Kos

Although very close to Rhodes, topographically Kos is quite different. It has one large mountain at its centre and another on a peninsula at the southwestern end of the island, but apart from that it is quite flat. This is due to the fact that it was inundated in volcanic ash from the eruption of a volcano on the nearby island of Nissiros. It also means that the soil is quite fertile, and compared with Rhodes it is very green.

Another consequence of the flatness of the island is that many people ride bicycles. This was encouraged by the Italian authorities during their tenure of the island, and apparently in some of the villages one can still find old people riding Italian made bicycles of pre-war vintage (they are quite valuable as collector items now). Also the present day authorities have constructed dedicated bicycle lanes especially in Kos town and in the tourist areas. Not surprisingly this has attracted a lot of Dutch tourists. So thanks to a volcanic explosion in prehistoric times we have cafes in Kos selling broodjes and lumpia (which the Dutch adopted during their stay in Indonesia). The world is linked in strange and unexpected ways! But in this area of the Eastern Mediterranean so many people have come and gone that it is perhaps not so surprising.

The Koans (as the inhabitants of Kos are known) seem to be a bit more laid back than the Rhodians (or Rhodiots?). There seems to be quite a high frequency of blue eyes among them, In one small village, Zia, every other Greek seemed to be blue-eyed. Constantinos, the guide on our conference excursion explained this by saying that among the ancient Greeks there were many tribes, or sub-groups of different genetic makeup. The Minoans are believed to have had blue eyes – although the evidence for this is based upon just one or two frescoes. And it seems that Minoan painting was quite stylized – for example men were always depicted as having a coppery coloured skin, while women had white skin. This seemed to be the only difference between them – no breasts or genitalia, similar size and hair etc. Nonetheless the Minoan theory is a plausible hypothesis. After all the Minoans had a maritime empire and it seems quite believable that they settled on Kos, although as far as I know there is no archeological evidence to support this. That a trait such as blue eyes should be more common in villages could easily be explained from the fact that the villages form a small relatively isolated breeding population. But of course there are many other alternative explanations. Many other blue-eyed peoples, passed through here. The Crusaders comprised diverse Europeans including Normans, Franks and Germans. It is quite possible that Vikings came here too – it is known that they were in Constantinople which is not too far from here.

On the subject of genetic traits, apparently all ancient Greek statues of humans have the “Greek toe” i.e. the first toe is longer than the big toe. This apparently is not the case for Roman statuary. Also classical Greek statuary (550BC to 400 BC) is much more ‘idealistic’ than later Hellenistic period or Roman statuary in the sense that in always portrays ideal human forms (or perhaps even better than ideal in that a curve may be exaggerated here, or muscles emphasized there. Later sculptors were more willing to show forms as they appeared to them.

Much of the town of Kos is, like Rome, a great big archeological site. In the centre of the town there are open areas with ancient ruins. The largest is probably the Ancient Agora or marketplace. There is also the Odeum, or theatre, restored by the Italians, and the Western Archeological Site which is a large open area with ruins. Also interesting is the Casa Romana, a large Roman-era villa which has been restored. It has been done quite well. It is obvious what is original and what is restored, but it gives a very good feeling for what such a villa would have been like. There are some frescoes and fragments of frescoes as well as a number of mosaic floors which are original.. However many mosaic floors from Kos have been removed and are now present in the Archeological Museum in Rhodes.

The other great site from antiquity in Kos is the Asklepion. An asklepion is a place for healing (named after Asklepios, son of Appollo who was brought up by Centaurs, and was the Greek god of health). The Asklepion of Kos is famous for its connection to Hippocrates, who in many ways can be thought of as the father of scientific medicine. Hippocrates, who had studied with Pythagoras on the island of Samos, started to move medicine away from witch doctor practice to a science based on observation. Many modern medical terms originated at this time (around 400 BC) e.g. dia-gnosis (through knowledge). Because of its association with Hippocrates, the Asklepion of Kos became famous throughout the Greek world. It eventually became a universally recognized site, which was considered off limits in military campaigns. It occupies a very attractive site overlooking Kos town, the sea and the Anatolian coast. There are pine and cypress trees all around and avenues of bay trees and myrtle (both used by Hippocrates). He also used ASA (aspirin) from white willow and wine diluted with sea water. The site is on three levels. It was partly restored by the Italian army, but apparently they were instructed to concentrate on the Roman bits, and not to do too much which might show off the Greeks in a good light. So apart from a few pillars in a temple on the middle level it is probably pretty much as it looked when an earthquake destroyed it in around 500BC.

