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Travel Guides: All Countries / Europe / Greece
|  | Travel Reviews : Greece |
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| | | | A Greek oddity by bike
From the Mail on Sunday
Although Greece is one of our most popular holiday destinations, it seems barely anyone - let alone on a bicycle at the age of 67 - has been to Thrace. Indeed, where is it? And why do so few people venture there? I wondered.
The only thing to do was to take my bike and investigate this north-eastern region of Greece, bordered by Bulgaria and Turkey. Flying to Thessaloniki, I rode to the railway station, where I bought a first-class ticket to travel overnight to Pithion, on the Turkish border. They seized my bicycle and promised to put it on the train.
The train jiggles along. People get on and off, talking loudly regardless of those trying to sleep. Then you suddenly wake, and you're nearly there. Shortly before Pithion a nice old couple sitting near me began pointing with some excitement at a bridge. The land on the other side was Turkey and they made it seem as if we were looking across the Iron Curtain.
By the time I reached the platform someone had taken my bike off the train - and I set off on the 300-mile journey back to Thessaloniki, in easy stages over a fortnight.
I then became aware of one of three excellent reasons for going to Thrace - the cycling is superb. The gently rolling, empty road followed the Evros river. To the left was Turkey, to the right the Rhodope mountain range. Beside the road were cornfields, sunflowers, melons and vines.
At Dhidhimotikon I found Byzantine remains and a church in which a priest was intoning before a congregation of two women. Then a man with very shiny shoes came in, lit a candle and went behind the screen to have a chat with the priest. Intriguingly, I saw the man outside later with a handful of lottery tickets.
Some 19 miles on I came to Soufli, where I toured wetlands through plantations of every kind of vegetable to the banks of the river Evros. The river is so beautiful that I photographed it, although photography is forbidden and should only be done by Turkish spies.
I also met a heron, which brings me to the second reason for visiting Thrace. I am not a twitcher, but Thrace is a twitcher's paradise. I discovered too late that at nearby Dadia there is a nature reserve with 26 of the 39 known species of birds of prey. Birdwatching comes further into its own at Porto Lagos, where Lake Vistonis is said to shelter 200,000 birds.
Travel Guide: Greece
Idyllic Symi
From the Daily Mail
Too noisy, sighed our British neighbour as we headed for the beach on the bus. The elderly Greek who had asked how she liked his island, Symi, looked taken aback. 'All that birdsong,' she complained, 'and donkeys, cats, roosters. I didn't get a wink of sleep.'
My friend Helena and I thought back to the sounds that had made waking up that morning - in one of the prettiest towns of the Dodecanese - such a soothing experience. Doves, church bells, footsteps on worn medieval steps, voices calling out in greeting. They added up to the sort of peace and quiet I had come to the Aegean to find.
There had been gasps from every newcomer on board as the ferry from Rhodes rounded a steep headland into the bay. Symi looked all set to stage an opera. Tiers of dignified, pastel-coloured houses circled the harbour, lapping up the sides of a pine-clad hill. Their classical proportions reflected a 19th-century heyday when Symi queened it over the sponge-diving industry.
In return for supplying sponges to the Ottoman court, Symi enjoyed trading privileges that brought the island serious wealth. Long since sponged out - though souvenir shops peddle imposters from all over the Mediterranean and Far East - Symi has gained a new lease of life thanks to tourism. Three cheers for the strict local planning regulations which have kept numbers down, preserving the exquisite townscape.
I would have confidently challenged the woman on the bus to find a single fault with our villa, a converted three-storey house, its various split levels furnished with chic simplicity. Sitting outside enjoying local yoghurt and honey for breakfast, the day stretched ahead, filled, enticingly, with the possibility of doing very little. Should we walk over the thyme-scented headland and flop into the sea at Nimporios? Or pick up a water taxi and head for a more secluded beach? On an island refreshingly short of mechanical noises, there were always ways of getting around.
Travel Guide: Greece
The view from the ramparts
in the shade of a mulberry tree, ripe red berries dropping into our breakfast of Greek yogurt and honey, we gazed out across a sparkling Aegean to the island of Alonissos, its rocky peaks dominating the horizon.
Closer to hand, verdant mountains dropped sheer to the sea and waves crashed against dazzling white cliffs far below.
This was the stunning view from our holiday home, Pyrgos, a small castle on a remote headland on the isle of Skopelos.
The stone watchtower, with its crenellated ramparts and stained glass windows, looks timeless, standing in isolation on the tip of a promontory at the end of a rutted track snaking round the hillside.
In fact, it's just 10 years old, built by local artists Spiros and Vassiliki Kosmas who let it out until they are ready to retire there.
Vassiliki has decorated the main ceiling with figures from Greek mythology and created cave-style paintings on the walls of our bedroom, hewn out of the hillside.
She had just finished painting dolphins on the bottom of the beautiful pool near the cliff edge while around the grounds Spiros had created strange sculptures from rock, metal and brick.
A scramble down the cliff path brought us to our own private swimming area where we could dive off the rocks and sunbathe on the huge flat boulders. It was difficult to drag ourselves away to explore the island but it was worth the effort.
With no airport, Skopelos is largely untouched by tourism. Its mountainous interior is covered in pine forests and olive groves.
Along the coast are sheltered bays, deep gorges and sleepy fishing villages.
There are a few asphalt roads and dirt tracks which zigzag across the island. We could drive miles without seeing another car, the only hold-ups caused by herds of goats.
Travel Guide: Greece
Orchid Odyssey
From the Daily Mail
We were walking above the picturesque town of Lindos, enjoying the heavenly scent of thyme crushed underfoot and the sight of pretty pink cistus bathing in the springtime sun, when we encountered our first specimen of orchid hunter.
They are often to be found singularly, with a camera slung around their neck, wandering around in circles. With a schoolmasterly air and a shock of grey hair, this one was expressing some disillusion.
'I should have gone to Crete,' said Richard, pointing out not an orchid but a red dragonarum, an insect-eating plant that smells disconcertingly of old meat. 'I've seen a few uninspiring specimens so far, but nothing striking,' he added, before scrambling over the rocks towards the narrow, cobbled streets below.
Doubtless the heavy spring rain had much to do with his temporary lack of enthusiasm, but I was intrigued by the idea of searching for wild orchids. In Rhodes, these wonderful, varied plants thrive on the baking summer heat, which ripens the tubers, and the spring rain that encourages flowering. Consequently, the blooms are large and spectacular.
My wife Kari-Ann and I were staying for two weeks at a friend's house, tucked into the hill beside an ancient amphitheatre. On our first night, I had stood on the roof and watched in wonder as the moon, drifting between fluffy clouds, shone over St Paul's Bay and covered the whitewashed town in a milky film. There was no distant drone of cars; only the breeze and the occasional heehaw of donkeys on the hill broke the silence.
Next day I watched the tourists wandering aimlessly through the town's alleyways picking at trinkets and gaudy pottery like so many hens, and began planning an escape into the hills.
Travel Guide: Greece
In the footsteps of the Knights
Walking round Rhodes Old Town is like being on a film set - except it's real.
There's so much history here. The castle (officially Palace of the Grand Masters) is really impressive - the children were overawed. In medieval times the Knights of St John lived here in the walled part of town and you can visit their quarters and see where they cared for the sick.
The only thing that spoils the town is the pressure from shop owners to buy, buy, buy - they practically dragged us in and we got a bit fed up with it at times. Away from the main streets, though, are some pretty squares with lovely old buildings where you can just sit and watch the world go by.
We'd heard Lindos was very picturesque and we weren't disappointed, although we were exhausted after climbing up the hot, narrow winding streets to the top of the town and the temple to Athena. You can take a donkey ride up, but the poor animals looked more worn out than we did, so we walked.
All the way up to the top are pretty, white-painted houses, many very old, with lots of interesting alleyways to explore. Back down at the bottom we flopped on the beach and enjoyed the view of the bay, looking up at the rock we'd just climbed - a very good day out.
Travel Guide: Greece
A Greek magical Mystra tour
As you approach from the north, the ruins are almost invisible. In the half-light of dawn, they blend like crumbling cliffs into the mountain backdrop.
'You still can't see them?' asks Georgia, my guide. 'There...and there...and there...'
I look to left and right, and suddenly a startling sight emerges. On the steep, shrub-covered hillside the broken ruins of an entire city slowly appear. A castle; a palace; a huge, domed monastery.
This, then, is the fabled Mystra - once the jewel in the crown of Greece's Peloponnese. It's one of the great, lost cities of the medieval world - a thriving metropolis that died suddenly and unexpectedly.
Like Pompeii, it was snuffed out by an outside force. Like Pompeii, its evocative ruins allow a fascinating glimpse into another world. Now, it's being restored.
I'm here to take a trip back through time. Georgia, chief architect of the restoration programme, has promised to guide me back through half a millennium, to the days when Mystra was one of the most fabulous cities of the Byzantine empire.
As the imperial capital, Constantinople (now Istanbul), was besieged - and the once-great empire collapsed into ruins - her philosophers, artists and poets flocked to the safety of Mystra.
It was to this distant city that the descendants of Plato and Sophocles carted their boxes of manuscripts. They read them, they discussed them and, after receiving an invitation to stay with the Medici family, transported them to Italy.
There are many who argue that Mystra's scholars provided the spark that started the Renaissance.
Compared to most Greek cities, Mystra is an upstart. Nearby Sparta was already a ruin when Mystra's myrtlecovered slopes were first cleared of their wild goats. It was not until the 13th Century that the first foundation stones of this great city were laid.
Travel Guide: Greece
Escape from Planet Neon
The Costa Brava and the Magaluf clones have ruined parts of mainland Spain and Majorca. In Greece, Skiathos is a horror, as is much of Eastern Crete.
The rot is sweeping up the lovely island of Zakynthos. The Fior di Levante is now draped with flashing neon across a good part of the South. And in the North, the builders are at work.
It's time to start compiling places which have kept their own identity. My wife and I recently experienced a region of Greece which might well top the list.
The Pelion peninsula, which is also Mount Pelion and the Forest of Pelion, runs off the eastern mainland of Greece like a crooked finger.
Its little harbour villages face either the Aegean or the Pagasitic Gulf. It is staggeringly beautiful, properly Greek, and, usefully, quite difficult to get to.
A forest on a mountain on a peninsula was a good place, under Turkish rule, for the Greeks to get away from the Turks. Shirley Valentine would be able, in its pleasing little coves, to keep the egg and chips element at a similar distance.
The mountain towers above all the Aegean harbours and runs rather more gently down to the western Pagasitic coast.
In England in 1400, it was possible to walk from Cornwall to Essex under shade. On the rather smaller Pelion, such a shaded journey is still possible.
This is a medieval forest which has renewed itself over centuries. Thanks to the snow and heavy rains of winter, it is a native pre-Forestry Commission English forest, with not a filthy Douglas fir in sight.
A few pines and olives hold the lower slopes, otherwise there is a host of oaks, chestnut and beech.
And, wonderfully, there are apple trees, and random orchards, offering apple blossom at 4,000 feet. The forests have villages, real settlements perched on ledges or nestling in clearances - Makrinitsa, Portaria and Chania.
