Musing from Greece

As I landed in Athens from Frankfurt on August 3rd, 2008, I had not imagined that it would be so hot. The first thing that hit me was the heat. Though all my childhood I spent on the coastal belt of Udupi in west of Karnataka, which is South of India such scorching heat was something that I could not remember feeling. Probably the last 15 days of May would be unbearable in Udupi, but it was always a relief that it would rain in June and cool down. As I spent more days in Athens and Argos I realized that the heat of this place is much different to what I was used back home. August is not the month to be in Greece. The best period would be just before winter October/November or just after winter April/May.

I took the train from Airport to Monstreaki train station (cost was EUR6) to reach my bed & breakfast hotel. The first impression I got while traveling in the train and while reaching the hotel was that the city was shade better than the city of Mumbai. That is Mumbai minus the slums. Probably the slums of Mumbai are here replaced with vertical slums.

Like in any part of Europe the B&B gave a very tiny clean room with bathroom attached. Enough for one person to spend nights with TV and free internet made available. I was told by the receptionist that air condition during the night will be charged an extra EUR5! There were no fans in the room so it was inevitable that I purchase the air condition remote from the reception for the extra EUR5. Interesting way of increasing your price as one could never survive a day or night inside the room without air condition when the heat is around 38 to 40 degree C outside!

I discussed with the receptionist and charted out the sight seeing program for the next three days. First day Delphi, second day 3 island cruise which was the receptionist favourite tour and the 3rd day city tour of Athens. The last two days I had planned to visit my pen friend who lives in Argos which is 145 kms from Athens.

It was a Sunday evening and hence most of the places were closed except for the hotels and restaurants. I went to a nearby restaurant to have some dinner at around 7.30pm, the sun was still active in the horizon. I had stuffed tomato and capsicum with rice which is a traditional Greek vegetarian dish. Rice mixed with some herbs and spices is stuffed inside the tomato and capsicum and baked or boiled with oil. I must say, iwas very tasty and this became my menu for the coming days that I spent in Greece. There are other two vegetarian dishes that they offered– Tatsaki – cucumber with yoghurt and one more dish is the rice covered with leaves ( I think Olive leaves) dipped in vinegar. Both these are offered as starters.

Delphi is 185 kms from Athens and hence the tour started early in the morning on Aug 4th at 7.00am. I had to go to a nearby hotel to take the sight seeing bus. After having every one picked up we left the Syntagma square at around 8.00am. We had a family of 3, a young couple, looked like students – Chinese lady and her boyfriend probably American , mother and son (approxnine years) from north of Europe fully tanned but made a very happy pair, A father and son (teenage son), two ladies probably friends could not guess the language that they were speaking and a couple from US. This was the group and our guide was a lady with good English and good knowledge about history made this trip a memorable one.

The way to Delphi is beautiful the unfortunate part was the wrong timing of my trip. Probably it was greener than it looked now just a month ago. The hills had dried up and the grass, trees wore a very dried look. Most of the fields that we passed through were being cultivated probably with wheat and vegetables. Athens is surrounded by hills and it is visible when ever you get into a high rise building or land in the airport. Our Guide explained to us each of these hills as we passed by. Delphi hosts a sacred ancient temple where it was believed it was the centre of the world. The centre of the world then was described or was a point where two eagles met. The two eagles were flown by the Zeus (who was the primary god of ancient Greeks) one from east and one from west and where they met was called the centre of the world. They met in Delphi. Apart from that Delphi also hosted Zeus son, Apollo, god of music as its primary god. The god of earth (Gaia) was also worshipped here before Apollo. It was famous for its Oracle and people all over Greece came during the 6th/5th/4th century BC to ask questions about anything and everything and to get directions from the God. The religious process was that once in a month the priestess called Pythia used to take questions from the people and profess the Oracle which was also sometimes interpreted by the priest. A sacrifice of the goat was a must before the question. While listening to this story, I could not resist but think about the “Spirit” that we worship back in my home town. Every place had some Spirit that the local people worshipped and asked question either once in a month or once in a year. And the person who possessed the spirit would answer after a sacrifice of goat or hen. The spirit that was in our part of Udupi where I lived was called “Jumadi”. Even today this ritual is carried on but in grandeur that was not seen by me during my childhood.

In Delphi too, as Greece progressed with various kings and Romans, Delphi too progressed with each of them adding a building or a stadium to the temple. Each of them built their treasure house which housed lot of treasure etc…. to show their respect through these gifts to the god. Though all these were looted in subsequent years by other invaders.

Delphi was excavated by removing a village which was housed on the ruins of Delphi. Though when I first saw the ruins from the bus, I wondered whether I made this trip all the way from Athens spending so much of money (for me it is INR to EUR, which is prohibitively expensive!:)) to see some pillars! However, I started appreciating the pillars and the ruins along with the story from the guide which was very interesting and the museum next to the site housed most of the statues and the remains that was excavated from the site made it really interesting.

