Although it is becoming increasingly scarce, tourists continue to demand ‘authenticity’. When necessary, therefore, we must manufacture it, since not to do so would be churlish and inhospitable. Tourists do not come thousands of miles to see and hear what they can see and hear in their own backyards. They come in search of something different.
YOU ARE not enjoying yourself enough — have more fun!’ director Jules Dassin calls out to his leading lady, Melina Mercouri. They are filming a dream-nightmare sequence on the set of their latest film, a modern-day story juxtaposed against the ancient tragedy of Medea.
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.
THE CAIQUE could have been any sponge-diving boat out of Kalymnos. Its deck was heaped with gunnysacks of sponges, boxes of provisions, drums of diesel fuel; its shrouds were a ragtag of patched dive suits, drying laundry, faded bandanas: a typical Aegean working boat.
SOME CITIES struggle through existence under a cloud: no one has a good word for Philadelphia or Newark or Mesolongi. Others, however, simply have bad reputations which are undeserved.
Over a decade ago members of the faculty of the International School in Geneva found themselves once more preparing their senior students for university entrance examinations. Among those necessary for entry into the universities in the various countries where the students wished to study were the French Baccalaureate, the Swiss Maturite, the English G.C.E. Ό’ and ‘A’ levels, the German Abitur, and the American SAT’s and Advanced Placements.
AMONG the few great churches of the Byzantine civilization to be found in modern Greece one is, surprisingly, on the Cycladic island of Paros. During Byzantine times, Greece was merely an impoverished outpost of the great empire centered around Constantinople.
TO SOME people journalism is a sort of religion,’ said John Rigos, the dignified, soft-spoken chief of the UPI bureau in Greece and Vice-President of the Foreign Press Association. ‘There are some highly talented and dedicated journalists working here.’
AS WE are walking along the road below Lykavittos in Athens, two women with baskets approach us. In the baskets they have toy chickens, made of rough cotton wool. ‘Thelis poulaki?’ they ask — ‘Do you want a little bird?’ Then they burst into giggles that sound like faulty plumbing — ‘poulaki’is a synonym for ‘penis’.
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.