Travel Guide: Greece
Is this the best-kept secret in Greece?
From the Mail on Sunday
Pelion had quite a reputation to live up to. 'It is one of the most beautiful places in Greece,' the director of the Greek Tourist Office in London told me. It also has to be one of its best-kept secrets, as no one I knew had heard of it.
It is, in fact, a mountainous peninsula jutting out from the mainland into the Aegean Sea. It is just 30 miles long and a few miles wide and, until last year, when direct flights to a military airfield at Volos were introduced, it was virtually inaccessible to British holidaymakers.
It became apparent just how remote it was as soon as we landed. The plane came to a stop surrounded by hayfields and we were bussed to a terminal little bigger than a shed. And, because of the winding mountain roads, transfers to resorts can take hours.
To see as much as possible we stayed in a central location. Argalasti was a typical village high in the hills where tourism was almost unknown. There was only one little hotel, the Agamemnon, named after the owner, a jolly 32-year-old who had created it from his 120-year-old family home. It was still very much a family concern. His mother, Niki, did the cooking and his younger brother, Lefteris, ran the bar. The large stone house had just five simple rooms.
Agamemnon was the perfect host. Every morning, over a breakfast of Greek yogurt with honey and homemade cake, we would pick his brains for places to visit.
Many of the most beautiful beaches were accessible only by four-wheel drive over unmade roads, but this didn't deter us in our hire car. Setting off to Paou, a couple of miles away, we found ourselves bumping down a steep track, dust swirling everywhere.
It was worth the effort. The little cove was deserted, with pebbles of every imaginable colour glistening beneath the clear water.
Other attempts weren't so successful. The road to Paltsi, a pretty sandy bay on the east coast, was still under construction. The nearby beach at Potistika was a better bet, a long swathe of sand surrounded by massive sandstone rocks, with only a dozen sunbathers.
But the really stunning scenery is further north. Hair-raising drives take you up to dizzying heights where picturesque-villages nestle among pine trees and old men sit smoking in leafy squares.
Travel Guide: Greece
Take more money
In general my views are very positive but there are some things you should be aware of.
Although the area is supposed to be a World Heritage Site, on the top of nearly every building is a restaurant which kind of spoils things at night.
We had been told that eating out was going to be very cheap but it turned out quite expensive in relation to Newcastle.
The Greek people are very friendly and in general things are cheap even the 'designer' labels.
Rhodes oozes history but avoid Falaraki as it is more for the 18-30's than older people. Lindos itself has very steep slopes with smooth footpaths throughout the village and may not be suitable for the disabled.
Having said all of that I would be happy to return but I would take more money if I was eating out every night.
Travel Guide: Greece
Slow road to a perfect beach
From the Daily Mail
We'd hardly had time to settle onto the transfer bus from Kefalonia airport to the small resort of Scala where we were staying when the tour company rep jumped up. Handing me a welcome party invitation, she said: 'There's a music bar opposite where you're staying, I'm sure you'll want to get in there straight away.' Peaceful, pretty Kefalonia expects families, thirtysomethings and couples as its visiting guests. And largely, that's what it gets.
They don't expect three slightly hysterical, twentysomething girlies. Wouldn't we rather be on Zante - our livelier, neighbouring island - the locals wondered? No, no and no again. We wanted a quiet week somewhere beautiful, and Kefalonia fitted the bill. The biggest of the Ionian Islands, it is also the most unspoilt.
The island is a collection of coastal villages circumnavigating the huge Mount Enos that dominates the island, a patchwork of olive groves and fields saturated with poppies and dandelions - disturbed only by tiny, winding roads linking the villages. The main street of our village, Scala, was lined with simple tavernas, pretty garden bars and a few souvenir shops and supermarkets. No throbbing clubs, pubs or other horrors. Lovely.
Unfortunately, what Scala didn't have a lot of was atmosphere and, to an extent, that's true of most of Kefalonia. Levelled by an earthquake in the Fifties, the island has many new buildings that bear little relation to the traditional Greek architecture and fishing village charm common to most islands. Only the village of Fiskardo, on the island's northern tip, retains any original architecture.
But the beaches are where Kefalonia scores. Staying somewhere as small as Scala means a change of scenery - and a hire car is essential if you want to get out and about. But as roads are narrow and speed limits restricted to 40mph, it can take a while to get around. So we started off nearer home - the small village of Lourdas, with golden sand and rolling waves, and the tiny, almost Caribbean beaches of Kourkomelata and Avithos.
On the last day we ventured further to the port of Sami and the neighbouring beach of Anti-sami. Although a three-hour drive, Anti-sami proved worth it - a long strip of sand shaped like a crescent moon, backed by lush green mountains that encircled the sea. Beaches like this no longer officially exist - no sign of tourism, no cafe or toilets, just the clearest azure water and the blissful feeling that comes from being surrounded by unspoilt natural beauty.
Travel Guide: Greece
Nothing is too much trouble
We had a lovely relaxing holiday. Nothing is too much trouble for the people on this island. Meals were excellent - we ate Greek food, of course.
The most amazing thing was that there is no crime on Kefalonia. It seemed strange not to carry everything with us (including our cash). Bars are also plentiful and very, very good. Beaches also are something else. We would recommend Kefalonia to anybody.
Travel Guide: Greece
Lovely and laid-back
We stayed at Scala, a quiet, pretty resort with a backdrop of green hills on the southern tip of the island. The sand and shingle beach is clean, with parasols and sunshades costing about £5 for two all day.
The water is lovely and clear, although there was a fair bit of seaweed at one end and the shingle shelves quite steeply at some points, so it's not suitable for very small children.
Scala has lots of good tavernas and a few shops plus the bonus of the remains of a Roman villa in an old olive grove - lovely. There are a few hotels, but it's mainly self-catering here.
We hired a car and drove round the island in a day. We loved the pretty harbour front at Sami and visited the nearby Melissani Lake (a bit touristy, but fun) and the Drogarati Cave (lots of steps and people).
Fiskardo, at the northern end, has some lovely restaurants and you can watch the posh yachts come in as you eat - fantastic ice cream parlour here, too! Myrtos Beach was dramatic (as is all the coastline on this side of the island) but is a long drive down and lots of flies at dusk made the idea of staying for sunset rather unappealing.
Had a meal on the harbour front at Argostoli on the way back. Unremarkable, but this is more of a working town than a resort.
Took the ferry from Sami to Ithaca - a beautiful, unspoilt island. Especially loved the little port of Kioni and the spectacular harbour at Vathy, but a car is vital to get around.
Food on Kefalonia was great - plenty of traditional Greek dishes and quite a few vegetarian options. Best local wine is the dry white Robola. A lovely, laid-back island!
Travel Guide: Greece
Captain Corelli's Kefalonia
From the Mail on Sunday
The elderly Greeks rub their eyes in disbelief. They left the island of Kephallonia in 1953, when a devastating earthquake flattened towns and villages. They saw their homes destroyed and Argostoli, the capital, levelled.
Now, half a century later, they emerge on to the decks of the arriving ferry and discover that their home town has spectacularly resurrected itself from the rubble. The column-fronted courtroom and the Venetian-style villas that crumbled to dust - all have reappeared after an absence of nearly 50 years.
It's only when the passengers have disembarked that they discover the cause of this wonder. This fine old town is a masterful illusion, a conjuring trick of the eye, that is held together with nothing more than scaffolding, bolts and epoxy resin.
'Camera . . . and ACTION.' Actor Nicolas Cage struts across the set clutching a bulbous stringed instrument and the British film crew spring to work. I watched all this happening last May, when Captain Corelli's Mandolin - the film version of Louis de Bernieres' best-selling novel - was being filmed on the Ionian island of Kefalonia.
The movie has been produced by Working Title - the company that made Notting Hill, Elizabeth and Four Weddings And A Funeral - and when it opens next month looks certain to be the year's biggest hit. Cage is playing Corelli, Penelope Cruz is his lover, while John Hurt plays the irascible but caring father in this epic tale of love and brutality, set amid the Italian occupation of Greece during the Second World War.
The story is beautifully told. The irrepressible Corelli - an eccentric Italian soldier with a passion for the mandolin - at first infuriates the village doctor, Iannis, whose home he is occupying. But as the doctor starts to appreciate his exuberant personality, so Corelli falls head-over-heels in love with his daughter, Pelagia.
The fighting draws ever closer; storm clouds gather. When Italy switches allegiance the Nazis land on Kefalonia and vow to slaughter every Italian on the island.
Those terrible war years were one of the darkest periods of Kefalonia's troubled history and were - until recently - as unknown to the outside world as the island itself. Tourists flocked in their thousands to nearby Corfu, but Kefalonia remained unspoiled and largely unvisited, a quiet backwater in the Ionian sea.
But this scretive and spectacularly beautiful island may not be able to hide its charms for much longer. Tourism is on the increase, and a large influx is expected after the release of the film.
Travel Guide: Greece
Captain Corelli: Loved the book, like the island
From the Mail on Sunday
Kefalonia, a small, rocky island in the Ionian Sea, has never loomed large in the British consciousness. Until, that is, the publication of Louis de Bernieres' novel, Captain Corelli's Mandolin.
The book describes the romance between Pelagia, a local doctor's daughter, and Captain Corelli, a captain in the Italian army, and is mainly set during the Italian occupation of Kefalonia during the Second World War. The book remains on the bestseller lists four years after publication, and is even featured in the screen romance between Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts in the film Notting Hill.
The physical world which de Bernieres describes has been almost completely destroyed, as a cataclysmic earthquake razed the island to rubble in 1953. But has the spirit of true romance and courage remained on the island? Or have the islanders been corrupted by their newfound fame? I went to Greece to find out.
On the charter flight out of Gatwick, I began to suspect that my fellow holidaymakers might not be committed Corelli fans. The lads sitting behind me, who had clearly taken advantage of their local tanning facilities before they came out, were complaining loudly about the selection of duty-free cigarettes.
At the tiny airport terminal, the conveyor belt was jammed with crown green bowling bags. I assume most of the flight's passengers were bound for Lassi, Kefalonia's mass-market tourist resort. I was heading for the small town of Fiskardo, on the other side of the island.
Fiskardo is little more than a village, a cluster of pink-shuttered, whitewashed houses built around a small harbour. It looks much as it would have done 50 years ago, because it was the only village left standing after the earthquake.
All the buildings here are founded on solid rock, which protected them from the worst of the tremors. The smallness and simplicity of Fiskardo belie its sophistication. The yachts moored in the harbour must cost £1 million a year to run. It's just as well that the food is so good in Fiskardo, as there is little to do in the village but eat and gaze across the harbour at nearby Ithaca.
Early in the season, most of Fiskardo's visitors are British, but later in the summer the main tourist traffic comes from neighbouring Italy. The local businesses earn enough from rich Italians during August to stay empty for the rest of the year.
The restaurants along the harbour, although inexpensive by British standards, are light years better than the Greek average. Particularly enjoyable is the eccentric atmosphere of Nicholas's Fish Restaurant overlooking the harbour. The walls of the restaurant are covered in newspaper reviews, most of which focus upon the 'colourful' character of Nicholas rather than the food.
