Greece

Antoine's view

Corfu was our first call in Greece: it reminds me of childhood memories where Nana Mouskouri was singing « Each night I think of you, white roses of Corfu ». The island I reckon is a big garden. True, tourism has been present for a long time, still its inhabitants keep on living a peaceful life. The island is more fertile than the other Ionian islands that are farther south such as Cephalonia, Leucade, and Zante. We will follow Homer's Odyssee everywhere, for this is where Ithaque and Ulysse's island lay.

Among all Ionian islands, I had a special crush on Cephalonia which I found spectacular with its beaches - among the ones in Greece with most photographs taken- and above all with its tiny harbours with coloured houses. Emperors of the Ancient Greek civilisation tried to dig here, a French company failed in its attempt, and it was not until the end of the XIXth century that the Canal of Corinth eventually opened and enabled the ships to save themselves from a long detour around the Peloponnese.

Our little catamaran bravely went through and penetrated the Aegan Sea, whose hundreds of numerous islands stretch under the sun: from Sporades to Chio, from Lesbos to the Dodecanese and to the island of Rhodes. We skimmed quite a number of these islands, starting with two islands among the closest from Athens and which are still well preserved.

First, Hydra where the garbage truck is the only motorized vehicle you will hear and where you will find many mules and donkeys. Then, Spetsai is the island where the Bouboulina - considered as the Greek Joan of Arc was born. At the time of the Greek revolution, she had sent war ships with her own fortune to take part in fighting against the Turks.

The southern part of the Aegan Sea is home to a group of islands which form a circle around the sacred island of Delos. This is why they were named the Cyclades Islands. The most well-known are Mykonos, Milos, and Santorin. They are surrounded by a myriad of less famous islands such as Paros, Naxos, Andros, Tinos, and Folegandros. Not long ago, trips from one island to another were only operated by local antique boats called caïcs. Today, connections are operated by ferries, and some of them on hydrofoils cruise at an incredible speed. You better not find yourself in their way with a tiny boat!

My past cruises have often taken me to this archipelago; in the immense roadsted of Milos, where one anchors right in front of the capital Adamantas, or in front of the excquisite village of Klima, which looks just like a perfect tiny Greek harbour. The ground floor of the coloured and aligned houses on the beach serves as a boathouse and the first floor is where people live. Off Klima, you might find in the far deep the arms of Milo's Venus, for they were cut off and lost when the statue was loaded on the boat taking it to the Louvre museum.
Mykonos and Delos are of course a must. There, you will find the souvenir of pelican Pedro and you will see that intense tourism in the summer has not completely deteriorated the island. Changes have taken place with taste and one can wonder whether this can be accounted by the fact that tourists who go there are mostly homosexual. In any case, the immense city of Delios, filled with ruins will fuel your thoughts.
Amorgos is streched from east to west like a big eel and has a famous white stain on the back of the cliffs of the southern coast: the monastery where Luc Besson shot scenes of The Big Blue. Santorin is a milestone in the history of civilisations: in the central volcano, in the incredible colours of the cliffs next to which the villages of Thira and Oia are dangerously settled, everywhere one sees the traces of a gigantic volcano eruption. Fifteen centuries before our era, the latter trigerred waves as high as 250 meters until the shores of Crete, meaning one hundred milles south and undoubtedly ruined one day the brilliant Minoenne civilisation, which had constructed the fabulous temple of Cnossos.
Yet, Crete is an immense island we will also be visiting, for one lives longer there today than elsewhere.