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Magazine
Footloose
Grecian impressions
SHALINI MUKHERJI
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Wander through enchanted, poppy-animated landscapes of Greece, steeped in myth, culture and history.
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PHOTO: BLOOMBERG NEWS
Civilisational highs: The Parthenon in Athens.
FROM my café on Leoforos Nikis on the Thessaloniki waterfront, I could see Lefkos Pyrgos or the White Tower, once the dreaded Tower of Blood, with its history as fort, garrison and a prison during the Byzantine and Ottoman periods and the 1826 massacre of its inmates ordered by Sultan Mahmud II. The tower was whitewashed and renamed when the Greeks captured Thessaloniki in 1912, but, within a year, King George I of Greece was assassinated not far from the Tower. The present tower, dating back to the 15th century, probably stands where the older Byzantine tower once stood, now offering wind-whipped, sweeping views of this city by the sea. With a palpable sense of history, I sank further into the brown leather comfort of the promenade café, well, overwhelmed!
Enchanted days
At a loss for words that could capture perfectly these weeks in Greece that spun out into this magnificence of poppy-animated landscapes steeped in myth, culture and history, this enchantment where even marginal curiosities — the whiff of freshly brewed coffee, or the smoke curls of a cigarette — leave indelible imprints, stealing into your present. National pastime here: coffee, cigarette, ouzo (anise-flavoured liqueur that's distilled from grapes or raisins; a derivative of raki, the drink that powered the Byzantine and Ottoman empires). Also archetypal Greek, the exaggerated conversations as old men share wrinkled wisdom and companionable silences in ouzeries, across tables a-clutter with shot glasses and bitter cup-shots of Turkish coffee. What I'm attempting here is a distilling of stray impressions, gilt-edged and true-blue brilliant, carrying the tartness of bakery-fresh wildflower tarts.
Most spectacularly, the vision at Ancient Dion when an afternoon sun pierces through a cloudy Macedonian sky, and shafts of golden light fall on the ruins of the Temple to Olympian Zeus and the poppy that's growing from a crack in its stone. And with the brooding, snow-capped Olympus as backdrop, an ancient, generously proportioned Platina (cypress) watches over the memory of the grand sacrifice that Alexander the Great offered to Zeus, before setting forth to conquer Asia. Five km from the coast of Pieria, bordered by an impossibly blue sea, this sacred city at the foot of Olympus where Macedonians kings once held festivals of games to celebrate their victories, borrows its name from Zeus (Dios is genitive of Zeus). Now Dion is home to a farming community that's fiercely proud of their roses and oranges, philosophical about their weather that can turn every five minutes. Apart from lorries piled with hay that rattle past, crickets, dragonflies and jovial greetings of "Yasas!" (good health and good life) are about the only things you'll hear. Unless of course, you bump into a loquacious Greek while you wait out the beginnings of a drizzle at the taverna doubling as a bus stop. Post the preliminaries, you'll be swept away in the warm exclamations — "India and Greece, We are like brothers! Since the time of Alexander!" (You might also hear this when someone sells you a "very ancient" sword or a coin memento that doesn't look antique enough to justify the 35 Euros!) And once aboard the KTEL bus, your disbelieving eyes follow the clear rainbow arc that appears on the Macedonian sky, one end disappearing into the distance, into what can only be the ruins of Ancient Dion!
Cobbled matrix
Equalled perhaps, by the racy romanticism of a Mykonos sunset, as the sky melds into the seamless beyond of the ocean meeting the sky. A last glimpse you battle for, as the ocean beats its fury into your eardrums, forcing a retreat from the ship's deck. While wandering through Mykonos's narrow matrix of cobbled pathways, through whitewashed houses that have bougainvillea tendrils teasing their way across white walls and blue windowsills and doors, lost in the stone alleys that connect and intersect into a puzzling, frustrating weave, you chance upon chic boutiques with exquisite whites, shops crammed with the usual mementos, gyros and courtyard taverns that hang out charming invitations by way of octopus and starfish strung out to dry and more often than not, you're back to that shop you just steeled yourself against! You might trip into an atmospheric Greek Orthodox Church that's a dazzle of prayer candles, ornamented, lattice-worked and velvet opulence (just have to light a candle!). Or, as a cobbled lane takes its not quite right angle turn, you might just meet a raffish, towering Greek out for a stroll with his equally raffish hound! At the waterfront, the sea comes crashing in, spraying you as you lounge against cushions in electric greens and pinks, taking in the stormy sea that stretches into an undefined horizon. And at a left slant of your gaze that refuses to completely look away from the sea, four white windmills edge in, a quaint topping to the flirty experience of this island.
But like I said, time spins itself out in Greece, over a dream of moment. Like in the jingle-jangle, ingratiating (sometimes sullen) consumerism of Monastriaki. This is Athen's busy-busy flea market, nestled under the Acropolis, bursting within the neon graffiti-scrawled alleys that radiate from the main square, into a free-mingling of shoppers, hawkers, dogs, guitar-strumming-flute-and-bouzouki-armed musicians. Quite a few play at being "Rembetika" musicians of the Greek underground, singing of poverty, pain, drug addiction, police oppression, prison, unrequited love and betrayal. The "urban blues of quasi-criminal culture", Rembetika originated in the hashish dens of Pireaus and Thessaloniki in the 1920s, when Greek refugees swept in from Turkey, along with the retreating Greek army. "I make good price," they negotiate with tourists out for an archetypal Athens moment, as do the Nigerians, Bangladeshis, Indians, Pakistanis and Chinese, while selling you, at a bargain ostensibly, an entire world's treasures. From the antique to the contemporary, all hand-crafted or woven. In a quieter moment you discover the unobtrusive fine print: "Made in India". But you walk on, stoic, heroic — Greek.
Magical moments
Up the winding alleys to Plaka, past the bustling tavernas that spread themselves out on each step, past quieter alleys where gay wildflower arrangements/ black cats line windowsills. All the way up, and onto the Parthenon, illuminated and incredibly close. In the advancing twilight of an 8 p.m. Athens, its lit-up splendour offset by the glow-worm enchantment of city lights twinkling in the distance.
Your nonplussed moment could also be that moment when you dock on an island in the Aegean Sea, and a proud donkey pack owner, expanding to his full width, issues you an invitation, "All my donkeys, pure thoroughbreds. Coz, the donkey, as we don't know it, is an endangered species!
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