We went on an excursion with the conference which ended up with a boat trip from Kefalos at the southwestern end of the island. We sailed on the boat of Captain Ioannis, who single-handedly managed to raise the energy levels of everyone on the trip with his generous servings of raki and his enthusiastic shouts of “Opa” (like ‘ole’ or ‘arriba’) and “Ela” (like ‘forza’). He sailed us around the end of the island to a deserted beach, where he had a primitive setup with a barbecue and some sun shades, and a flat area for dancing. As the sun went down, and the sea and islands turned into a pastel painting we ate grilled souflaki, octopus and sausage along with a Choriatiki (village) salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and feta. The tomatoes, which Ioannis said were from his own garden were the best I have tasted in Greece. The octopus was great too.

Captain Ioannis was something of a Zorba like character. He had sailed the world in the merchant marine as a young man. He had lived for eight years in Spain. He enjoyed life and seemed to want to share his gusto with everyone. He started dancing and soon dragged a Japanese woman up to dance with him. She looked completely stunned so I joined on the line at her side, and soon there were ten or fifteen people dancing round on this small paved area. It was a simple dance – left kick, right kick, three steps to right then left kick, right kick etc. over again. The catch was though that the music got faster and faster and soon everyone was dashing to keep it going. I felt quite fagged at the end. There were lots of other dances, and cries of “opa”. Perhaps the most interesting was one that Ioannis and our guide Constantinos did first together, and then solo. It was full of passion to a slow deliberate tempo. When I asked what the words were about Constantinos explained that it wasn’t about the usual broken heart or the longing for a far away woman or home. This song was a very special one he said and the words were something like a poem exploring how the singer or dancer related to the universe and how his life fitted in with the great scheme of things. I think it is perhaps a bit like Portuguese fado. The music has the same kind of tormented nature and certainly in the dancing one gets the feeling that the dancer is dancing out his pain. The only thing lacking were glasses to smash on the ground to encourage the dancer or at least to let him know that we were with him on his journey of exorcism. We tried the plastic glasses, but they just didn’t have the same effect!
On this same excursion we stopped at a small winery. All of the equipment seemed very new, but they had been in production for at least 10 years for some of their vintages were that old. We did the usual tour of the fermentation vats and saw the oak barrels that they used for ageing. Apparently they can only use them 4 times, so they have quite a rapid turnover. Also after each use they are cleaned with brandy and ash. Apparently in France, the barrels are turned over for brandy after their use for maturing wine, but that is not done here. The oak was of Spanish origin. The wine was quite good. I especially liked a tempranillo, which had a very rich bouquet and complex flavours, and a rose, of which we bought a bottle and will be consuming quite shortly when the sun is over the yard arm.

The battery on my computer is running low and so is my energy. So for now adieu from Kos. Tomorrow we sail for Bodrum, Turkey.

Rhodes

We arrived in Rhodes by boat following some fairly famous predecessors such as Julius Caesar and Suleymein the Magnificent. In fact it seems everyone has been to Rhodes and left some mark there – Minoans, Myceneans, Dorians, Greeks, Macedonians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Marmalukes, Seljuk Turks, Crusaders, Venetians, Ottomans, Italians, British and now tourists from every corner of the globe.

It is a remarkable place, especially the old town of Rhodes. It is completely surrounded by mediaeval walls, with a double moat, built by the Knights of St. John in the period 1300 – 1552. The complex is capped by the Grand Master’s Palace. Inside the town there are narrow lanes, often with buttresses across them as neighbouring houses help support one another. It has wonderful natural harbours, with fortresses protecting the entrances. In fact in ancient times the Colossus of Rhodes spanned the entrance to one of the harbours.

We stayed in a small hotel, the Pension Minos, in the Old Town near to the St. John Gate. This part of the town, unlike much of the rest of it has very few tourist amenities. It is home to many Rhodiots, who we would see in the evenings sitting on their stoops, or on chairs outside their doors, sometimes chatting but more often just sitting. The pension was of mixed charms – sometimes we called it the Pension Minus. It was run by Miss Maria, who we didn’t see for a couple of days, because she had a bad back. Her son-in-law Ioannis welcomed us and showed us our room. He showed us how to work the air conditioning and the satellite TV, on which he assured us we could receive almost any channel we wanted. Well the AC was at best anaemic, little more than a fan, and although the TV had hundreds of channels most seemed to be in Arabic, Farsi or Italian. I was surprised to find Arabic and Farsi porn channels. To find Italian ones was no surprise - in fact mainstream Italian TV seems to be mostly soft-core porn and sports. In this multi-channel paradise I couldn’t even find World Cup broadcasts – for that I had to turn off the satellite and rely on antenna TV, on which I found a Turkish channel broadcasting all of the games.
Ioannis asked for my passport when we arrived – this is fairly standard in Greek hotels – they fill in all of the registration details for you. But usually you get it back within a couple of hours. At Pension Minos it took 3 days. For the first two days we could not rouse anyone. When finally I ran into Ioannis and asked for my passport, he seemed surprised and said “What you want it now?” When I replied in the affirmative he muttered something about Miss Maria and went off. We waited around for fifteen minutes or so, and then decided to give up and leave. On the way back to our room we saw him sitting in a small room watching television!
We did finally run into Miss Maria. She was quite gracious and asked about our well-being. She had lived in Vancouver and her daughter was born there. But she didn’t seem to do much, but sit around in the garden under the lemon trees. But she did give me back my passport.