The other interesting part of the Oracle reading was the Pythias. I believe initially these were young women and later on these roles were played by older women. The reason was that the young women could not be virgins forever! I can never understand one’s interest in virginity of women! It seems to be a big obsession for all religion and practices around the world. Take for instance the belief of so many virgins that one would meet in heaven for some deed that you perform in the earth or the expectation that one’s wife to be a virgin. Can we ever leave the women alone to safeguard their virginity or do what they please with their virginity and it would be accepted in the society?

Coming back to my Delphi trip, we had a nice lunch at around 2.30pm at a nearby village restaurant. I was chatting with the couple from US who were doing their Doctorates in Europe. One was in INSEAD and the other was in Geneva University. Needless to say I was very impressed with them as our discussions progressed. There was a small break before we left to Athens for some shopping of fur coats and honey for interested buyers. The accompanying landscape is actually very spectacular if not for the dried look of the hills. There are many huge lakes that are passed by during this trip. We reached Athens around 6.00pm. I walked back to my tiny room in the hotel lingering on the thoughts of Oracle and the praying to god of earth, music etc.. by the ancient Greeks. It never occurred to me as something unusual as back in India we do that even today unlike in Greece.

Second day, I went on the cruise to see the 3 islands – Pores, Hydra and Aegina. We left early in the morning at 7.00am from the pick up hotel and reached the port at around 8.00am. There were buses from all over places and as the ship filled up we started at around 9.00am. As I was sitting alone on the third floor of the ship deck a Australian couple came along and shared the table with me. They had gone to Venice on a cruise and had come back to Athens to spend some days in Greece. As we were cruising to the first destination of Pores, we got a call from the cruise guide to come over to the ground floor of the deck for instructions. This was for English speaking and understanding tourists. We learnt our timings at each destination and an optional tour called the Classical tour to see the temple of Aphaia at the island of Aegina for EUR25. There were other optional tours there with just the panoramic view and swimming tours for EUR22 each. I decided to take the Classical tour and so did the Australian couple. The wife did say that swimming on a beach is something that she could do when she feels like in Sydney and need not come all the way to Greece to swim!

The first two stops of islands Pores and Hydra are mainly for shopping and going around. They are very small islands with the population of 15,000 or less than that. They are beautiful and very picturesque, except that I would have loved more green on the mountains. It is my fault for choosing the wrong season!

We had lunch in the ship at 11.30 as they were serving batch by batch. The lunch was good with salad, main course and desert. We had to pay extra for all beverages. I could get vegetarian as they were expecting some vegetarians as their customers too!

I dozed of inside for a while reading the book by a Japanese author that I was carrying to be woken up with some strange dreams and realized that I was in Greece on a cruise and not in Japan along with the hero of the book! Anyway, I realized that I dozed of for an hour and a half thinking it was just a few minutes that I closed my eyes!

We reached Aegina at around 4.30pm. The heat was unbearable at 38 degrees C. The air conditioned bus was a relief which took us around the island to the temple of Aphaia.

The island is very beautiful with Pistachio trees and Olive trees. They have a big port too. The goddess Aphaia was supposed to be the caretaker of ships. It is an island of 15,000 people and seems to be doing well economically. Actually I felt all places out of Athens richer and cleaner than the city of Athens. 50% of the population in Greece lives in Athens (approx. 4.5M) and the rest 50% are spread over outside Athens. So, one can imagine the overcrowding of the city.

We went to the temple of Aphaia and were given half an hour to go around. It is a nice structure with round pillars (very classical of Greece). This was built around 6th century BC and was out of its glory by 3rd -2nd century BC when the island of Aegina was ruled by Athenians. The ruins are the result of the findings in the eighteenth century.

Almost every one in the bus ate the Pistachio ice cream available near the monument as that was supposed to be the specialty of the island as informed to us by our guide. Then we headed back to the port and on our way visited one of the oldest (now getting renovated) orthodox monastery in the island. The head of the Orthodox Church is in Istanbul (erstwhile Constantinople) and the main priest is there. Also there are around 300 chapels in the island of 15,000 inhabitants making it almost one chapel a day for the inhabitants.

We headed back to Athens from Aegina at 6.00pm and reached Athens at 7.30pm. Our respective buses were waiting for us to be dropped back at our place of pick up. Another eventful day had to come to an end.

The next day was the city sight seeing trip. I later realized, I should have done this on my own (to save money!). Nevertheless, I must admit that our guide Hera was brilliant (Hera is the name of the sister of Zeus who married her and had children with her!). No regrets.

We were picked up at 9.00am in the morning and assembled quickly by 9.30 am. We were first introduced to the brief history of Greece which was very interesting. After the glory of Alexandar and the likes before, the Romans occupied Greece for a long time till they could not handle the big empire of theirs and the empire got split into two. That is when the Byzantine era in Greece starts and the era of orthodox Christianity. This is when formally it was made illegal to pray to mythological Greek Gods. Also, Constantinople the current Istanbul was made the capital at the later stage. Lot of wealth from the temples in Greece has found its way to Istanbul during this regime.

