then I’ll head eastwards to Serres and Drama: two towns I’ve never visited. In those places, I shall have become in my imagination a wealthy Greek merchant in late Ottoman times, dreaming of the Macedonian Struggle ahead and the union with Greece. Now I’m heading steadily south again: to the archaeological sites at Stageira, to say hello to Aristotle’s birthplace, and to Olynthos, which I know only through Demosthenes’ three speeches, the Olynthiacs (I found them gruelling but fascinating at the age of sixteen). As Mount Olympus rears up to my right-hand side, I shall be looking to my left: I have many times passed but never stopped at the castle of Platamon. It needs my attention now. 

Thessaly has wonderful mythical associations: think of the Giants trying to storm Olympus by piling Pelion on Ossa, or of the marriage of Peleus and Thetis (Achilles’ mum and dad). But as Brydon and Coogan discovered on their recent Trip to Greece it’s also the setting - at Damouchari Bay - of a scene from Mamma Mia. I’ve eaten there already and so on this occasion will regretfully pass by the verdant loveliness of the Pelion region (inspiration to the poet Drosinis). I want instead to see the Monastery of the Virgin Olympiotissa at Elassona and the monasteries of the Holy Trinity and St Stephanos at Meteora (I’ve visited all the other wonderful monasteries that perch precariously there on unearthly stalagmites). At Larisa, I want to visit an ancient theatre that was scarcely known when I first visited in 1984. Demolitions and excavations in the 1990s revealed a third-century, 10,000-seat marble theatre. Deus ex machina. Over the border in Evrytania, I will finally visit what someone once told me (is it true?) is the highest market-town in Greece: Karpenisi.  

Gla

Tanagran larnakes 

The magical tour of the mainland ends in Boeotia. I know this area surprisingly poorly, but spent several hours at Eleftherai and in Thebes in 2017 and realised I’d been missing something significant. Mythology, history and archaeology are so very rich here. It’s time to do them full justice. So while battlefields aren’t always my thing, I need to see the sites of the battles of Chaironeia (with some solidaires thoughts about the Sacred Band of Thebes and the extinction of Athenian democracy) and Plataiai (Athens’ ever plucky ally). And the archaeological site at Orchomenos (the second Orchomenos of this magical tour) and the Mycenean citadel at Gla are clearly a must. (In the impressive new Archaeological Museum of Thebes three years ago, I fell in love with the wonderful Mycenean larnakes from the chamber tombs of nearby Tanagra, where I once flew with the Red Arrows(!).)

On paper this tour may seem exhausting. But it is a magical tour and nothing on it will exhaust me. Everywhere I go, I will find simple, authentic, tasty food, and good accommodation. (All suggestions welcome!) And as some of you will already have noticed, the tour is almost designed to take me through places where great wines are made (Corinthia, Macedonia) and great spirits too (e.g. tsipouro from Tyrnavos in Thessaly). But I’m also looking forward to many conversations in Greek (time to tune into some dialects?) and to traditional music, song and dance, wherever they occur. 

All magical indeed. But a kind of magical realism. Because this is the Greece that I know exists and which will once more enchant me when Covid-19 goes and the moment comes. 

Part 2 of my magical six-day tour takes me to islands and on mountain walks. Coming shortly.

John