There were very few people staying at the pension and I got the impression that it was just limping along, which is perhaps not surprising given the level of service. In fact the only people who seemed to do any work were the cleaner, who was very gracious and went out of her way to show us to the San Francisco Gate, and the daughter who served breakfast in the roof garden – but not before 9::00 am! She had a young daughter and had to mind her child while serving, while no doubt Ioannis stayed in bed or watched TV and Miss Maria sat under the tree of idleness!

But the location of the hotel was great and it had a roof garden with panoramic views over the whole of the Old Town and harbor. We did some sketching there.
We rented a car for three days and so got to see some of the island outside of Rodos Polis. Around the island there are a number of places where castles or acropolides (?) have been built on top of tall monoliths of rock. The most famous is Lindos, and it really is very spectacular. From a distance one sees a castle perched on top of a very tall steep rock, surrounded at its base by a town of small whitewashed houses. In fact the castle one sees is just the outside wall, built by Crusaders. Inside there are the remains of a Byzantine castle and inside that an acropolis, which was partly restored by the Italians during their tenure of the island (1912-1945). In ancient times Lindos was an important city. It founded colonies as far away as Sicily. The acropolis of the Lindian Athena was well-known throughout the ancient world and received visitors from all over.

To reach the acropolis is a long hike uphill. Given the heat and our advanced years we decided to do it the easy way, i.e. to ride up on the back of a donkey. It only cost 5 euros per person and was well worth it. Even from the place where we de-assed, it was still quite a walk uphill and up steps. But we made it and it was well worth the effort. There was a very elaborate temple complex there in ancient times. One can certainly get the feel of what the layout was like, and one can see why it was considered a magical place by the ancients.

The west coast of Rhodes is very different from the east coast. The east coast is fairly flat and there is an hotel or a resort almost anywhere where there is half decent beach. We drove across the island passing through a number of small villages. At one as we rounded a corner into a small plaza, there was a women beckoning to us and smiling in a strange leering kind of way. It was a bit disturbing and felt slightly indecent especially since she was quite old and not very attractive. But we soon found out that she was trying to entice us into her taverna and not into her bed. Indeed on looking around I found that on the other side of the road there was another (younger) woman doing the same in front of her taverna. In Greece anywhere where there are tourists there is usually someone outside trying to coax you into their establishment, but it is almost invariably a man. But in this village they had somehow decided that it would be more effective for a woman to do it. I wonder if one taverna used a woman and started increasing its trade at the expense of the other, and the other then followed suit.

After an agreeable lunch of lamb chops grilled on an open fire, which the cook would oxygenate from time to time using a hair dryer, we drove on towards the west coast. The coast is steep and forested and there were some magnificent panoramic views over turquoise bays blending into the ultramarine of the Aegean. We followed a sign to a place called Monolithos, Soon we came to a place where a number of cars were parked on the dusty side of the road. On the other side was a sheer drop and a view to a huge rock, perhaps one to two hundred feet tall, on top of which there was a mediaeval castle. There was a bay on each side of this monolith. The castle was at about the same level as the road from which we viewed it, but to reach it one had first to descend almost to sea level and then climb up a couple of hundred steps. We decided against it – it was too hot and we were still digesting our generous village lunch.

Castles such as these abound throughout the eastern Aegean. Many were built by Frankish knights trying to establish their own fiefdoms in the east. Some were very well organized such as the Knights of St. John and the Knights Templar, but I believe there were others who, tired off killing Saracens, decided to grab a bit of real estate for their own benefit. The castles often survived even after the Crusaders had left, because they were useful places of refuge for villagers when they were threatened from the sea. Apparently pirates and brigands were a perpetual threat to settled communities on the islands. For this reason villages were often located inland some distance from the sea.

Anywhere in the islands where there are tourists one will find people trying to sell things to them. In these small villages their goods were locally made products – honey, olive oil, nuts and wine, and there were many small stalls near to the viewpoint of the monolith. We didn’t buy anything, but my guess would be that the honey would be delicious, and likewise the nuts and olive oil – certainly what we have had in hotels and restaurants has been outstanding – but I wouldn’t be so sure about the wine. I think most of the local wine which is sold in restaurants in carafes or jugs is only from last year’s harvest. It certainly tastes very new. It’s OK, but perhaps not worth bottling. But I have enjoyed the retsina. It must be served very cold. There seems to be much less of it around that there used to be in Greece. I recall when almost the only wine one could obtain was retsina (both red and white) under the label Demestica. Now waiters seem a bit surprised if you ask for it, and ask whether you have tried it before, afraid perhaps that you will send it back once you have tasted it. On our excursion in Crete we were in a village tavern and were sitting at a table with a Japanese couple. Judy asked the lady if she had tried retsina and offered her some. She tasted it and grimaced and said “Ah, like Chinese medicine!” Once or twice we have bought retsina at home or had it in a Greek restaurant, and I haven’t enjoyed it that much. But it tastes good in Greece. Maybe it has something to do with the heat, and it being served very cold.