The meal, however, was probably the best Greek cuisine I've experienced outside Athens, and even the Hellenic staples such as tzatziki were subtly better than the norm.
Travel Guide: Greece
I'll be back
It's a beautiful place with a great beach. The people are so friendly and there is a great atmosphere! I will be returning next year!
Travel Guide: Greece
Wall-to-wall Karpathos
The ferry had stopped, I realised, when I awoke with a start. A small blue and red Greek caique was bobbing next to us in the ultramarine water.
On the deck below a group of muscular Greek women clad in boots and colourful costumes were wrestling black, hairy goats into slings and lowering them to the caique.
Goats? These were more like Shetland ponies with curly horns - very noisy Shetland ponies. The Greek women were in a jovial mood, and much shouting and laughter accompanied the whole operation.
In the stern of the caique were two blond, bearded backpackers with mountainous rucksacks, both trying to look unfazed at the number of goats around them.
Behind the caique lay a tiny Greek island port, a dirt track leading up into the mountains.
'Where are we? What's going on?' I asked the Greek-Australian next to me.
'This is the island of Karpathos, and those are the women of Olymbos village high in the mountains,' he replied.
'The ferry is too big to come into their port of Diafani, so they have to unload everything like this, sacks of cement, bottles of beer - or goats.
'Olymbos is 2,000ft high and one of the most traditional places left in Greece. Property and names descend through the female line, not the male.
'They grind their flour in windmills and bake it in communal ovens, and still wear costume every day.
Travel Guide: Greece
Odyssey to an isle of peace
From the Daily Mail
Harry stared into the distance as the boat shuddered and rolled under us. Ahead was the long lobster tail of Meganissi, an island he hadn't visited since 1942. Then he had journeyed there in a small fishing boat under the cover of darkness as he and other young men of the Greek Resistance distributed scarce food between the islands.
His brother Costas had told us Harry had fallen into the hands of the occupying Italians, who repeatedly threw him downstairs to get information from him. All Harry would admit was that he had fallen, possibly twice; anyway, they were good chaps really and he had ended up singing with them.
Now he sat silent with his memories at the prow of a boat taking a party of holidaymakers to the island. Behind us, an hour away, was our starting point, Ithaca - the Ionian island from which Odysseus set sail on a journey that was to last 21 years.
Meganissi is green and pretty despite a chronic shortage of water, with the island of Lefkas a mountainous mass looming out of the heat across a narrow channel. We anchored in tired Porto Spilio before taking a long winding road uphill to wander the labyrinthine streets of enchanting Spartohori.
We had met Harry in Ithaca, where a group of us were enjoying bed and breakfast at Hamilton House, run by his brother Costas. Harry was making his annual pilgrimage from Johannesburg to the place of his birth. Learning of his links with Meganissi, we had persuaded him to join us for the trip.
Hamilton House is a handsome stone building that dominates the quayside of the pretty port of Kioni and is one of the few buildings to have survived the earthquake that devastated the island in 1953. Locals claim it was built for Lady Elizabeth Hamilton, a niece of Nelson's mistress.
Its terrace and balconies command an excellent view of the endless comings and goings of boats and fishermen in the bay. At Kioni, tourism and Greek life go on side-by-side the village's best beach is right in front of a graveyard. If Harry proved reticent about his years with the Resistance, he was voluble on the delights of Ithaca, a habit he shared with other Greeks we encountered.
The taxi drivers who take you on tours of the island for a few pounds always suggest that you sample the waters of Kalamos: according to legend, anyone who drinks from this spring will return to Ithaca. One driver, a Greek-Australian called Con, swore that the legend must be true. After all, hadn't he drunk of the waters and then returned seven years later to live on the island? Not that it had anything to do with his wife being from Ithaca . . .
Travel Guide: Greece
Paddle power across the Ionian Sea
From the Daily Mail
You'll be singing Kumbayah round the camp fire, the bugs'll bite and there's bound to be an argument about who steers the canoe, prophesied my companion of 14 years when the subject of a sea-kayaking holiday around the Ionian Isles was first broached.
'You go. I'll book into a small hotel and see you when you get back.' And, of course, she was right. Within hours of setting off from the beach south of Nidri on the island of Levkas, my old friend Mike, who'd agreed to join me on the trip, was complaining about pains in muscles he never knew he had.
Cooped up in the front cockpit of our double-kayak, knees chafing, feet scrabbling for the rudder pedals, he kept up a running commentary on his discomfort. And as he did so, the prow of our bright red plastic kayak swung like a drunken compass needle. 'Right, that's it,' I snapped. 'As soon as we reach camp, I steer, or it's separate kayaks from now on.'
But that evening, as the flames licked heavenwards and the blue Ionian slipped into darkness, all animosity was forgotten. In the distance, the lights of the island of Meganisi twinkled.
Later, the first prophecy came true: we did indeed sing Kumbayah - but only to say we had. No one had a guitar (let alone a harmonica) by Adrian Morgan and none of us knew the words.
Sea-kayaking, provided you keep up a steady rhythm and avoid overexertion, can be very relaxing, although it's worth remembering that your accommodation is a tent each night, so you can get fairly grubby along the way. Although the kayaks are slender, there's still room for little watertight compartments fore and aft to store provisions and keep your sleeping gear.
And if you go in an organised group, like ours, a sailing boat with outboard motor follows behind to provide support and encouragement. Not that we needed it. The Ionian in May was glassy calm, and it was hard to envy the charter yachts motoring idly through those oily swells, even if they did carry iceboxes and cool drinks. The drum of an engine was no match for the swish of our paddles, which attracted an unexpected bonus.
Travel Guide: Greece
Look our for your heart
For several years I have been visiting the Greek Islands and feel there's nowhere quite like them. You would be hard pushed to find somewhere which could match the friendliness of the locals; the beautifully rugged yet, pretty scenery; the crystal waters; delicious fresh food - the list goes on.
I love their charm so much I am not only planning to marry there but also to live there one day!
The smaller Islands are well worth a visit as they are untouched by tourism and are very accessible as many boats from the bigger islands have trips there. But even on the larger islands, true, untouched Greece can be found.
Out of the larger islands, I would have to say Kos and Zakynthos are my absolute favourites so far. Both have a charm that stays in your memories and the friendliness of the locals is astounding.
A boat trip around the islands is a good idea as you get to see the awesome landscape from a different perspective.
If you do visit Kos, a trip to neighbouring Kalymnos (island of the sponge divers) is worth a visit - with its Venetian architecture and welcoming harbour, it makes for an enjoyable trip. Turkey is also not far away and there are many scheduled boat trips from Kos.
If you visit Zante, then popping over to Kefalonia is a must. It isn't very far away at all and the stunning scenery is worth it - if only for a glimpse of the famous Myrtos beach.
I could go on and on about the Greek islands as I have so many wonderful memories from several of them but the best way for anyone to discover the amazing charm of them is to experience it for themselves - go and visit them all in their sublime glory - you won't be disappointed but you had better be prepared for them to seep into your heart.
Travel Guide: Greece
With the gods on Mount Olympus
From the Mail on Sunday
The encouraging thing about the ancient Greek gods is that they were all so badly behaved.
Lustful, jealous, petulant and mischievous, they reflected all too accurately the failings of their mortal worshippers.
And, if Robert Graves's classical scholarship is to be believed, all that ambrosia was not mere honey wine but amanita muscaria: Zeus and his fellow immortals spent half their time on Mount Olympus stoned on hallucinogenic mushrooms.
Magic mushrooms notwithstanding, I was tempted by the idea of a quick jaunt in the throne room of Greece's flawed gods, to ponder my own human frailty.
My fellow climber Mark Jenkins had just smashed his shoulder in a 40mph mountain bike accident at home in Wyoming.
Keen to combine therapy with a trip to Europe, he suggested that Mount Olympus, virtually climbable without the use of arms, would be good for convalescence.
I was enrolled on the strength of various fractures from past climbing accidents.
A pair of old crocks, cursed with delusions of immortality, we would hobble to the highest, holiest summit in Greece.
On the flight north from Athens remnants of winter snow were clearly visible in an aerial preview of Olympus, before I descended to meet Mark at Thessaloniki.
From there we drove through the coastal plain of Thessaly to the Olympic Wings outdoor centre at Panteleimonas, run by Stelios, Sakis and Claudia.
All sorts of activities were on offer.
Travel Guide: Greece
Sailing into the sunset
From the Daily Mail
A skittish wind filled the sails and sent us scudding forward on a navy blue sea; the air, hot and fresh, was scented with pine from the mountains shrouded in a gauze-like heat on either side of us.
Then, right on cue, a school of dolphins appeared to keep pace with our boat. A life-enhancing moment without a doubt, and everything you could possibly want from a sailing holiday.
So why, then, was I hunched in misery over the tiller, thinking longingly about the two episodes of ER I was missing while in Greece?
When you sign up for an activity holiday, you assume you'll like the activity. But what if you don't? What if this new activity uncovers things about yourself that you'd rather not know?
Learning to sail transformed me from a calm and competent person - or so I like to think - into a foulmouthed bully with a shocking vocabulary of swear words.
A foul-mouthed bully, that is, when I wasn't a gibbering wreck, panicking at the mere sight of a rope for fear of having to tie it to something.
Twice I had to be restrained from jumping ship, intending to catch the hydrofoil back to Athens and a flight home. In the end, I settled for increasingly stiff gin and tonics to get me through.
And yet it had all started so promisingly, when the idea of a sailing holiday was first raised.
The 'villa-flotilla' concept sounded perfect: a week learning to sail followed by a week at sea, free to sail wherever you fancied, before rejoining the flotilla each evening in a different port.
And so we arrived in Porto Heli, a former fishing hamlet in the Pelopennese, in a positive mood.
Travel Guide: Greece
Island hopping for beginners
More than two thousand islands belong to Greece, of which more than 100 are inhabited.
Those that do not have people on them range from little more than large rocks with a few trees teetering on top to great expanses of uncultivated land. So, where should you start?
There are seven distinct groupings of islands: the Ionian, Cyclades, Sporades, North Aegean, Argo-Saronic, East Aegean and Dodecanese.
Before you book anything - flights, ferries, hotels - you should decide what kind of holiday you want.
The Ionian sea to the west of the mainland has six main inhabited islands including Corfu, Cephalonia and Zakynthos and some of the best beaches in Greece.
Together they are, perhaps more than most groups, package holiday territory. Cephalonia in particular has suffered from a huge rise in visitor numbers since Louis de Bernieres's book Captain Corelli's Mandolin and the subsequent film.
The Dodecanese has some of the biggest party islands, Rhodes and Kos being the most raucous. Rhodes town, however, is well preserved and well worth a look.
In the Cyclades there are dozens of inhabited islands, and transfer times between them are short.
These islands vary enormously in style, from smart Mykonos with its flashy yachts to Ios with its loud and lively nightlife and Santorini, frequented by cruise ships and beautifully embellished by its gigantic volcanic crater and black sand beaches.
The Cyclades and Dodecanese in the southern Aegean perhaps offer the easiest options as they have plenty of islands, most with short transfer times between them.
