While disembarking from the overnight ferry from Greece to Italy, I had a brief conversation with two fellow passengers (I defer such engagement until the end of the crossing, for fear of getting trapped in unwanted temporary relationships). I learned that they were competing in a race across Europe and were chuffed that they had spent “all of twenty minutes” in Athens. Totting up the time we’ve spent there as tourists over the past few years, I’d say it was three months.
On this trip,
however, we had ventured outside the capital – to the Peloponnese – to explore some
of the archaeological sites and the contemporary literary trail left by the
author and adventurer, Patrick Leigh Fermor (PLF). Apart from the pleasurable
aspects of the Mediterranean lifestyle and its welcoming people, there is so
much to savour in Greece about the origins of Western civilisation, that racing
through it never occurred to me.
We tackled,
amongst others, one of the most famous sites, Mycenae, fortress of the people who
are said by scholars to have been the real founders of Western society. There
isn’t much left of their stronghold – such treasures as were recovered are now
in museums – but just being on the site can invoke a sense of how it might have
felt to live there 5,000 years ago – as long as you’re prepared to make
allowance for the crowds of other tourists doing the same. Technology has changed
the way we live since then, but the legends and myths of Ancient Greece describe
human traits that are no different now – avarice, treachery, lust – and occasional
philanthropy.
We stayed
for a while, strategically, at the seaside holiday village of Kardamyli, close
to which is the house built by PLF and his wife, Joan. They bequeathed it to
the Benaki Museum so that it might remain unaltered, used for educational
purposes and open to anyone who fancies a snoop. Why is it not enough to have
read an author’s work without feeling compelled to pry into its conception and
birth as well? It must be something to do with fandom, as I was gratified to
find that the house, its contents, gardens and location, were all as close to
ideal as I could imagine, had I lived the same life.
Taking
advice from our excellent guidebook*, we drove into the mountains for a short
tour of some traditional villages, one of which, Kastania, has ten churches.
They are mostly in poor shape (although the 900-year-old Agios Petros has been sensitively
restored to a high standard) and their condition reflects the changing
demographic of the hinterland, where many of the dwellings have been repurposed
as holiday lets, appropriated by expats or lie abandoned and awaiting their
fate.
On the edge
of Exochori, there is the mini church of Agios Nikolaos, where Bruce Chatwin,
renowned travel writer and friend of PLF, had his ashes buried. To find it, we
had first to locate an overgrown footpath, then follow it through uncultivated
ground alongside an olive grove. It led to a promontory overlooking the valley,
on which the church, hitherto invisible, stands in solitary command of the
view. Wildflowers, nourished in part by Bruce’s ashes, crowded all around it. A
small, battered door gave entrance to a roughly decorated interior, crumbling
but not yet ruined. Neglect notwithstanding, the building and its setting have
a quiet, spiritual quality, which makes it easy to understand why it might have
been favoured by a restless romantic such as Bruce was reputed to have been.
I suppose
there is a modern Greece out there somewhere, but the one that fascinates me is
stuck in the past. According to Henry Miller, “It takes a lifetime to discover
Greece, but only an instant to fall in love with her” and I see his point. The
racers, I guess, were too preoccupied.