Rhodes is only an hour and a half or so from Kos by ferry. But to get to Kos we went by air by way of Athens. The reason for this is to do with the crazy policies of airlines. I had booked a round trip flight from Athens to Kos before we knew we would be going to Crete and Rhodes. When our itinerary changed I thought we would just use the Kos-Athens leg of the ticket. But when after much difficulty I was able to speak to a live Olympic Airways employee on the phone (no reply to my many e-mails) I found that no, if we didn’t show for the first leg of the trip, they would cancel the whole ticket. This in spite of the fact that the fare was calculated as the sum of that for an outward journey and a return journey. Rather than cancel and buy a one-way ticket it turned out to be cheaper to buy a one-way ticket from Kos to Athens. And so we left Rhodes by air after a very agreeable visit.

Santorini

Santorini derives its name from Saint Irene. It is also known as Thira, which is the largest town on the island.



Before about 1400 BCE, Santorini was apparently a prosperous island, an important stopping point for ships trading between Syria-Palestine-Egypt and Greece-Sicily-Italy. It was inhabited by a Minoan like people. Possibly they were Minoans who had settled there from Crete. But on one fateful day, the whole island was blown apart causing most of it to sink into the sea. This fateful volcanic explosion also blew apart Minoan civilization because Knossos was destroyed by the tsunami which followed the volcanic explosion.


Now the island is in the form of a horseshoe, with a couple of other smaller islands completing a ring, around what is the caldera of the volcano. In the middle is another small island which contains the cone of the present volcano. I have seen photographs of steam emerging from it, so it is still active. Earth quakes are quite common on the island, which is amazing given how some of the houses perch on the very edge of the precipices forming the walls of the caldera. The last serious earthquake was in the 1950s and it destroyed over 50% of the houses on the island. Remarkably only forty odd people were killed. Apparently the quake struck when most people were out working in the fields.

That certainly wouldn’t be the case today for the island is given over to tourism, one hundred percent. It is one of those places which now seem to belong to the world as a whole rather than being simply a Greek island. In the winter when it is wet and very windy – the winds are so strong that in the vineyards on the island the vines are not trained to grow upward but rather spread along the ground - there are only about 15,000 people on the island. This swells to well over a hundred thousand in the tourist season. Every day in the season – Easter to the end of October- cruise ships, often several a day, deposit thousands of visitors. From Thira one can look down and see the lighters plying back and forth from the cruise ships to the shore, along with quite a number of luxury yachts and cruisers of the rich and famous.




Besides the very large yachts with no sails of the type we see in Victoria (Barbra Streisand, Paul Allen etc.) we saw a number of four-masted sailing ships which seem to be the latest toy of the very rich. These are not like the traditional tall ships. Rather they are sleek, modern looking vessels, with four of five yard arms on each mast. I would guess that the sails are raised and lowered by some automatic system, because there is no evidence of ropes and rigging. I have no idea to whom the ones we saw belong – perhaps Madonna or Clint Eastwood? Mohamed El Fayad or Silvio Berlosconi, with Tony Blair tagging along for a buckshee holiday? Needless to say we didn’t see of the these (un)worthies, not being able to afford the kind of restaurants and establishments that they would patronize.
One can hear every language spoken on Santorini – lots of Spanish, French and Italian, but also Japanese and a surprising amount of Chinese (they are becoming what the Japanese were in the 80’s in the world of tourism). There was also a lot of Russian spoken, mostly tourists but also people working in the service industries. The landlady of the lovely little Sunrise Pension where we stayed was Russian, now married to a Greek and with a 12-year old daughter. When I asked if she came to Santorini as a tourist and loved it so much she couldn’t leave, she said no, she came there to work. She was a delightful person, about 40 years old and very helpful. When we left, she embraced Judy – and we had only stayed there for one night and two days.


On the tour we took there was a large group of Slovenians, with their own guide. Many of the tour boat passengers seemed to be Americans (d’un certain age). But there were also lots of rich Italians, French and Greeks around. Of course there are lots of shops and amenities to help all of the punters to lighten their wallets. But the general tone of the island seems quite laid back. The basic kindness and decency of the Greeks hasn’t been completely occluded by the presence of so much money around.


The restaurants and cafes overlooking the caldera are of course the most expensive. But even so in a couple of places where we went, they were in no hurry to move us out to make way for other punters. In the first place we sat for about an hour and a half after lunch and did some sketching. On the second day after we had checked out of our pension, we went to another place for coffee and stayed to do watercolurs and drawing. We worked for 2 ½ hours or so, and then had lunch, and then stayed an hour or so longer. All in all we occupied prize seats, up against the glass railing that was all that stood between the terrace and the shore 200 feet below, for about four hours, spending in total about 60 euros. Nobody seemed to mind. In fact the waiters kept coming by to assess progress, and one took photos of our work when we left.


