In Kastoria there are only fishermen and furriers, it used to be said. The occasional lone fisherman can still be seen today fishing from a rowboat on the lovely Lake Orestia but the lake yields very little now while the more than five-h undred-year-old fur industry is flourishing. Over the cen turies it has brough t considerable wealth to the area, and led to a rich, distinctive architecture which is being threatened by the latest prosperity.
The tiny two-wagon train begins its ascent of the narrow, picturesque gorge at the village of Diakofto and climbs twenty-three hundred feet for the fourteen-mile trip. The rushing torrent of the Vouraikos River appears first on one side and then on the other, as the train passes through a series of tunnels and viaducts, making its way up the pine and oleander-covered slopes. Thus begins a journey through centuries of history that culminates at Aghia Lavra. Here, according to popular belief, Germanos, Bishop of Patras, raised the banner on March 25, 1821, proclaiming the beginning of the Greek War of Independence.
The ELEVEN women who are members of the Greek Parliament are a notably diverse group of individuals combining many roles and drawing from varied backgrounds and training. They include among their ranks lawyers, doctors, actresses and seasoned politicians,and they represent most of the major political parties, from the Right to the extreme Left. Despite differing philosophies and approaches, they express a deep awareness of social issues, of the needs of individuals, and the problems particular to women.
Since its founding on June 26, 1945 with forty-six participating nations, the United Nations has grown to include a total of one hundred and forty-eight countries. For more than thirty years it has initiated and directed countless efforts to reduce poverty, provide health services, improve education, increase world prosperity and mediate political crises. Although hardly a day passes without a reference in the local news to the organization’s activities, many remain vague about the UN’s presence in Greece.
SHE CALMLY steered the taxi through the dense traffic as she spoke, her face expressive and cheerful. Ά woman should be a woman regardless of what she is doing,’ said Mrs. Hariklia who has been driving a taxi in Athens for over ten years.
Driving north on the National Road, at the thirty-ninth kilometres, the village of Avlona can be seen nestling on a hill to the west, it is a familiar sight to those driving to Delphi or points north, but few stop to visit it, or are aware of its unique museum.
“ALL OF us in Anafiotika live for many years,” said Kyrios Mytilineos. “I remember my grandfather shovelling our doorstep one dawn after a heavy snowfall in old Athens. He was then over a hundred years old.”
My love for antiques is not a recent development. As a young student, I spent hour upon hour in the basement of our old, two-storied summer house in the Peloponnisos. It was a dusty, dimly-lit world in which the oddest things imaginable lived together in peace and isolation, separated by the walls from the noise and activity of the seaside town.
IT IS said that when God was completing his creation of the world and had nothing left in his hands but stones and rocks, he threw these down to Greece and formed the area known as the Mani. Its backbone is the jagged southern half of the Taygetus mountain range which juts into the sea to shape the central peninsula of the southern Peloponnisos.
The first time I saw her, three summers ago, she was picking tomatoes, placing the deep-red, shiny ones in a metal bucket. She appeared to be in her late forties, but I later learned that she was thirty-seven.
