(4 of 10)
Half a world away in space and an immeasurable distance away in time, lies another, very different, islomane's paradise, stark rather than idyllic, with a beauty that stems from a civilization's past rather than from the primitive's eternal present. Its gnarled hand stretching into the sea as if to grasp the scattered islands beyond, Greece is considerably more than a tumble of pagan ruins from which a hardy people peels a sparse existence. There are only a few first-rate hotels and restaurants in all of the country; the food often ranges from the dull to the frightening; the night life is virtually nonexistent. Yet the country flows with a haunting harmony of landscape and sea bathed in limpid light, creating a profile of savage beauty that somehow makes cuisine and hot running water secondary matters.
Best way to see northern Greece and the Peloponnesus below is by private auto or touring bus, or barring that, a chauffeur-driven car. Greek drivers are very expensive, though, and they have a way of plummeting down sheer-faced mountain roads in neutral, unless passengers first exact an ironclad promise that the car will remain in low. From Athens, the package tours or road maps lead to the standard, must-see show places on both the hand and the palm of Greece. Beyond Delphi and Mount Olympus, beyond Corinth, there are the great mountain fastnesses where shepherds play plaintive airs to their flocks on hand-carved pipes, and the villages of proud peasants and white huts that still hold the touch of the centuries. Still, the real keys to the kingdom are its islands.
From Piraeus, excursion boats ply daily among the offshore islands of Aegina, Poros, Hydra and Spetsai (first-class round trip to Spetsai: $4.80), and passengers can stop off at any of them for a few days, pick up the boat later. Rocky Hydra is fine for painters, writers and swimmers, as well as for dawdlers. The spotless Xenia Hotel has eight rooms with running water, no heat in summer, no ready hot water at any time (double room without meals: $2.25; hot shower: 25¢); another, larger hotel is abuilding. As in most places in Greece, the small, informal ta—vernas provide the most pleasant eating. Guests are expected to mosey about in the kitchen, examine the icebox, peer into pots and pans before ordering their food —which is invariably served half-cold unless the diners give instructions to the contrary.
Drinking wine with the Greeks is a fulltime vacation in itself. In the tavernas, where the wine flows endlessly, the bouzouki (mandolin) showers its bright needles of tone while the men bawl impromptu folk songs. Most popular wine is retsina, which is flavored with resin and should be tried cautiously from the barrel. Hydra gets its wine in the fall, when boats deliver the casks of unfermented grape juice. Taverna keepers fill their goatskins at the dock, tote them uphill by donkey, and empty them into barrels. Forty days later, on St. Dimitrios' Day (Oct. 26), the kegs are tapped, and out comes the fully fermented raw wine. The Greeks then busy themselves with an endless variety of glass clinking and toast-making rituals. Example: the kalogeristika, or drinking monk's fashion, in which the men palm their glasses and touch each other's knuckles to muffle the sound (so that the abbot will not hear).