The village of Oia, at the northern tip of the island is perhaps the most photogenic part of the island, largely because the old part of the village has only narrow lanes and no cars. Many of the pictures one sees on calendars and tourist brochures are from here. It is supposed to be the best place from which to observe the sunset on the island. There were many, many tourists crowded into the area of the old Venetian fortress, waiting for the sunset. But on the night we were in Oia it failed to perform, going behind a cloud bank before reaching the horizon. We saw it from the terrace of a tavern, where we were waiting with some anxiety for our souflakia to arrive. We had to be back at the bus by 9:00 pm. We ordered around 8:15 and got our drinks and salad and bread promptly – mopping up the oil from a Choriatiki salad with Greek bread is one of life’s real pleasures – but it took longer for the next course. By 8:35 we explained to the waiter that we were in a bit of a hurry, but when it still hadn’t arrived by 8:45 we cancelled the order and paid for what we had consumed. Of course the staff were extremely apologetic, but in fairness to them the place was very busy. However food usually comes so promptly in Greece that any wait at all comes a s a surprise. We just made it back to the bus, but we were the last of the group to arrive.


We left the island by the M.V Prevellis, at about 1:30 a.m. We werer very tired by the time we got aboard. We waited around in the port for 2-3 hours watching the Italy-Paraguay game (which seemed to be played at a great pace), reading and drinking beer. We werer very pleased though with the cabin we had. It was “Lux” class, even though it only cost 71 euros each for a journey lasting 15 hours. We had two bunks, a sitting area, with TV and a shower/toilet. It was not the newest ship I have ver been on but it was comfortable and not crowded. The ship stopped at Iraklion and Sitia in Crete (while we slept), Kalos and Kalmyros and then finally at Rhodes about six in the evening.
By the way the ship’s name Prevellis refers to the monastery on the south coast of Crete where many Commonwealth soldiers found refuge in WWII following the Battle of Crete (see Chania blog).

Crete, June 7 to 12

We arrived in Chania, by air from Athens. The airport is located on the peninsula which encloses Souda Bay. It was the site of the German airborn landing in May, 1941. In fact there is a Commonwealth War Cemetery close to the airport. Apparently there are about 1500 graves of Australian, New Zealand and British soldiers there. But although the Germans won the Battle of Crete in only a few days, it was very costly for them – there are over 4,000 graves in the German War Cemetery. Apparently many of those killed were of crack airborn divisions.

We stayed in a large luxury hotel overlooking the sea, a few miles west of Chania. It was nice to have a bit of space and comfort after the cramped conditions in Bordeaux. Although I had to spend time at the conference, I was still able to find time for sketching. One day we spent a morning doing watercolours of a monastery on a slope overlooking a bay. Also I did a water-coloured drawing of the Venetian Harbour in Chania.

Chania was a Venetian city until being conquered by the Turks in the 1600s. It remained under Turkish rule until 1913, when Crete was united with Greece, under the leadership of Eleutherias Venizelos, a native of Chania. He went on to become prime minister of Greece and he is widely respected throughout the country. In 1925 or so he signed an protocol with Kemal Ataturk which arranged for the transfer of populations following the catastrophe (for the Greeks) of 1922 – Greeks from Asia Minor and Turks from the islands. Many Greeks from Smyrna and other cities along the Anatolian coast ended up in Crete. One of our conference hosts was telling us that her father’s family had been part of that exodus. She was quite dark and attractive and had perhaps a trace of Turkish in her appearance. The taxi driver who drove us from the airport looked even more Turkish, with narrow hooded eyes.

We had an afternoon excursion with the conference which took us through the mountains to the south coast. We ended up at a beautiful beach called Elefansios after visiting a cave with a shrine (Haghia Sofia) some way up the side of a gorge. There are many caves on Crete, it being primarily of limestone. I couldn’t help wondering if this cave had been used by partisans during the war. After their defeat at Souda Bay the remains of the Commonwealth force attempted to make its way across the island to the south coast. This was no easy task given the severity of the terrain – the White Mountains are to the south of Chania, and there are few roads across to the south coast. But a surprising number made it, where they were picked up by Royal Navy destroyers, and later submarines. They were helped by the Cretans, often at great risk to themselves. On a previous visit to Crete, we had come across the Aghios Prevelli Monastery on the south coast, where the monks had provided shelter to troops waiting to be picked up by the Royal Navy. It was a prosperous place, in part due to the donations that Australians and Kiwis had made post war. In particular there was one Aussie who had arranged for the name of his town to be changed to Prevelly, Western Australia. He had also made very large donations to the Monastery. There was an exhibition there with information and artifacts from that time.