Travel Guide: Greece
Family holidays in Greece
From the Daily Mail
When it comes to holidays, Greece offers the best of finds and - if you are not careful - the worst, too.
What it does well, it does brilliantly: small, attractive seaside villages which have slowly developed into charming resorts with simple accommodation and cheap, reliable tavernas. The people are hospitable, generous and friendly, the atmosphere relaxed, safe and perfect for escaping the stresses of life back home.
What it does less well are the bigger, brasher family resorts. Too often they are scruffy and tired-looking, with bumpy roads, narrow, crowded beaches and ageing hotels. In short, they are desperately lacking in the kind of investment that countries such as Spain have poured into tourism. There are some great exceptions, however, and to help you plan the perfect family holiday this summer, here is our guide to finding them.
So where should you go to find the best of Greece in 2001? According to many tour operators, the 'in' destination for 2001 will be Kefalonia - still riding a wave of popularity stemming from the novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin, which was set on the island. There is no doubt that this stunning Ionian island merits the interest - it has great beaches, attractive villages and towns (though many in the south of the island had to be re-built after earthquake damage).
Luckily it is big and mountainous enough to absorb the influx of curious holidaymakers. Even so, if you want to visit, you might consider avoiding the August peak and choosing a quieter time of year. June or September should be perfect.
Other newly emerging destinations are the islands of Ikaria and Patmos in the eastern Aegean. Both are probably a little too quiet for all but the most escapist of families, though there are some good beaches - especially on the north coast of Ikaria. If you prefer to stick to the more tried and tested destinations, here's my selection for summer:
For fun in the sun, my pick would be not a specific resort but a type of holiday, in this case - a sailing club holiday, of which there are several in Greece, offering an excellent mix of children's clubs, sailing and watersports. As a way of occupying (and exhausting) the children while you either relax or try some sailing yourself, they are the epitome of a well-organised, well-thought out package holiday.
If you don't like the thought of organised activities, the north-east coast of Corfu is another excellent option - especially if you prefer somewhere relatively quiet but have teenage children who want to be near some nightlife.
At several points along this stretch of the coast there are small clutches of villas dotted around the hillsides above the sea. Most are just a short drive from Kassiopi, the biggest and most attractive resort on this part of the island and great fun in the evenings.Among the string of small resorts just south of Kassiopi, those that stand out are Kaminaki, which is tiny but very attractive, and Agios Stephanos (sometimes called San Stephano), one of the prettiest, although it has a very small beach.
Corfu has some other good, lively alternatives, especially on the west coast at Agios Gordios, which has a big sandy beach, and Glyfada, a little quieter but also with a good beach. Other islands with a successful mix of nightlife and good beaches are Naxos, Skiathos and Paros.
Travel Guide: Greece
The mythical beast really exists
From the Daily Mail
Had I believed the guidebooks, I would never have gone near Aghios Nikolaos. 'The town is becoming something of a monument to package tourism,' warned one guide.
Stern words. I adopted the brace position and prepared for bog-standard hotels, cheap souvenir shops, eardrum-bursting discos, Essex girls on the pull and garish tavernas serving steak and kidney pie.
Ten minutes after arriving, I threw the guidebook in the bin.
My hotel was comfortable and stylish, with superb views across the bay. Shops selling cheap souvenirs were outnumbered by those selling funky jewellery, elegant paintings and offbeat artefacts.
The only disco in town could not have burst the eardrum of a gnat. Even at 2am, it was drowned by the strains of Zorba the Greek from one of the harbourside cafes.
Half the people leaving the disco looked as if they had been in church singing All Things Bright And Beautiful.
Essex girls? The closest they had been to Essex was Bourton-on-the-Water.
As for the steak and kidney pie, it was a mirage, a figment of my cynical imagination. I kicked off my holiday with a bowl of fish soup, as good as I have had anywhere, and never looked back.
If this was a monument to package tourism, I thought, as I slurped my soup and admired the brilliant blue of the sea, sparkling in the sun, then let's have more monuments. But tourism is tourism. There is no point in pretending that somewhere such as Aghios Nikolaos, with its huge influx of foreign visitors, represents 'the real Greece'.
To discover that mythical beast, as elusive as the Minotaur who roamed the labyrinth at Knossos, you will have to travel deep into the interior of the island. I thought I had found it one afternoon, in the wrinkled, weather-beaten face of an old man riding a donkey side-saddle up the mountain to Tzermiado.
Travel Guide: Greece
An island of alternatives
From the Daily Mail
The smell of pizza wafting in through the coach's open windows came as a bit of a shock. I'd signed up for an excursion to Crete's interior, up into the wild mountains above the north-east coast and on to the Lasithi Plain, and encounters with fast food were definitely not on the agenda.
Luckily, when I stepped off the bus a few moments later, I found plenty of 'toppings' still firmly rooted in the ground; the hillsides were thick with aromatic thyme, stretching away to the horizon.
It was my first inkling that Crete is more than just a series of busy resorts. Locals call it Megalonissos, 'the Big Island', and at 155 miles long, it's certainly large enough to satisfy all sorts of holidaymakers.
A good thing, too, for both the best and worst of the Greek islands are here: superb, sandy beaches, dramatic mountain scenery, unspoilt villages, ancient culture - as well as takeaways and disco-bars crowding overdeveloped resorts.
Luckily, huge chunks of Crete remain untouched by mass tourism, so tacky bars and wet T-shirt contests can be avoided.
A drive east along the main coastal road reveals the island's spine of giant mountains, bony as a hungry street dog, plunging down to the deep Aegean blue. Head west and you'll find they give way to fertile plains. Dotted all over are sleepy villages, basking in the sun and tiny churches, glowing with Byzantine frescos.
Yet it is Crete's strong sense of identity that sets it apart from other Greek islands. This was one of the last parts of the country to fall into Turkish hands, and proved their most troublesome territory (it is only a century since Ottoman rule ended, after a reign of some 200 years.) Then, during World War II, with the rest of Greece already occupied, the Nazis launched an all-out campaign to take the island.
Hard times followed, which are still mulled over in bars and cafes; the old man in the corner in the knee-length boots, wetting his huge moustache in a tiny cup of Greek coffee, may have hair-raising tales to tell of months spent hiding in mountain caves in an effort to outwit the enemy.
I made my base in Chania in north-western Crete, one of the prettiest old seaside towns in Greece. The scales may have tipped from graceful Venetian fishing-port to tourist resort, but it still has bags of atmosphere, offering a mix of history (a ruined castle on a hill, the occasional Turkish minaret) and cosmopolitan nightlife.
Travel Guide: Greece
Sleepy isle where life can be so wild
From the Daily Mail
Finding the Strawberry Pink Villa took for ever, but it was worth it. Leaving the busy coast road near Corfu Town, I headed inland, climbing through olive groves into the elegant suburb of Perama.
The house was hidden behind an overgrown garden. In five minutes I'd swopped noise and pollution for leafy green peace - and entered a world unchanged since the Durrell family lived here in the Thirties.
This is the Corfu immortalised by Gerald Durrell in his book My Family And Other Animals.The Durrells lived on the island from 1935 to 1939: the villa was their first home. There are still people on Corfu who remember Britain's best-known family of expats, who led a comically adventurous, lotus-eating life in what was then an unknown Mediterranean backwater.
Following in the Durrells' footsteps is less a matter of tracking down particular sights than entering into the spirit of Corfu. Walking is a better idea than driving. An appreciation of nature and a sense of humour are musts, as is the ability to swim. Optional extras include a huge appetite and the ability to knock back several glasses of retsina without falling over.
Corfu is different from the rest of Greece. This sickle-shaped island has been colonised by a succession of rulers. The Venetians built fortresses above Corfu Town and planted the olive trees. The French added grand public buildings and an esplanade modelled on the Rue de Rivoli.
The British chipped in with a cricket pitch, still in use. The Greeks, in turn, have brought volatility and a love of life (plus a seemingly equal love of chaos) to an already loopy mishmash of cultures. It was Durrell who noted that life on Corfu was occasionally similar to a comic opera. But he also described the island as a garden, and - despite some overbuilding along the coast - so it remains.
Walking in the interior takes you through scenes that haven't changed for centuries. In the hills north of Barbati, one of Durrell's favourite haunts, an ancient donkey trail winds its way upwards into a landscape of deep green hills, crisscrossed by valleys lined with cypresses. The mountain village of Episkepsis might never have seen a foreign visitor.
Travel Guide: Greece
Making a getaway
My husband David and I weren't too sure about the late deal our travel agent turned up. Wasn't Corfu full of lager louts and hotels overrun by kids? Thankfully, the answer is no.
Yes, there are areas to avoid if you want a quiet life (like Benitses) and yes, the idyllic island described by Gerald Durrell has become over-commercialised, but it still has some lovely spots - Paleokastritsa is one of them.
Corfu Town is an interesting place, with its esplanade where we watched cricket and had coffee in the elegant Parisian-style arcade, which is lit up with lovely old lanterns by night. An easy place to spend a day.
We went in September when the season's winding down and is more pleasant. Hiring a car, we explored the north and west coasts. Every now and again we hit a pocket of mass tourism, but simply jumped back in the car. Heading away from the coast is also a good plan - in the island's interior Mt Pantokrator can be found among some more traditional mountain villages.
Travel Guide: Greece
Land of coves and cricket
From the Daily Mail
Corfu is still among Greece's most popular destinations. Here's my island guide . . .
THE NORTH
The three main resorts on the north coast look great in brochures - both are lined with miles of golden sand. But they aren't the most beautiful places to stay, being little more than strips of modern development along the beaches.
Of the three, Akaravi is less attractive than Roda, which at least has some relatively smart apartment blocks. For preference, though, I'd pick Sidari - one of Corfu's biggest resorts with a huge beach and a busy nightlife.
THE NORTH-EAST
This is by far my favourite part of Corfu. The wooded mountains of the northeast coast slip into the sea forming dozens of tiny pebble coves and beaches - hidden from the road and invariably supplied with at least one delightful little taverna.
The water is clear, the swimming wonderful and the accommodation - mostly hillside villas - the best on Corfu.
This is not, however, an ideal area for small children - there are too many steep hills and shelving beaches to contend with.
But if you enjoy wonderful landscapes, sea views and quiet days in a beach taverna, you won't find anywhere better.
Travel Guide: Greece
Classy times with Contiki
Forget stereotypical 18-30s holidays and welcome Contiki's new, upmarket all-inclusive holiday instead, said the brochure advertising my trip to Mykonos.
As I reached shakily for a glass of water, painkillers and a pair of sunglasses, I thought back to the night before and tried to forget weaving around the dancefloor, flapping my luminous-coloured glow sticks (green, yellow and red depending on whether you fancied pulling or not) in time to Wham! favourite Club Tropicana.
I knew it was time to leave the hotel's nightclub, Blue, when people started spelling out words on the dance floor like 'lust', 'love', 'sexy'. Was it how they were feeling? Or the only words they could manage after the wine, beer and ouzo chasers that we'd all been drinking since lunchtime? I wasn't sure I wanted to find out.
