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The bus trip from Athens to London had been all that was promised: fifty hours for fifty-five dollars, non-stop. My two sisters and I and a friend had set off in good spirits with four chickens, forty hard-boiled eggs, five pounds of raisins and nuts, and innumerable oranges. Except for occasional grouses about the temperature of the interior of the bus and one thirteen-hour stretch when our stoical driver chose not to stop, all went well. So a month later in London, faced with a choice of how to get back to Athens, I succumbed to my dislike of flying and decided to do it again. Alone this time. I called and got the last seat on a bus leaving the next day.

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 Cross on the mountain is to let everyone know Fiorina is a graveyard, Louis Corovessis, a pharmaceutical clerk, says jokingly. But some people who live in this small border-town fear Corovessis’s morbid humour could be a premonition. Fiorina, a town of ten thousand inhabitants in Northern Greece, could eventually suffer the fate of many of Greece’s small towns and villages— empty streets symbolizing a widespread emigration to the cities and to other countries. The result has been a shrinking rural population, consisting primarily of older people with fewer opportunities for employment and a secure future.

It may seem strange that the Benaki Museum recently opened a temporary exhibit of agricultural tools and implements. Why should a museum renowned for its art treasures bother to exhibit something as prosaic as tools?

Asked to nominate a totemic animal for Crete, most people would probably vote for the bull. Or the snake. There are, after all, those suggestive snake goddesses. But there is no denying the bull’s strong claim. From the mate of Pasiphae to the partner of the leapers, in myth and art, the image has been strongly profiled. Perhaps this focus on the bull, however, says more about us, our tendency to spotlight the showy and the violent at the expense of more modest and domestic qualities. The fact is that the most representative animal for most of Crete’s inhabitants throughout its long history has been the island’s distinctive wild goat.

So widely scattered and retiring are the few remaining seals in Greece that few people today are aware of their existence. Yet these beautiful creatures, the Mediterranean Monk Seals, were once numerous and played a prominent role in the culture of the country.