Later in the war the allies landed officers to coordinate with the local partisans – one of them was Patrick Leigh Fermor. He was involved in the derring-do adventure of the capture of the German general who was commander of the whole island. They managed to capture him near the Villa Ariadne, Sir Arthur Evans’ former house near Knossos. From there they force marched him across the island to the south coast where they were eventually taken off by submarine to Egypt. The Germans took heavy retaliation on any Cretans they suspected of complicity in the plot, and not surprisingly, to this day the English are much more popular than the Germans. I remember eight years ago climbing the stairs to a pension in Rethymnon to ask if there were any rooms available. The man who emerged from somewhere was white-haired and only had one arm. He was not very gracious when he said that they had a room available. “German?”, he asked. “No, Canadian” I responded and produced a British and a Canadian passport. His manner changed completely, and he became quite welcoming. The men touting In front of the shops would also ask “German?”, but when we responded “No, British” (we learned fast) they would say “British, Souda Bay, very good” and then offer “special price”. With all of the lager louts and chavs and the bad reputation of British soccer fans, it’s nice to know that there is at least one place where Brits are still welcomed. How long it will last I don’t know. Things do seemed to have changed in Greece, since we were last here. In some ways it has become more part of Europe and the larger world. It used to be that one heard almost nothing but Greek music from the moment one stepped off the plane to the day one left. But that has changed. We heard almost no Greek music in Athens, and when one did it was in very touristy places and the music would be old standards like “Never on a Sunday” and “Zorba’s Dance”.

It has been similar in Crete, although at the conference banquet there was a very good trio of musicians performing Greek music, and a group of young people doing Greek dance.

But back to our conference tour. The guide was a Cretan called Dimitros. He wore hiking boots and a safari vest with badges for Kilimanjaro and other places. When he introduced himself he told us he was a mountain guide and also a research chemist. He had a very well-developed Hemingway complex, although being a twenty-first century guide he deplored hunting, hunters being despicable people who killed animals for pleasure and not for food. Other things he deplored were wine in bottles (“you just buy marketing”” – it was the French who started the decadent habit putting wine in bottles); pirates (“the most despicable of human beings who waited until the men went off to work the fields, and then killed, raped and plundered the womens and children”); plastic food (which you get in all restaurants, except those in Cretan villages and in the market in Chania); nine-to-five jobs (life in three boxes – home, car, office); and “perfumes and makeups”, which involved torture of animals. He didn’t seem to like tourism very much either, although he was making his living from it. He looked like a Cretan from a postcard – good looking with a moustache and a slightly hooked nose. One could cast him as a partisan in WWII or as a villager in Zorba the Greek. His machismo provided some entertainment and he seemed to know quite a bit. Judy and I were speculating whether he changed into a silk peignor when home alone – we couldn’t imagine any woman living with him.

Maybe he just exhibited normal Cretan machismo – Patrick Leigh Fermor who spent a lot of time with Greek partisans during the war, while admiring their courage and their hospitality, bemoaned the lack of interesting conversation. It never went beyond weapons and boots he said. Also Judy heard from a woman married to a Greek, that men are taught that smiling is a sign of weakness – this made life very difficult for the wife, since she never knew whether her husband was angry, happy or bored. However I think Dimitrios was something of an outlier, somebody trying to live by a code, which maybe was suitable for the time when Crete was occupied by the Turks, but seems like an anachronistic pathology today.

Another example of Greek men attempting to live by a code (again a machismo one), which we have observed, is among those who have spent some time in USA or Canada. We have observed taxi drivers and others who try to be macho Americans with all of the “sonofabitches” , “motherfucking” etc. in their English. In fact back in 1974 we once entered a bar where men were speaking in English, and it was a delightful comedy as they played their parts as macho Americans. It was a bit like a Genet play in which the men’s roles are played by women and the women’s roles played by men.

Yesterday we visited Knossos. Our guide there, Manolis, was very different. He was very capable and knowledgeable and liked talking. He also welcomed questions and did his best to answer questions. His only fault was a tendency to bossiness – he didn’t like people wandering off or talking while he was talking, but given the crowds that flock to Knossos, this is understandable. There was one awful Polish-American (Jewish?) woman who needed to be treated with a firm hand. She was eager to complain about anything. Her Polish husband who I think was an academic at the conference seemed perhaps a couple of cards short of a full deck, and their son was definitely not carrying a full sea bag – possibly mongoloid or perhaps autistic. Manolis was very patient though and answered his questions with respect, even when he repeated a question which somebody else had just asked and which Man olis had answered at length. The other people in the group were mostly Russian, including a Chinese-looking statistician from Novosibirsk. There were also a couple of Spanish-speaking chicas (from Uraguay I believe), a young English female grad student with very bad posture, and a Serbo-Irishman and his daughter. He was a Serbian academic with a position in National University in Galway. He was tall and looked quite good, but he revealed a loathing for the ICC in the Hague, when the guide Manolis mentioned that a replica of the throne of Minos was used as the seat of the leading judge – although little is known of the Minoans, there seems to be the belief that they were a very just people. Certainly they don’t seemed to have been very warlike. There was no city wall around Knossos, and no depictions of warriors or battle have been found. It seems though that they had a strong navy – strong enough to have exacted tribute from the Greek mainland. Indeed the story of the Minotaur with Athens having to send maidens annually probably referred to tribute. Manolis suggested that the Minotaur idea could have arisen from the Minoan king assuming a bull’s head for ceremonial events. The Greek word labyrinth is related to the word lavra which is for a double-headed axe which was a Minoan symbol. So it seems that Theseus’ labrynth may have referred to the palace of Knossos. Perhaps Theseus’ slaying of the Minotaur represented the killing of the Minoan king, and Greek conquest.