Okay, so the trip hadn't been the epitome of classy so far, but it was only day two - there was plenty of time to get upmarket.
The next day looked promising. We were going to the nearby island of Delos, a Unesco world heritage site and mythical birthplace of Apollo and Artemis. It wasn't included in the all-inclusive price but it was definitely the sort of thing you'd expect that would appeal to the sophisticated urbanites Contiki was hoping to attract.
Don't get me wrong. It was interesting how archaeologists had rebuilt parts of this third-century BC town by hand. But clearly no-one was half as enthusiastic as they'd been the previous night while raging drunkenly around the dancefloor, bopping to cheesy disco hits.
And since a freak force-10 gale had suddenly blown in from Siberia, everyone was quite happy to retire to a toasty harbourside restaurant in Mykonos town to alleviate last night's hangovers with a jug or two of wine.
Which got me thinking. Do single British people aged 18 to 35 really want a mature, upmarket holiday in a posh hotel on a classy Greek island. Or do they want a lively, drunken, pulling holiday which just pretends to be more upmarket than Club 18-30?
In which case, Contiki's idea was quite clever. Mykonos is a suitably stylish island with plenty of cool bars, designer shops and lively clubs. The resort has simply furnished rooms, but with nice extras like air-conditioning, bathrobes and balconies. And the all-inclusive idea gives it a bit more kudos than your average package trip.
Travel Guide: Greece
Chrani: A stress-free, Greek getaway
Last June, my wife and I visited Chrani on the Greek mainland after reading a brochure which stated "This is as far away from it all as it gets".
How right they were. Chrani consists of four small apartment blocks, three restaurants, two bars, two mini-markets and a beach.
For good local food you dream about, we can recommend the Garden restaurant.
Next door was a bar and a mini-market so you can eat, drink and do your shopping in one go.
The bar was well frequented and by the end of two weeks we were part of the locals' extended family from all parts of the world.
Chrani is very low-key and it's about what you make of it. It's not for young families or the 18-30s.
If you want a holiday that is value for money, with good food and which removes all stress, Chrani is the place.
Within 12 hours of arriving home, we had booked again for this year.
Travel Guide: Greece
Not too many home comforts
I have just returned from Kalamaki, Zante. I had a very quiet and relaxing holiday. The Greek people were very friendly and helpful.
The island is famous for the Loggerhead turtles. Unfortunately, I never saw a real one, only replicas in the shops.
The weather was very hot and the food was great. I would recommend the resort only to people who don't care too much for home comforts and are easily pleased with very little facilities in their apartment. I was assured that all Greece was the same.
Travel Guide: Greece
Italy and back in minutes
From the Daily Mail
On the waterfront, relishing a breakfast of spinach pie and black coffee in the shade of a heavily-laden pomegranate tree, I felt triumphant. I had just staked my claim to a world record. Smiling, snowy-headed locals who had witnessed the feat confirmed it had never been done before. It would look good in the Guinness Book Of Records, I mused: The first person to swim, non-stop, from Greece to Italy - and back.
'Oh dear, you forgot to time yourself,' my wife chuckled. 'Ah well, I'll have to do it again before lunch,' I grinned. 'Nothing like getting the rehearsal right.'
The rocky, 600-yard, turtle-shaped islet of St Nicholas is a mere 200 yards off the northern tip of the seductive Greek island of Zante. But - more than 200 miles from Italy - it remains Italian, an outpost from the 300-year Venetian occupation of Zante.
Incredibly, uninhabited St Nicholas, passed on to Vatican ownership, was overlooked in the island's unification with Greece in 1864. So the international swimming record could legitimately be claimed, but I decided not to pursue the idea. I hadn't packed a stopwatch, anyway.
Idyllic, verdant Zante (population 37,000) is a small island, 23 miles by ten, roughly the size of the Isle of Wight. It captivated us. We explored the gem in the oh-so-blue Ionian Sea first by boat, taking a leisurely day-long cruise from Zante Town aboard the 145ft Delfini, which never reached its top speed of 17 knots.
There are 25 beautiful, top-rated beaches - and countless deserted coves accessed only by boat - on the island, including the longest in Greece, the six miles of golden sands at Laganas Bay, the breeding ground of the loggerhead turtle.
From the Delfini, we spied all of the beaches, stopping for a dip at three of them. The absolute must-stop is Smugglers' Cove in St George's Bay. Here, half-buried in the sand, lies the rusting wreck of a cigarette-smuggling cargo ship which ran aground in the late Eighties. It is one of the most famous sights of Greece, though suspicion surrounds the shipwreck story. Perhaps, so perfectly placed, bang in the middle of the cove, it was beached deliberately. What a coup by the island's tourism spin doctors.
At Cape Skinari, we were astonished as the sleek, white Delfini nosed into the Blue Caves. The refraction of the light turns everything in the water blue, even the boats.
Travel Guide: Greece
So discreet in Crete
From the Daily Mail
There was a time when Crete, to me, was loud clothes, clubs and loadsa ouzo and lemonade to wash down the pizza. But that was then. Today I'm two decades too old for the club scene and I've reached that stage where I no longer need the sun to sizzle. Just warm enough to sit outside eating yoghurt and fruits for breakfast will do nicely, thank you.
Nowadays I own walking boots and a book on wild flowers. So hello middle age; holidays in April and May and, hello Western Crete. Arriving was good. Hot afternoon sunshine and a little girly hire car to get my partner and I over the White Mountains to the south coast for the first part of a two-week holiday.
You know those charity boxes where you place a penny at the top and watch it zigzag to the bottom? Well that's what the fenceless mountain road to the tiny hamlet of Kapsodassos is like, with roadside shrines to those who didn't make it every mile or so just to make it a little more unnerving. But we made it to Nikita's House and the tension and stress dripped away.
The house is surprisingly un-Greek, with large rooms and a plain plaster exterior. Behind us a tiny white church and mountains with snow on top. In front, nothing but goats and olive trees on a plain that slopes down to the sea which extends to Libya. We are on the extreme southern edge of Europe and there's definitely a brushstroke of Africa about this coastline.
I am bowled over by the wild flowers. There are so many, everywhere. Yellows, whites, reds and blues. All frilly and dancing alongside the lanes and up the hills. I have always loved the silvery romance of olive groves. But these wild Cretan spring flowers transform the groves into a heaven I wouldn't have believed possible.
We would regularly picnic in the fields, or on our terrace where the only noises are the purr of the fridge and the goat bells. Twice a day, the herd nibbles its way up from the coastal plain, through our garden, along our lane and back down into the olive groves.
On Easter night, we can hear the priest's voice from a distant church across the hills and at midnight we can see candles in the distance and fishermen's flares substituting for fireworks along the coast.
Travel Guide: Greece
Go in February
I went to Athens in February to visit a friend working as a nanny and was surprised at how warm it was. It felt like a late English spring, just what I needed to break up the February blues.
Crowds were practically non-existent. We climbed up to the Acropolis, which has a terrible reputation for crowds, but found only a small group of touring businessmen and a couple of families. I only wish that we'd thought to bring a good guidebook, because we didn't really know what we were looking at and it was the perfect opportunity to explore.
I was really surprised at how much of Ancient Greece remains, and how much of it is incorporated into modern Greek life. There are souvenir shops where there used to be a Turkish bazaar, just round the corner from the ruins of old Agora, near where you head up to the Acropolis.
And loads of restaurants and bars and little stalls selling spinach pie and baklava. It's almost like going to Stonehenge and finding chip shops set up in the outer circle.
The English laugh at the Americans when they come over and go on about how old everything is in Britain, but when I was in Athens I felt exactly the same way.
Travel Guide: Greece
Athens - revival of an ancient city
It's amazing what a bit of cash can do to change a city. Take Athens, for example.
The oldest among the world's oldest, and famed simply for being ancient, Athens is slowly emerging as one of Europe's most modern capital cities.
It's all been made possible by a huge chunk of money that's being spent racing towards the 2004 Olympic Games in less than year's time.
Anyone who's been to Athens may recall a hot, dusty, smoggy, car-choked, fume-polluted city. Now it's very different.
You'll still find the local people just as affable and welcoming, but now there's a new sense of urgency in the run-up to next year's Olympic Games.
The Greeks are spending a whopping 4.64 billion euros on new construction and renovations alone to bring Athens kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
Athens now has a new international airport, a new super-slick Metro system and this time next year should have an extra 210km of new road.
Men in yellow hard hats and bulldozers seem to appear around every corner.
Even the local hoteliers have been given 3,000 euros per room to spend on renovations, thus ensuring the thousands of spectators arriving for the Games will be suitably impressed.
For the tourist, the new Athens underground stations are especially worth visiting, if only to peruse the museum-like displays of ancient artefacts unearthed by workmen excavating the miles of tube train tunnels underneath the ancient city.
The 2,500-year-old Parthenon, sitting magestically on the Acropolis high above the city, is, of course, still the main reason people come to Athens, and even that's having a facelift.
Travel Guide: Greece
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The ancient Greek sites in Thrace are generally dull, but they spoke well of one at Maroneia, down a track so rough that I walked. Then the only other tourists of the trip turned up, a German couple in a hire car. We had a discussion about how far it was, which none of us knew, and they drove on without offering me a lift.
Four hundred yards on, I came upon them and the ruins of a theatre behind a chain-link fence. I left them and found a spot where the fence crossed a ditch so I could crawl underneath. Then I appeared inside and shouted to them to come round. They crawled through with cries of delight, while I nobly forbore to point out that this was an example of the British dash and initiative which explained why we had won the war.
This brings me to the third reason for going to Thrace - there are virtually no tourists. An elderly Englishman on a bicycle is quite a curiosity, and I had many pleasant encounters as a result.
Outside Porto Lagos there are two lovely churches built out at sea and reached by a long wooden bridge. The builder in charge of restorations said he liked the English as they and the Greeks stood shoulder to shoulder in the war. This idea he illustrated by holding an imaginary gun and going 'pow pow' like a small boy. He was so carried away that he said he felt we were friends.
'Well, my friend,' said I, 'you can take my photograph for my wife.' So he did.
I enjoyed the rest of the journey, but for a cyclist who wants to visit Thrace I have found a simpler method. Fly to the island of Thasos, cross to the mainland, follow the river Nestos and turn right.
Lounging with the lizard ladies
A day's boat trip provided an all-round view of the island and a golden time swimming, sunbathing and snoozing. The Triton was a cheery boat. Her bell, inscribed 'In memory of happy ouzo times with Sotiris', hung encouragingly over the heads of three women, skins tanned to the consistency of old lizard. Judging by the trio's frequent visits to the free bottles in the stern, the ship's fine tradition was in no danger of lapsing.
While my friend Helena surfaced to report that snorkelling had revealed only a pair of jeans and a can of beans, those who stayed on board had better luck. Dropping baited lines over the rail, we hauled in little grey fish which the crew barbecued for a beach picnic.
We stopped at the pilgrim monastery of St Michael Panormitis, where painted saints looked down from the vaulted ceiling and haloes gleamed through two centuries' worth of grime. The saint was famous for his miracles, said the lay brother in charge of the museum. Ornate lamps, embroideries and icons hung from its walls, the gifts of rescued shipwrecked sailors and petitioners who had successfully enlisted St Michael's help.
