GREECE

  Unearthing history’s mysteries in a prime setting

By Lilian Howard

Loving a place is almost as dangerous as loving a person. Over time, experiencing a destination once too often can reveal blemishes in character and physical beauty.

In Greece, it’s okay to have wrinkles, rocky beaches and live in the past. It’s okay to communicate with an alphabet and language, understood beyond its borders by none but serious scholars. Few places on earth are as up front on your first encounter and continue to hold your affection through the latest one.

I like to end my visits to Greece in Athens. Here’s a city with attitude that even the testiest New Yorker might envy. Figure that it is a major birthplace of Western Civilization, including a goodly amount of politics and war. The Acropolis and the Parthenon are the high points.

Athens is also the repository for breathtaking works of art and jewelry from the ancient world—gold from Mycenae, murals from the Minoans, and statues which inspired others, from Michelangelo to Modigliani. So many items to see or purchase. Be rested up to deal with abrupt treatment, slow service, heavy traffic and air pollution that try travelers’ patience. Greeks remember that the gods chose them to live among, after all.

You will comprehend such things better by starting out in the islands of Greece, where ancient mariners roamed and traded. Another plus could be easing into the Greek ways of shopping and bargaining, eating late, or lingering long over conversation with strong coffee. You may even relish a tipple of retsina, the hard-core Greek white wine imbued with an essence of pine.

If you can, plan two weeks or longer to visit Greece. The non-stop flights from New York aren’t the only way, but you will have to choose a connecting flight through Europe when you utilize other US gateways besides JFK. Starting with one of the Greek isles, instead of Athens, adds hours to a long journey, but so does getting from Athens airport into town and back to the airport.

Most certainly, if cruising the Greek isles is your choice, arrive a day earlier than your ship is due to depart from Piraeus. Or begin that sea voyage, in Italy or Istanbul and disembark in Athens.

Quality mainland motorcoach trips reach Delphi, Olympia and Mycenae from Athens, if archeology and history are tops on your list. You will need two to five full days for these escorted tours which use moderate hotels and include meals. Some tours also include the scenic Meteora region where monasteries perch on the pinnacles of extremely high rocks.

The selection process of Greek isles for relaxation and exploration is much more difficult. Rhodes is not far from Turkey to the east. Crete is the largest and most southerly island, in the general direction of North Africa. Corfu, situated in the greenest part of the country, is right across from the heel of Italy. Between these lie the others, scattered in a sea of several moods and hundreds of shades of turquoise.

Greeks and many tourists love late night life with lots of decibels and disco.  To find the quiet and quaint often means heading for the hills above the beach on more popular islands. Go to greeka.com for a good overview of smaller places and ferries that can get you from larger towns to romantic lesser- known islands like Karpathos, Naxos, Samos, or Ithaca. However, be aware that ferries and their schedules can be one of the great complexities in planning a trip within Greece.

Homer’s Odyssey names Ithaca as the home of Ulysses, the mythic wanderer. Close by, the island of Kefalonia boasts exceptional wine and a seaside drive to rival Italy’s Amalfi Coast (without the traffic jams and bad architecture). Many small coves border crystal clear waters. Carry your own picnic, because seaside tavernas are rare. Making Corfu (Kerkyra in Greek) your gateway, may be an option for starting your journey in the west.

These islands are part of the Ionian group, more visibly influenced by Venetian settlement than by the ancients. On Lefkada, another neighbor in the group, road builders recently barged into a Mycenaean bee-hive tomb, hidden for centuries underground, which may be one of the oldest in Greece. Divers still discover amazing examples of art and artifacts, long buried beneath the seas, which stretch from Croatia to Turkey. 

Rhodes is the island that sun god Helios chose when Zeus was parceling out domains, according to legend. Since it’s smack dab in the middle of valuable trading routes and warring empires, the island was often under siege. Citizens decided to erect an enormous bronze statue of Helios, across the main harbor, to celebrate deliverance from one such event. The Colossus of Rhodes is still proclaimed as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, although an earthquake destroyed it shortly after completion.

The 20th century invasion by tourist hordes, arriving off huge cruise ships and charter jets, may have done more to ruin this island than earthquakes, the Crusades or various warring factions. The crush of day-trippers at the once sublime Lindos town is hard to take unless you visit way off season. Though Rhodes is a fine one day port call, with its great Crusader castle and old town, you are better off sheltering overnight in your ship’s cabin or planning to move on from its large ferry port.

Crete is more worthy of a longer visit than the traditional half-day port call in Heraklion. It is my favorite island, though really more of a little world unto itself, because of history and location. Size-wise, you’ll need a week or more to get around most of it. Hikers will need a day to trek the world famous Samaria Gorge.

This is one of few places in Greece where renting a car is a sane option, especially if you can handle standard shift. It is an archeological treasure trove, but the sites are scenic hours apart. Enjoy the drives with a good map—aromatic plants of rosemary border roadways and most turnoffs are well marked. Think about beginning in Heraklion and flying back to Athens from the marvelous western area called Chania (sometimes spelled Hania, depending on the map source).

About 4000 years ago, the legendary Minoan people of Crete initiated trade with Egypt and Asia Minor. They were the predecessors of the classical civilization of ancient Greece as well as the contemporaries of the great pharaohs of Egypt. Wine, olives, fruit and wheat made ruling families rich. Knossos, Phaistos and Malia hold vivid remains of magnificent palaces, situated with commanding views of the countryside. Labyrinths concealed royal apartments and intricate plumbing systems. Wall paintings, wine cellars and gorgeous ceramics have survived weather catastrophes and the passage of time.

All this has not been lost on the developers. Those willing to give up organized resort activities can aim for small spots between towns. Plan your visit for a time other than mid-June to early October. The water is usually too chilly for swimming after early November or before mid-May (unless you’re from Scandinavia), but otherwise the climate is milder than the rest of Greece. Visiting off-season is much cheaper, and many Brits fly out of London for a fortnight in one of the plentiful seaside apartments.

In general, the people of Crete have maintained patience and generosity with visitors, even when a language barrier exists. A taxi driver once brought us a bag of walnuts and some jam from his farm, apparently in gratitude for our permission to let his niece ride along back to town. When we stopped for a cold drink one afternoon, the proprietor insisted on showing us his garden and sharing a lovely melon that had ripened. My husband, who could not speak a word of Greek, communicated about what we grew in our garden by sketching pictures of broccoli and pumpkins.

Thera, better known as Santorini, curves around a submerged volcanic crater which plunges to depths of 1300 feet. Plato mused that this place is the “Lost Continent of Atlantis.” In 1967, a Bronze Age “Pompeii” was discovered, encased in the hard ash from 3500 years ago. The town, Akrotiri, has been restored, in situ, as an underground museum. Mysteriously, few metal tools and no skeletons have been found in the excavation, but streets and houses with exquisite frescoes and graceful pottery survived.

Usable beaches are few, and much of the landscape is gritty. Nonetheless, cruise ships call and lovers are enchanted by intimate lodgings that hug the top of the remarkable lava cliffs. Some of the country’s best cuisine and fine local wine are served to those visitors who are lucky enough to stay on for grand sunsets and sweet dreams in Santorini.

Enjoy Greece. Create a personal legend from your experience. Hold on to memories from the voyage you choose or the roads you will take, like all the great ones who were born there or went before you.

Email  lil4travel@verizon.net with comments or questions about these and other destinations.