It seems Knossos was destroyed firstly by the tsunami and earthquake when Santorini was blown apart (c. 1400 BC). It was later partially rebuilt but destroyed by fire about 50 years later. This was the time of the Dorian invasions, when Greek speaking peoples took over the island.

Bordeaux, May 31 to June 5

Bordeaux is located on the banks of the Garonne where it flows north towards the Bay of Biscay. The main part of the city is on the west bank. Although the city dates back to antiquity, there having been a Roman town on the site, it’s importance in more recent times is based on the wine trade, especially with England, which has had a long affection for claret, i.e for red Bordeaux wines. Some of the world’s most renowned and expensive wines hail from the Bordeaux region – Chateau Lafite Rosthchild, Chateau Haut- Brion, Chateau Latour etc.
In fact Bordeaux was an English city for much of the Middle Ages, first under the Plantagenet monarchs and then through the One Hundred Years War. It was finally lost to the English crown in 1453. Much of the elegant part of the modern city was built in the eighteenth century before the Revolution. The main building material is a sandy coloured limestone, presumably originating in the Dordogne or Auvergne. It is similar to the Cotswold stone of Oxford. Many of the buildings have been recently cleaned and the city, especially along the quay and in the centre, has a bright lively feeling. There are many pedestrian-only streets and the city possesses an efficient, modern tram system.

The conference I attended was in the old Natural Sciences building of The University of Bordeaux. I would guess it was built in the mid to late nineteenth century. The steps up to the main portal were flanked by two female statues - a naked Nature on the left and a respectably clothed Science on the right. Perhaps a contemporary architect would put them the other way round?

There were two lecture theatres, "amphi" in French, where some sessions were held, which were most interesting. They were like old operating theatres that one sees in films etc. where operations and dissections are carried out in front of an audience of medical students. The space at the front for the surgeon or speaker was small and from there rows of benches rose precipitously each row fronted by a four to five foot balustrade of polished wood. One could imagine Arthur Conan Doyle as a medical student in Edinburgh sitting in one of these while his mentor Dr. Bell dissected a body brought in fresh by Burke and Hare.

Of course the great specialty of Bordeaux is wine. I tasted some respectable examples, by the glass in restaurants and at a reception put on by the conference. Another specialty of the region is oysters from the Arachon Basin. We did a tour there which involved a stop at an oyster nursery. However getting there was a trial. The bus driver finally found it on his third attempt after two excursions down narrow lanes lined with wooden huts and stacks of lime-covered roof tiles and other accoutrements of the oyster farming business. This ame driver had trouble on the return trip too. He took us by what seemed an unusual route into Bordeaux and we found ourselves in narrow streets with bollards and railings demarcating sidewalks. At one intersection we found ourselves stuck. The driver tried backing out, turning, driving forward, but all to no avail. At some point some of the passengers started to get up to go outside for a smoke, but the driver insisted emphatically that they stay on the bus. However after 20 minutes or so he was forced to give up and we found ourselves with a walk of a kilometre or so to get back to the Place Victoire and the University.

"In my country is big problem. And that problem is transport." Borat was referring to a fictional Kazakstan, but it could just as well refer to France. In fact the transport system is pretty good, but it always seems to run into problems caused by strikes or the Bolshie attitude or incompetence of the operators.

But back to oysters. I learned a few interesting facts about these bivalves. perhaps the most strange is that they are capable of changing sex from year to year! Sounds like fun. Also, just as the great vineyards of Europe were destroyed by the Phyloxera virus a hundred years or so ago, so the oyster beds of the Atlantic coast were decimated by an unknown pathogen a few years back. There is some speculation that it was a form of the herpes virus which did the damage. Anyway the farms switched to a different species of oyster. This time it was Canada to the rescue, although the species used was one of Japanese origin which had been introduced to Canadian oyster farms some decades back.