Back on board, we found the lizard ladies temporarily deprived of their tumblers while a bearded Orthodox priest completed a short service. Sprinkling holy water from a bunch of fresh herbs, he blessed the Triton for the summer season ahead.
We later climbed the cobbled stairway that does duty for a street up to the Chorio, Symi's original village, high above the harbour. There, in the shadow of its crusader castle, Symi retreats into an older past through narrow alleys where the elders dozed at pavement cafe tables. Much of the Chorio has yet to recover from the bombs that fell during the German retreat in 1945. Fig trees invade ruined walls where chickens murmur and music seeps from behind sagging shutters.
A popular daily excursion from crowded Rhodes, Symi town can get busy. But in the spring, only a small proportion of the day's visitors venture beyond here, leaving most of the island's pebbled beaches and dazzlingly clear water relatively untenanted.
A short bus and taxi boat ride took us to Santa Marina, where a leisurely swim landed us on a tiny island. We had it to ourselves, apart from the lizards - real ones, this time - sunning themselves on the chapel steps.
By night, Symi town was itself again. Lights winked from waterside shops and tavernas, and from the chartered yachts bobbing against the quayside.
Should we splash out on Manos's expensive taverna fish tank, try again to learn to love retsina, buy a sponge or dawdle over dinner in that little place beyond the boatyard? Decisions, decisions. It's hard work being on holiday. Thank goodness for a decent night's sleep.
Surrounded by lemon trees
The rocky coves of the northern tip of the island, reached by tortuous tracks, are entirely deserted and even in June the more popular beaches dotted along the west coast were never crowded. My favourite was Kastani, a sandy bay surrounded by wooded hillsides.
Further down the coast, the village of Agnontas is renowned for its seafood restaurants.
At one waterside taverna Pavlos invited us into his kitchen to choose from a huge selection of fish caught that morning.
For local specialities, head for Perivoli, a short walk from the main square in Skopelos Town.
Here, in Reginos' orchard surrounded by lemon trees, we tucked into mussels in basil and tomato, beef with smoked aubergine puree and a delicious pork dish with apples and prunes in a wine sauce.
The town itself is archetypal Greece - a cluster of pretty white-washed houses cascade down the hillside around the bay, their wooden balconies smothered in geraniums and bougainvillea.
Heather Parsons, an English woman who runs walking tours of the island, led us past the tavernas and craft shops along the harbour and up through a maze of stone-paved alleyways.
'There are more than 100 churches here,' she told us as we paused for breath in front of the tiny chapel of Agios Michaelis, 'but this one is really special.'
She pointed to massive slabs of pink rock which formed the cornerstones.
'These are sarcophagi from the Minoan or Neolithic age,' she said. 'How they came to be incorporated into a 17th-century church nobody knows.'
With few archeological remains on the island, this is likely to remain a mystery.
Coffee with the Moni Thari monks
On the edge of a pine forest, the hills were interspersed with tiny olive groves and broken ground, which orchids seem to like, especially the papilionacca, the butterfly orchid. We left Richard to his photography. He met Manfred the next day and they visited a remote site Kari-Ann and I had discovered in the south near Kottavia; a marshy area mottled with rare flowers and swarming with tadpoles.
By that time we had become little weary of staring intently at the ground, so Kari-Ann and I wandered off into the forest and headed to a river swollen by the spring rains. We paddled in secluded pool where tiny fish darted between our legs.
Tracing the course of the river upstream, we set off for the monastery of Moni Thari, but progress was slow as we zigzagged across the river with the sun drifting between clouds. The valley widened and tamarisk, myrtle and the most delicious thyme filled the breeze with their bee-appealing scents.
We didn't meet a soul until, quite exhausted, we came to Moni Thari, nestling by a mountain ridge, its tiny church covered with frescos. Young monks in black robes offered us strong, sweet coffee. We managed to cadge a ride back with some German tourists and took the opportunity to display some of my newly acquired orchid expertise, which petered out when it came to remembering the Latin names.
There are many books on the subject of orchids - Richard showed me his library book with 25 'return by . . .' stamps in it, all of them his - and you soon develop an instinct for the right sites. Alternatively, just take a walk near the Med in the spring and you may find an orchid hunter Britannica, like we did, and quiz him.
The flowers are truly amazing and can easily cast a spell not only over insects, but humans, too. And remember orchids are quite easily missed and trodden on, so go softly - and good hunting.
A sweeping panorama
'A Frankish knight called William of Villehardouin built the castle atop the hill,' explains Georgia. 'He was a descendent of crusaders who had colonised the Peloponnese. He was so troubled by warlike tribes that he vowed to build an impregnable castle.'
I ask Georgia if we can climb to the top. 'You go,' she says, pointing guiltily to a packet of cigarettes. 'I can't get up there any more.'
I clamber up the steep scree path. The higher I climb, the more spectacular the view. I have a sweeping panorama across the southern Peloponnese.
The villages of Sparta, Gerakion and Chrisafa lie below. In the distance, a line of purple mountains are enveloped in purple haze. Beyond them lies the picturesque port of Monemvasia.
This lush green landscape is dotted with vineyards, perfumed orange groves and tidy vegetable plots.
Crusader William certainly knew how to build a castle. The sheer hilltop is enclosed with monumental walls.
On the side facing the wilds of Mount Taygetos -home to William's enemies - there's a vertigo-inducing drop into the valley below.
The tribes must have shaken their heads in despair as they watched these foreign knights at work.
William's good fortune was not to last. Captured by the mighty Byzantine army, he tried to flee in disguise. But his goofy front teeth betrayed him.
Although his life was spared, he was forced to hand over his beloved Mystra castle.
I climbed back down to Georgia, who was waiting -cigarette in hand - by the Palace of the Despots.
Uncrowded beaches
They have a history: resistance to the Turks and the Nazis, caves where Greek legends and culture were taught secretly, keeping them alive down the generations.
Some, like Zagora, served the silk industry. Others have turned to the happy business of raising flowers.
Many buildings are three-storey from the days when animals lived on the ground floor. With commonly two levels of stone and a top storey of wood, they are handsome affairs.
These villages, their squares, churches and arcs of green branches, are a new and graceful experience.
Most visitors will stay on the coast and visit the forest. We chose the largest and best equipped village on either side of the peninsula, Aghios Ioannis, known locally as Ay Yannis (St John popularised as St Jack!).
It has a front of about half a mile and all the hotels, tavernas, and mini-markets you need, but they are plain and Greek, not a neon strip in sight.
Our hotel, the Eleanna - run by sisters-in-law Elena and Anna, grandfather Yannis, a family friend and three female employees - sits in a garden of roses and lemon trees and is simple, friendly and good.
There are three long, uncrowded beaches, of which Papa Nero is the best. The resort was refreshingly quiet. You could swim in the Aegean, walk in the shade, and dine on a meze and local fish for about £9 a head.
There are caveats. The local tour agency, Les Hirondelles, does trips through the forest and to the stunning Meteora monasteries well.
But a slow start delayed their promising sea cruise along both sides of the peninsula. And Kosmar, our travel company, should not talk lightly about 'walking between the forest villages'.
You do so on the kalderimia, mule tracks with ridges of stone and loose rocks, often at steep gradients. Our descent from Tsangarada, a fine village, edged into the near vertical. Fell-walkers and strongminded parties with scorn for vertigo can walk between the villages.
Otherwise, there are few taxis and the bus is at 7am - the downside of staying civilised.
TRAVEL DETAILS:
Call Kosmar on 0870 7000 747 or visit http://www.kosmar.co.uk. Call Tapestry Holidays on 0208 235 7800 or visit http://www.tapestryholidays.com.
Forest-covered crags
One of the prettiest was Makrynitsa, in the mountains above Volos, with panoramic views over the city and the Pagasitic Gulf to the blue mountains beyond.
This was one of the few places geared to tourism and the cobbled pathway was lined with souvenir shops selling wooden carvings, ceramic pots and worry beads.
The road up the north-east coast zigzags round the cliff edge where forest-covered crags plunge.
A tortuous lane descends to Damouchari, a tiny natural harbour in the rocks. There are just a couple of shops and tavernas here and we stopped to browse round Victoria's boutique. She was better than a personal shopper. A friend was tempted to buy a sundress and she immediately volunteered to alter it for her, while we waited, for no extra charge.
It was a good excuse to stay for lunch as her mother ran the restaurant next door. No one spoke English, but we were invited to choose from a range of pots of squid, chicken, lentils and beans bubbling on the stove. This was the norm in many restaurants.
High on the cliffs above, the village of Tsagarada boasts the oldest plane tree in Greece, supposedly 1,000 years old.
Just off the square we came across a wonderfully eccentric hotel run by an English woman, Jan Bussoff. The Lost Unicorn was just like an old-fashioned English country house, crammed with antiques, where we drank tea from bone china cups.
After four days of white-knuckle driving, I was in need of a rest and decided to take some of the organised excursions. The tour of the mountain villages of Milies and Vizitsa includes a trip on Pelion's only railway. The little train with its wooden and brass carriages departs from the coastal resort of Ana Laconia and chugs up the steep hillside past orange groves.
The 90-minute journey was spectacular, taking us through narrow cuttings in the rock and across stone bridges spanning deep, green gorges. But the rest of the excursion was disappointing, with no time to visit the beautifully restored houses.
Resurrecting Argostoli
Kefalonia is the biggest of the Ionian islands, a chain of mountainous jewels strung out along Greece's western coastline. It takes two hours to drive from the north to the south of the island, across rugged terrain dotted with olives and wild thyme. The highest peak, Mount Enos, is 1,000ft higher than Ben Nevis; its northernmost port, Fiskardo, is perhaps the most picturesque fishing village in Greece.
Strangely, the island was last on the list of possible locations when film producer Kevin Loader began his search for the ideal place to shoot Captain Corelli's Mandolin. 'We had numerous requirements and searched throughout Greece to find the perfect location,' he says. 'But there were always major drawbacks.'
The neighbouring island of Ithaca was considered but rejected. 'There were simply not enough hotel rooms for the crew.' The port of Khania in Crete seemed ideal, except for the town's prominent mosque. Next to be rejected was a handful of locations on the Peloponnese, while Corfu - the favoured choice - was too overrun with tourists.
'And then,' says Loader, 'I was sailing towards the Kefalonian port of Sami and I thought "this is it". 'Although all of the old buildings had been destroyed by the 1953 earthquake, there was a harbour deep enough to anchor large warships - an important factor - and a stunning mountainous backdrop.'
The more the film crew explored, the more they realised that Sami was the perfect place to recreate the pre-war capital of Argostoli. The main building on the waterfront was a hotel, the Kastro, which they were able to block-book for the duration of filming. The other buildings were either derelict or their owners were willing to lend them for filming. Within months, the waterfront was receiving the biggest makeover of its life.
The older islanders were amazed to see their one-time capital being resurrected on the other side of the island by a team of British set designers, craftsmen and engineers. 'They brought their grandchildren to show them around,' says Loader. 'They told them, "this is what it used to be like".'
