Greece: Ancient history with a dash of modern tension

Our most recent segment of the trip has been sublime, in parts of the world that we would happily return and have been looking forward to visiting for quite some time, the Greek isles and Athens. For some reason, Greece has always held an allure to me, i think this is primarily due to the early James Bond movies that seemed to tour through the islands on a regualr basis. I was hooked with Sean Connery either diving through the Aegean Sea to reach an evil lair or frolicking with a Bond girl on a picture perfect, island beach with that same sea shimmering in the horizon. These movies were a big part of my youth and the reality of the country did not disappoint.


Greece - Kalymnos

Our first stop was the island of Kalymnos, which is probably one of the top 5 sport climbing destinations in the world. It has miles of interesting limestone climbing, all looking out at the sea and several islands worth of coast. By chance, North Face was hosting a climbing festival on the island the same weekend, so there were hundreds of climbers mostly from all over Europe that were enjoying the great weather, the crags and the afternoon swims.

The living is easy too, as we had an apartment perched at the top of the 'town', with an open veranda to the vistas and some of the best sunsets imaginable (see the picture below for a prime example). The view was so nice, we slept with the French doors open and the moonlight streaming in, even though that resulted in several hundred bug bites between the two of us. Well worth it. One thing that was a bit of surprise was how bare the greek isles in our part of the country proved to be, with almost no vegetation to be seen. I am not sure if this the result of the islands being deforested by the centuries upon centuries of habitation, or whether it is a natural occurrence.

Greece - Athens

After a few days of hard, enjoyable and spectacular climbing, we caught a couple of ferries in the afternoon and overnight up to Athens. The latter was on a massive ferry, with multiple levels, soccer on the TV,several restaurants and hundreds of people throughout (most of them smoking cigarettes, by the way). With a nearly full moon, the famed greek isles slipped through the night in quite some style.

Morning found us docking at the very large port of Athens, Piraeus (sp). Simply put, Athens is the place for antiquities. Scholars say that the golden period for Athens occurred from 8th century BC through the 5th century BC before the Persians came and sacked the City in 489 BC. [check]. Democracy was invented during this period and a thriving art culture was also dominant, resulting in intricate and beautiful marble sculptures and structures. Subsequently, Athens was invaded over and over again but this golden period and Athens accompanying honor allowed the City to flourish under various invaders, including the Romans, who sought to co-opt that honor.

A few high lights include;

- The Acropolis— The ancient holy city of Athens, made to honor the god Athena. This includes the famous Parthenon, but also other large temples made from marble. From the top, the massive city of Athens nestles between large hills with the Aegean Sea in the distance. There is also an amazing and impressive new Acropolis museum that is one of the best museums i have ever attended ( the Tate Modern, MOMA, SFMOMA, Portland (Maine) Museum of Art round out my list). The museum literally sits over ruins that are revealed through glass floors and has a stunning amount of sculptures and other pieces of history on display in a bright, airy and modern setting. The top floor has segments of the original friezes from the parthenon, which you can see from the museum. We also had a delicious lunch on the patio, overlooking the old district of the city with the Parthenon dominating the view from above.

- Plaka and Monastiraki districts — these neighborhoods are at the base of the acropolis, and feature classic winding streets with tavernas, galleries, gelaterias and cafes (and yes, plenty of stores full of kitsch) throughout. It is quite charming, touristy and bustling. We also checked out a few of the more modern parts of town, renting an apartment in an area called Mets, running in the swanky area and getting drinks in a a couple different trendy areas.

- Panathinaiko Stadium— lastly, there was a quick visit to this large, gleaming white stadium, which hosted the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. The stadium is constructed from roughly 94,000,000 tons of marble, and it was fun to consider the lineage of those Olympics in 1896 when Sports were a pastime and not a livelihood to the enormity and commercialization of the current Olympic Games.

The last thing I wanted to share about Greece was the perceived impact of the ongoing financial crisis. While we were there, the Greeks announced that their economy had contracted for the 6th straight year and projected a roughly 5% reduction in their GDP. The day before we arrived, a general strike took place to protest the new, provisional government's proposed (and very necessary) austerity measures. In general, the country suffers from both an extreme aversion to paying taxes and a work force that is heavily dependant on public sector employment. As a result, the State faces massive budget shortfalls while the confidence in the State from outside investors is extremely low. Tourism is an essential part of the greek economy, with roughly 18 million visitors a year, most coming from other European country, so i hope that there is not a material degradation in tourist confidence as well.

Having read at length about the crisis over the last several years, i was curious to see if i noticed anything on the ground. In short, i did see a few things that reflected the crisis, but not nearly as many as i had anticipated. First, there were quite a large number of large infrastructure project, primarily large highways, that seemed to be half completed and neglected for the foreseeable future. Secondly, there was a fair bit of anti-austerity graffiti on the streets of Athens. Considering how confusing greek is to read ('it is all greek to me' rang in my head throughout our time in the country), i predict that we were only understanding a very small percentage of graffiti, and still there were abundant messages in English against capitalism and austerity on buildings. Lastly, in the center of Athens there were several large mobile bus police vans staffed with anti-demonstration police. The row of anti-riot shields and and helmets at the ready was an ominous sign of the common occurrence protests have become for the greek capital.

Those indicators of crisis aside, i did not hear too much tension about the ongoing and wearing crisis from the greeks that we met along the way. There were a few knowing allusions to the crisis and 'austerity' but the people we met seemed quite sanguine about the challenges their country is undergoing (maybe resigned as well). It was a small sample, so it is impossible to have it be representative in any fashion. Anyway, we loved the country and hope it is able to work out a viable long term solution with the EBC and Germany that allows for progress/growth within the internal economy and a commiserate increase in confidence from outside investors/bond holders. That seems unlikely at this moment but perhaps a rising tide and can lift all boats, it is a great country with such essential millenniums of history, and one hopes that it get back to a 10 year bond yield spread worthy of that illustrious history.