After that it is the Ottoman Turks who ruled Greece for 400 years from 14th Century till Greeks fought the first independence battle in 1821. It was during this war that some of the Acropolis was ruined due to use of gun powder which exploded. The Acropolis which was not ruined or destroyed due to natural calamities had to suffer due to explosion of gun powders. One admires the architectural ability of the ancient Greeks in conquering the natural calamities. Probably they were not aware of man’s ability (in the future) to invent one’s own destructive ammunition.

Since Greece was without a lineage of Kings for some centuries now, the rich European countries decided to install a King in Greece after the independence. First they had a King Otto from Bavaria (Germany) and then it was from Denmark. Greece was attacked by Italy to a great resistance and defeat in the World War II. However, later, Germans and Italy defeated Greece and occupied Greece till 1943 during which lot of wealth was taken away. Acropolis stands as a witness to all occupations, liberations of Greece from the foreigners. Greece was given to Great Britain in exchange of some Balkan countries to Russia and England did its bit in Greece before handing it over to US for quasi Governance. It is only in 1970 did Greece come out of having Kings and for a few years was under military rule later on to move to democracy. The history of Greece after the Alexandar the Great is full of invasions and resistance.

Acropolis is very interesting site to visit, with the temple of Nike (means Victory) inside. Agora is also a nice place to visit. It was a market place where philosophy, democracy was all discussed by Aristotle and later Plato and the likes. When you see the hill where democracy was born, you can't help thinking that "yes, it was not in US where democracy was first discussed"!. There is also Temple of Zeus which was built in BC and later on renovated by Roman kings to show solidarity and respect to ancient Greek Mythology. All buildings are mostly of marble which I believe is available in plenty in Greece. The marble was absorbing the heat of 40degrees C and was still cool when touched. Greeks also used lot of Ivory trading from Africa and Egypt in their sculptures. Most of the ancient wealth and sculptures are housed in various museums in France, Germany, England and now also in the US.

After a great trip around these places and seeing the birth place of democracy, which is the hill which can be viewed from Acropolis I headed for a Greek vegetarian lunch in a restaurant close by to Plaka. Plaka is another tourist attraction for shopping apart from the shops in the Syntegma square. It was starting to get hot in the late afternoon forcing me to take shelter in my Air conditioned room for the rest of the evening.

The next two days I was to spend with my pen friend in Argos which is 145kms form Athens near Nafplion. We are pen pals for the last 23 years. We started writing to each other when we were studying in 10th class! She is staying with her parents with two kids and her husband.

Argos is beautiful and was much pleasant than Athens. 12 kms from Argos is Myceneian excavations housing one of the oldest civilization approx 2500 years old. It is a very interesting site. For the beach lovers and the ones who wants to be tanned, the beaches around Argos, Nafplion is wonderful. The colour of the water is actually blue like the way we see it in pictures. One could also see lot of Orthodox churches around. We visited one of them where my friend had got christened when she was a baby.


I did have a good time at my pen friend’s house with her parents, sister, and kids. Though understanding Greek is very difficult! Hardly even a word resembles to something that one would have heard before. I had to depend on my friend for interpretation assistance all along and communicate with her family. It was of course stress on my friend as she had two small kids also wanting her attention all along apart from me! I could truly feel the meaning of the English sentence which people often use “It sounds Greek and Latin to me” ! I had a good vegetarian meal after long time – rice, boiled potatoes, carrots and green peas curry. It was wonderful to taste the spice of the curry after a gap of 10 days.

The next day my friend took me to excavations nearby a theater which is even now used for live concerts. Most of the theaters, stadiums excavated are being used for live performances of plays and music all over Greece. She also said that when people build their houses it is seldom that they do not find some antique pieces of ancient civilisations! We then went to Epidavros to visit the excavations of a hospital which again dates back to 6 BC. It is the birth place of Asklipion, son of Apollo who happens to be the god of medicine. The place also houses a huge theater which is used for live concerts and plays even now. The place was being used by Romans too till 5th to 6th century AD.

The route to and back was very scenic (probably would have been much better if it was May/June) surrounded by small hills and lots of olive and orange plants.

This was my last day of my trip. I had another sumptuous vegetarian meal at my friend’s place and bid adieu to her and her family by 8.30 in the night. I took a bus to Athens and reached the bus stop at 10.30pm. There are plenty of buses available to Airport from the bus station and reached the airport past midnight. I had an early morning flight at 6.00am to Frankfurt and from there to Bangalore.

This was a wonderful trip though the heat in the late afternoons were unbearable and forced one to look out for an air conditioned restaurants or idle back at the hotel room. Argos was much better though I had been to visit most of the places in the afternoons bearing the heat. Since most of the excavation sites are on up hill, there was a cool breeze that was blowing through out.

Next time I would like to visit the Macedonian region where Alexander the Great came from. After his regime it appears that Greece was always in war and ruled by Romans, Byzantine regime, Turks till they chose to become democracy without the monarchy in mid 90s. Most of their mythology stories resembles to what we grow up with in India. With these thoughts in mind I was back in Bangalore late evening next day.