They were even more surprised to see warships anchored in the harbour and German tanks being unloaded on to the quayside.
Many locals still have painful memories of the wartime atrocities that happened on Kefalonia. The barbarous massacre of the Italians by the Nazis, recounted in chilling detail in the novel, was not invented by Louis de Bernieres. 'One old man told me he was witness to the horror,' said Loader. 'The butchered Italians were not buried for five or six days. He could still smell the stench.'
Filming continued for much of last summer, allowing visitors a fascinating insight into the makings of a blockbuster movie with destroyers in the bay, troops drilling in the streets and battered armoured cars being driven to various locations. 'The Greek navy has lent us warships and landing craft,' said Loader. 'We've also borrowed real troops as extras.'
Mystifying Melissani
Still searching for the romance that is Greece, I took a trip on the boat Romantika to the town of Assos. A cold sea-sprayed hour away, Assos is even smaller than Fiskardo. Here, however, the food is similarly divine (in the harbour I ate the best homemade baklava imaginable), and the town boasts a medieval fortress on top of the hill. The winding, dusty walk up to the top of the hill is more rewarding, in a way, than the fortress itself, which lies in ruins.
A Jeep ride around the island took me to the mystic caves of Drogarati and Melissani. The Drogarati cave is a vast, musky, underground cavern, which, because of its superb acoustics, is used for mandolin concerts during the summer.
The Melissani lake is even more mystifying. The place is a rare natural phenomenon - an inland, underground salt water lake with no tide. I descended a steep concrete ramp to the edge of the water that fills the bottom of the cave. A raddled Charon-like boatman picked me up from the edge of the lake, then propelled his wooden craft around the water with a long thin oar.
The lake, although 100ft deep in places, is bright blue and totally clear. Eels swim in the water below the boat, and around the sides of the lake hang strange salt water stalactites. As part of his patter, the boatman pointed out the ones which might look familiar. 'Look - Dumbo!' he said, pointing to a formation in the shape of an elephant's head. As he rowed on, the only sounds in the cave were the splash of the oar and the dripping of water down from the stalactite.
I was amazed as I travelled around the island that even in the more touristy areas like the town of Argostoli, there is no attempt to cash in on the Corelli phenomenon. Tourism began to boom quietly on Cephalonia several years before the novel's publication, and any recent increase in tourism seems largely incidental, not consequential.
On my final night in Kefalonia, I left Fiskardo and made my way to a brand-new hotel to the south of Argostoli. Owners Nikos and Sofia have built a very luxurious hotel, by Greek standards, on top of a high hill overlooking Trapezaki Bay. Nikos spent 20 years working as a jewellery maker in New York, and returned to his native Cephalonia to build his dream. On this opening night, Nikos and Sofia were not in the high spirits one might have expected.
They were thin, drawn and pale. According to their two friends from Aberystwyth, they have both gone down two sizes in clothes in the past few months, and haven't slept for weeks because of the sheer worry of their enterprise.
During the long, drunken evening that followed, Nikos confided that in building his hotel he had made only one mistake - he'd never worked in the hotel business before. Such was the intimacy of this despair in the face of success, that I found myself guiltily longing to laugh.
Here, in this deserted palace at the crown of a hill, I finally found some of the charm of Captain Corelli's Mandolin. The proud and pessimistic spirit which pervades the book is alive and well in the Cephalonia of today.
Invisible, mysterious village
'Homer mentions a type of ancient wooden door lock - they still use them there.'
He indicated with his chin towards the mountains and the invisible, mysterious village.
I was bound from Rhodes to Crete. 'Karpathos, Olymbos, v traditional. Must come back here,' I noted in my travel journal. That was in 1994. This year, I finally made it.
Not so long ago, eastern Crete, too, had been undiscovered, untamed and very traditional - not any more. Mass tourism had ruined a whole coast. The Militant Lager Tendency has taken over.
In Agios Nikalaos, once a lovely fishing village (now known as 'Ag Nik' to the MLT), you can get a tattoo while slurping down pints and watching Becks on widescreen.
A ferry leaves Agios Nikalaos for Karpathos three times a week. I bought a deck-class ticket for £11. There were 12 passengers, none with tattoos. Perhaps Karpathos was still undiscovered.
Seven hours later, we steamed into the port of Pigadia, the island's capital. No high-rises, few cars, no rows of anchored yachts - instead a lovely crescent bay, caiques and moored fishing boats, a whitewashed village with waterside tavernas.
This was more like it. It's a happy Greek island where locals outnumber tourists.
'Is there a bus from Pigadia up to Olymbos?' I'd asked the man who sold me the ferry ticket in Crete. 'Sure,' he replied, with confidence.
Slight correction at the bus station in Pigadia: 'Well, there was a bus, but it fell off the mountain, unfortunately. It's better to take the boat. They go every day at 8.30am and return at 4.30pm.'
There were two boats, actually, moored next to each other. Both had big signs in English boasting 'Cheapest Fare to Diafani Every Day!' In a way, they were both telling the truth as they charged the same -£11 a head.
You could also get boats to the island's beaches of Kyra Panagia and Apella for £6.50, both of which offer great skin diving.
Fjord-like Vathi harbour
Close to the spring is a decaying building, once a hotel. Reputedly Maria Callas and Winston Churchill were among those who soaked up the stunning, azure views towards Lefkas and mainland Greece. When the owner died, his two sons decided not to carry on. Some say they were too rich to be bothered, others that they could not agree on how it should be run. So now it slowly slides towards ruin. But the hotel lives on in memory.
An old lady walking with a donkey at the roadside was pointed out as having served tea to Churchill. The bay below is where the Royal Yacht Britannia anchored on the Prince and Princess of Wales's honeymoon so that Charles and Diana could enjoy a beach barbecue. They should have drunk the waters, mutter the locals, then all would have been well.
One of the highlights of a tour is at the pinched waist of the figure-of-eight island. As you go from the north to the less populated south, a riveting view of Cephalonia just two miles away across the sea is blocked out to be replaced in a trice by a beautiful view of the capital, Vathi.
From this distance the nondescript town is made attractive by a setting as spectacular as any Norwegian fjord. From Vathi, which offers regular ferries to Cephalonia, you can seek out the Homeric sites of the Arethousia springs and the Grotto of the Nymphs.
But always the north remains more entertaining. In busy Stavros one taverna advertises itself as the best on the island; another one says: 'You've tried the best, now try the worst.' High in the hills is Exoghi, a delightful rambling village where the island's ubiquitous stone terracing reaches gravity-defying heights except a closer look shows that gravity is winning.
The terracing is falling away, reflecting a decline in population from 1,700 in its winemaking heyday to 16 inhabitants, all over 70. Exoghi wine is still prized on the island but so scarce that the locals keep it to themselves, unless you are very lucky.
Ithaca is not for those pursuing watersports and the high life. Slowing down is what it's all about. And the way you get around reflects this. There are few buses and, though you can hire cars or mopeds, most people walk, take taxis - or hire a small boat.
The outboard motor is the perfect way to find a secluded cove or hunt down the ideal spot for snorkelling. So did I drink the waters of Kalamos? And will I be going back? Yes, and yes.
Dolphins in tow
Ionian dolphins, it seems, keep away from motor boats, but are curious about little red plastic canoes. One evening, camped on the shores of Kalamo, we saw a flotilla of bottlenoses cruising the channel between us and Mytika.
Launching our craft down the pebbly beach, like whalers in pursuit of Moby Dick, we got to within 100 yards before the creatures began showing off, leaping into striking poses so beloved of wood carvers. Two days later we also saw a rare and curious monk seal off Kalamo town.
Our fellow kayakers - we were nine in all - were a hardy bunch. Three had trekked in Kathmandu, over the Atlas mountains and to the foothills of Everest. The leader of our modest expedition, Steve, had been an Alpine mountaineer and whitewater canoeist.
When you have bivouacked on the North Face of the Eiger, clipped to the sheer rock by three hooks, a gentle paddle around the Ionian is no great hardship. Thus, with such excellent company round the evening barbecue fire, the lack of a guitar and knowledge of the words of Kumbayah were no loss.
The first campsite at Dessimo Bay was about an hour's paddle from Nidri, but full of Germans in fully equipped camper vans. We were not sorry to leave next day for Vathi, the main town on Meganisi. Three hours was enough to see us over this glassy stretch of blue, skirting Skorpios, that separates the island from Levkas.
Lunch of Greek salad and fish in a typical harbourside taverna set us up nicely for the short leg of our paddle to the next campsite.
Daniel, just 11, had no trouble keeping up, while his sister Ellie, nine, hitched a ride in the back of Steve's double kayak. By early afternoon we were unpacking the tents from our mother ship and building a fire on the beach.
The support vessel keeps a wary eye on stragglers, and those who crave a change from paddling can always jump on board. The lugger could tow the whole fleet, if it came to it, which it didn't. In the afternoons, while some of our group swam, others read or explored the hinterland. A few would set sail down the coast.
One welcome beer
Mark understandably refused to go mountain biking. I declined the paragliding, scared of doing an Icarus.
No - we would stick to good old-fashioned foot-slogging, starting with a gentle swim in the Mediterranean for a real sea-to-summit ascent.
Afternoon cloud massed on the highest peaks 10,000ft above and Stelios spoke darkly of 'overdeveloping' weather, so we postponed our departure until the morning, leaving on a clear dawn from the coastal village of Litochoro.
Ambitious plans for bushwhacking off the beaten track were banished by the temptation of a beautifully engineered path up the gorge of Mavrolongos, which means black on account of the dark forest of holly oak, walnut, chestnut, beech, fig and spindle.
You can bypass this five-hour section by driving up an alternative gravel track to the first wayside restaurant, but we preferred to walk.
And what a walk! No sign of mushrooms but gorgeous flowers everywhere, shady glades and ice-cold pools in the river if you really needed to cool off.
Half way up the gorge, Byzantine icons, candles and oil lamps decorate a whitewashed chapel nestling under a huge overhang - a precursor of the full-scale monastery further up the valley.
The latter was destroyed during-the German occupation but is being rebuilt.
Dedicated to Agios Dionysius, it seems a bizarre adoption by Orthodox Christianity of the pagan god of boozing.
Our own boozing was limited for the time being to one welcome beer at the roadhead restaurant.
Then the serious work started - a steady three-hour climb up a now steeper switchback trail.
Deciduous trees gave way to Balkan pines.
A blissful moment
Hotel La Cite was pleasant and workmanlike rather than luxurious; the staff friendly and efficient.
Our four-day 'Introduction to Yachting Course' was comprehensive and fun. There were four trainees in our group and ample opportunity for each of us to 'have a go' at the myriad tasks necessary to sail a yacht.
My ambivalence, I suppose, was evident from the start. Given that the yacht had an engine, why bother with main sails and jibs, reefing and trimming anyway?
However, after four days I was almost convinced. There is a blissful moment when the sails are up and the engine off and there is just the slap of water against the hull.
Having completed the course, we were deemed competent enough to join the flotilla of 12 boats for the second week.
We were assured that two people - albeit two people with only four days' sailing experience between them - could easily cope with the 28ft Margarita.