The oyster larvae fix onto tiles treated with lime. After some months, when they are only a centimeter or so in size, they are removed and put onto folded plastic mesh nets. They grow there for three years or more when they are harvested. But many are exported as nursery stock at the first stage (when only a centimeter or so). Apparently 90% of French oysters, Atlantic and Mediterranean, begin life in the Arachon. We got to taste the oysters with a respectable dry white wine from the Medoc. They were not bad, but were much smaller than the ones we get in BC. Apparently they are never cooked in France.

For the first day and half of our time in Bordeaux the weather was damp and cool but on the second day the sun came out and it stayed bright until we left after four days. This allowed us to do quite a bit of 'plein air' art. All of my work was in pen and ink - several buildings, including the Theatre (pre-Revolution), the Hotel de Ville and the Hotel Bordeaux. I also did a sketch of the great dune of Pyla - an enormous sand dune near Arachon, which grows continually burying everything in its path, and others of the monument to the Girondins - a column built in extravagant nineteenth century style, commemorating those killed in the Revolution and in subsequent wars and upheavals - and the usual cafe art.

One curious event which occurred while we in Bordeaux is worth recounting. We were sitting at a restaurant along the river in an area known as Les Hangars, enjoying a Basque meal. Between a row of restaurants and cafes and the river ran a promenade where the beautiful people of Bordeaux and other flaneurs strolled along with various roller skaters, skate boarders, unicyclists etc. As we watched the parade a bizarrely dressed African man carrying a stout staff and accompanied by a medium sized dog, came along. Directly in front of us the dog stopped and defecated, producing several damp, good-sized turds. ""Oh, Oh" we thought -there goes the outdoor dining experience. But teh African man bent down and with his bare hands picked up a handful of shit. He tossed it over the railing into the river and then proceeded to do the same with the remaining turds. And then without even wiping his hands he whistled for his dog and continued on his riverside promenade!

P.S. I'll add some pictures later, but at present am in an Internet Cafe in Thira, Santorini, where loud youths are playing video games, shouting and smoking foul cigarettes!.

Bordeaux, June 1, 2010

We arrived in Bordeaux last night after a long journey and a day waiting around in Gatwick airport. Always when travelling in France one encounters some unwelcome surprise. Last year we found that the train we had booked on from Libourne did not run - apparently the driver failed to show up for work that day! A previous trip involved a wildcat strike by Air France personnel, because the day had once been a public holiday and the government decided it was no longer to be. So in some ways it was no surprise yesterday when we arrived to find that in the International Arrivals area of Bordeaux Airport there were no immigration officers - there were three booths with green lights on but no personnel - and two plane loads of people waiting and getting more and more impatient! It didn't help that many were English, and there were plenty of mutterings about Bolshie Frogs and the like.

After about ten minutes of waiting with the crowd growing more and more restless, three immigration officers showed up to loud sardonic cheers. They were smiling and good natured and quickly processed us all through. But they had made their point - presumeably to their employer. But it was all so French. I hope Greece will not be like this. I dread to think of the chaos that would result in France if the government had to impose draconian cutbacks of the type Greece is now experiencing.


I saw two good films on the Vancouver-London flight. The first was "Ghost Writer" an adaptation by Roman Polanski of Robert Harris's novel "Ghost" which I read in one day on a long plane journey home from Madrid - last June in fact. The plot of the film concerns a Tony Blair type ex-prime minister at bay in a house in Martha's Vineyard owned by his publisher. It is winter time and he is there working on his memoirs with the help of a ghost writer. It is mid winter and there are lots of shots of grey seas and deserted beaches. The body of an earlier ghost writer has been found on an island beach - he apparently fell or jumped from a ferry to the island. The new ghost follows up on leads left by his predecessor and soon finds himself in similar danger. Meanwhile Adam Lang (aka Tony Blair) played by Pearce Brosnan is being indicted for war crimes by the ICC in The Hague. The film moves at a very good pace. The suspense is maintained and visually it is stunning. I recommend it highly.

The Polanski film leaves one with a very cynical view of the world of realpolitik and of the role of hidden forces shaping world events. The second film I saw was a complete contrast. "Invictus" is an inspiring movie about how Nelson Mandela used the Springbok's efforts in the Rugby World Cup to help bring the new nation together. Against all the advice of his black colleagues he encouraged support for the Springboks - a team which had earlier been a symbol of white dominance to the extent that the black population would cheer for any team playing against them. But Mandela saw the World Cup as an opportunity for healing some of the divisions between the black and white communities. Morgan Freedman is very convincing as Mandela, and the movie ends in a very upbeat way when S. Africa win the Cup in overtime against a powerful All Black side. I was surprised to find that the film had been directed by Clint Eastwood. I associated him more with macho action films. But he did a very good job with Invictus.

I remember the S. African victory and in fact visited S. Africa for the first time the year after. At the time it seemed like a fairy tale, and the events certainly leant themselves well to a movie. Unfortunately I don't think that there will be a fairy-tale ending to the upcoming soccer World Cup - unless it is with England winning it all on penalties!