And it was true, we did cope. We made it to every port on our week-long odyssey in the Argolic Gulf, and by the necessary deadline. We sailed most of the time rather than relying on the engine (although I protested frequently about this).
Safety vastly improved
Islands within the seven main groups each tend to be linked by one shipping line, so it is simple to jump from one to the next, and more difficult to hop between the groups.
For this reason, it is probably best to take one, or part of one, group of islands at a time.
The main mode of transport between the islands is, of course, ferry. Between some islands in the Sporades, the Cyclades and Dodecanese, the larger car and passenger ferries are supplemented with the much smaller, and nippier, hydrofoils and catamarans, which have cut journey times between islands dramatically since their introduction in the 1980s and 90s.
The Greek passenger shipping industry has come a long way since the Express Samina disaster in September 2000, when 82 people died after the 35-year-old ferry crashed into rocks off the coast of Paros.
Older boats have been taken out of service and safety has vastly improved.
Unfortunately, ferries still have a tendency to either turn up late or sometimes even not at all.
The key is to be flexible and not to get too worried if your plans are pushed back a few days. You may have to leave out islands, so visit the most important ones to you first.
The Sporades in the western Aegean are a good choice for the first-timer, with one of the shortest journey times from the UK at just over three hours, only three main islands to see, and quick and easy hydrofoil and ferry connections.
Skiathos has the only airport, but those in search of a slower pace tend to head for its neighbours, Alonissos and Skopelos.
The largest island in the Sporades, Alonissos is also quietest.
Our accommodation on Alonissos, near a quaint port, had a rocky beach just a few steps from our front door, two supermarkets and a few tavernas selling fresh fish priced by the kilo and Greek salads the size of Mount Athos.
Ideal for families
For a family break with younger children where all you are looking for is peace and quiet, good local food and a beach, Paxos, just to the south of Corfu, is an excellent choice.
It's a small island (just seven miles long) of olive groves and pine woods with a handful of little ports and villages to enjoy and explore.
If even that sounds too busy, its tiny neighbour Antipaxos has a population of about 30 people, a few holiday houses and some lovely beaches.
Other good islands for quiet family holidays include Lemnos, Skopelos and Alonissos.Rural Greece is much neglected by holidaymakers - as a result they are missing out on some wonderful scenery and sights.
One of the best holidays of my life was a tour of the Peleponnese where we found some excellent empty beaches, glorious mountain landscapes and fascinating ancient sites.
It's true that this is not the sort of holiday for families who like nothing but sun, sea and sand. But if you like to get out and about, and enjoy being flexible - perhaps stopping for a few days by a beach, before spending a couple of days in the hills - then it's hard to beat.
As well as the Peleponnese, I recommend Crete. Last year I had a week in a quiet hill village but we were only 20 minutes from the beach. We felt part of the village, and had great fun exploring the vineyards, olive groves and local sights. Almost anywhere in the interior of the island is worth considering - though do check how far you will have to drive to get to the coast.
Mountain-hugging coast road
Then a tour bus came careering around the corner. The reality evaporated in a cloud of dust. It usually does.
As a holiday venue, as a civilised, sun-kissed, gently-paced town, as a base for exploring a fascinating island, Aghios Nikolaos would be hard to beat.
For one thing, the town is so beautifully constructed, like a Russian doll. It is folded into the curves of the seashore as if it has been there thousands of years.
A small lake, charmingly tranquil, opens out into a larger harbour, protected by an island, which then opens out into the mountain-fringed Gulf of Mirabelle, one of the most spectacular landscapes in the Mediterranean.
I could have spent hours admiring the changing colours on the far-away mountains: from a dappled amber in the morning to the most delicate shade of pink at sundown. The view was so tantalising that, like a man looking for the pot of gold at the end of rainbow, I had to get closer to it.
So I hired a car and spent a day driving along the mountain-hugging coast road to the east of Aghios Nikolaos.
It was rugged terrain. In places, you wondered why the road-builders had not given it up as a bad job and retired to the taverna for a bottle of retsina.
But the ruggedness was offset by the sheer beauty of the setting. Oleanders, pink and white, grew wild beside the road, mile after mile of them. Goats with bells around their necks zig-zagged up the mountainside, weaving their way through the stumpy olive trees.
Reminders of ancient civilisation
It's certainly a far cry from the Cretan Costa, a strip of modern restaurants, bars and hotels on the coast from the island's dusty capital, Heraklion, to busy Aghios Nikolaos. The peak months see wall-to-wall roasting on the beaches at thriving resorts such as Hersonissos and Malia - best avoided unless you're 18.
Less well-known is the island's south-western coast. Pausing at Loutro one day for lunch, we found picture-postcard Greece: a tiny medieval keep, white-cube houses, the smell of oregano and grilling fish rising from waterside bars. And coves with indigo depths and aquamarine shallows offering some of the best swimming on the island.
Wherever you make your base, you will find plenty of excursions and plenty of people eager to sell them to you. But have a good look at the map before you succumb, unless you want to spend most of the day in a tour-bus: this is the 'Big Island', after all.
Take the beach at Vai, for example: although much touted by the brochures for its forest of tropical palm trees, I found it a letdown.
For one thing, the palms are not picturesque coconut but stumpy date, and they're hemmed in by an ugly chainlink fence. More rewarding is a trip to Lasithi, the so-called 'plain of windmills' - a lush, green patch among barren mountains where wind-pumps lazily turn thousands of windmills. The views alone are striking, but the main attraction is the giant Diktean Cave, a shadowy complex of limestone spires and stalactites where, supposedly the god Zeus was born. The atmosphere is eerie rather than majestic.
Just two miles outside Heraklion, Knossos was once the sophisticated capital of the 4,000-year old Minoan empire, which spanned much of the Aegean sea. The site's excavator, Sir Arthur Evans, drew freely on his imagination to restore the ruins, lending a distinctly Disneyesque touch to many of the frescos. Yet it's still impressive, and worth the detour.
But perhaps the most popular excursion of all is following the spectacular Samaria Gorge trail through what is, at 11 miles, the longest ravine in Europe, and a national park.
Little Omalos, high in the White Mountains, is the starting-point for this six-hour hike past dramatically narrow canyons and wildflower-sprinkled woods. The walk requires a full day's commitment.
After dropping me and my fellow walkers at Omalos, our coach went to the coastal resort of Chora Sfakion where it waited to pick us up in the late afternoon. In order to meet it, though, we weary hikers still had a short boat-ride ahead of us eastwards from Aghia Roumeli. But not before I'd downed that ice-cold beer - and slice of pizza - I'd been fantasising about for the last hour of the hot, thyme-scented trail.
A warm welcome
Not a souvenir shop or tourist menu in sight. I arrived in the plateia, watched by a few curious locals, one of whom filled a bottle with water from a spring and passed it to me.
I fielded a few typically Greek questions - how much did I earn, was I married, how many children did I have - before setting off again, refreshed.
And just as Durrell encountered many colourful characters on his rambles so, on a high ridge, I ran into the local beekeeper. He seemed pleased to see me, waving me on with a gap-toothed salute.
Time was when visitors to Corfu insisted on being by the sea. Wise ones, like the locals before them, have forsaken the high temperatures and overcrowding of the coast for the cool, quiet interior.
My base was a rented villa near Kalami, tucked away in the olive groves with a terrace looking over the bay to the mainland. Kyria Eleni, the owner's black-clad granny, arrived on my first morning bearing a litre of olive oil and some cheese. This gesture of welcome was a reminder that the Greek word for 'foreigner' is the same as 'guest'.
She chattered in lopsided English, while I tried even more lopsided Greek. Goodwill is more important than grammar in this situation. We shared a cup of coffee in contented silence.
Off in the distance, fishing boats trailing delicate wakes crisscrossed the pale blue bay. Kyria Eleni pointed a bony finger out at the view and smiled. 'Poli orea,' she said. Yes, indeed. Very beautiful.
To see Corfu at its best, you need to get out on the water. Skimming over the waves in a rented boat, I headed towards tiny bays that reached out towards seaborne arrivals like an encircling arm.
The top five coves
There are about a dozen coves and small resorts to choose from, including my top five: Kaminaki: Perhaps the prettiest of the smaller coves, with little more than a cluster of traditional-style houses gathered around the beach.
Agni: Famous for its three top-quality but good-value tavernas, it has few places to stay, but a wonderful, sheltered pebble beach ideal for a day trip or lunch stop.
Agios Stephanos: This is my pick of all the northeastern bays. Sometimes called San Stephano, it has only a tiny corner of a beach, so it isn't ideal for young families.
However, the harbour front, with a handful of tavernas and small apartment blocks, is surely one of Greece's prettiest - perfect for quiet couples or honeymooners.
Amvlaki: A long, curving bay with an often empty pebble beach and hardly any development. Very scenic, very peaceful.
Kassiopi: Much bigger than all the other bays and resorts on this coast put together, Kassiopi is based around an old fishing port. It has managed to keep its character, despite lots of holiday development.
The beach is all right - pebbly and a bit scruffy - but many people hire a car to drive to the sandier options on the nearby north coast. Great for a lively but civilised holiday.
Sloshed in style
So you can choose - pretend you're on a glamorous luxury break as you relax in the wellness centre, watch a DVD in the chill-out lounge or play a set or two of tennis on the hotel's court.
Or join the resort's happy-clappy reps - the Contiki Action Planners - belting out a tune at the karaoke special, hit the pool for Perfect Match where you can play the game of luurve, or be a judge in the Man O Man competition where there's an hour of half-price drinks to get you fired up.
As the holiday progressed it became obvious which road we were taking. The veneer of sophistication had completely worn off as we struggled to get up for the last few minutes of brunch (last orders 11am), looked forward to the Cocktail Mixology class (so we could slosh in as much restorative vodka in our Sex On The Beach drink as possible) and all developed juvenile, teenage crushes on each other.
Yes, we had a dressed-up evening in town, watching the sun set over picturesque Mykonos Town and harbour from the plush, hillside Oniro Bar and had a traditional Greek meal in a friendly taverna in town. But it was all window dressing for the main action - dancing all night in Space nightclub (entry 15 Euros), pulling in Scandi Bar and skinny dipping on the beach at 3am.
So if you are looking for a fun, lively holiday in the sun but don't want to embarrass yourself be saying you're going on a Club 18-30 trip, Contiki has created the perfect alternative, with all the fun, in an 'upmarket' package.
An all-inclusive seven-night package to Contiki Resort, Mykonos (020 8290 6422; website: www.contikiresorts.com ) including flights, transfers, accommodation, brunch and buffet dinner at Ocean Restaurant, free entry to Blue nightclub, tennis, volleyball and organised activities costs from £349 per person in June.
Alcoholic drinks cost extra, with beer at £2, a glass of wine £1.35 and a gin and tonic £4.40. A four-course meal in a seafront taverna costs around £8pp excluding wine.
Feeling inspired? Book a holiday.
Exploring an enchanted island
The rugged west coast of the island is awesome - sheer 1,000ft cinder-toffee cliffs plunging into the sea, alongside towering limestone arches and shadowy tunnels fashioned by erosion.
On land, we didn't leave a stone un |
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