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Magazine
TIME OUT
Dancing with Zorba in Crete
INDU BALACHANDRAN
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A lesson in living — in Greece’s intoxicating Stavros Bay.
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“Have you seen ‘Zorba The Greek’? Well, watch it again someday — and look closely for a scene with Anthony Quinn, Alan Bates, and an eight-year-old Greek boy. That would be me!”
Giorgios, almost 50 now, sits across our table, laughing over his ouzo. The Grecian sunset is drenching us in a heady shimmer of gold dust. Unwittingly, a strong reason for postponing our departure from Crete is about to present itself to us…
Right through the last 10 days in Chania, Crete’s incredibly charming port city, we had gone from one unplanned adventure into another. The spirit of Zorba was everywhere! The legendary Greek hero who had lived each day as if it was his last. And appropriately, “Zorba The Greek” — the 1964, seven-Oscar-nominations classic — had been filmed all over Crete, the most magical of all Greek islands.
But what Giorgios had to say next made us gulp in disbelief — mid-ouzo. “Remember the scene when a delirious Anthony Quinn comes out of a hotel, chased by a lady? Well that’s Hotel Contessa. And I run that hotel today!”
Easy decision
In the footsteps of a legend: Stavros Bay and a poster of “Zorba the Greek”.
That was it. The excuse we’d been searching for all day, to stay on just a while longer in Crete: the enchanted island we couldn’t get enough of. Within the next 20 minutes, we were rushing off to call our airline, changing bookings…And hurriedly packing up; to move five cobbled streets away to the quaint, historic Hotel Contessa. To sleep where Anthony Quinn had slept!
We were in no mood to check if this was a tourist trap. Who really cared? We needed an excuse; we had it. But as it turned out — (through surreptitious Google searches at Oscar websites) what Giorgios said was absolutely true. Hotel Contessa — located just a short walk away from the lively Crete harbour front, was indeed an important location for filming “Zorba the Greek”.
We collectively racked our brains for scenes we could recall from the film that had stormed the Oscars in the mid 1960s. The defining image, of course, was Zorba’s famous, robust Sirtaki dance on the beach. And it was to this very beach that we were excitedly heading towards next morning in the tour boat Aphrodite to the spectacular bay of Stavros where most of the film had been shot. Cruise-loads of tourists arrive here every single day for the Zorba experience. Something that Hollywood suddenly opened up to the world; making spellbound tourists discover for themselves why the talented Lassally chose this island to shoot. And why he got the Oscar for Best Cinematography.
In many ways, we too had unconsciously been following the film’s storyline. Two weeks ago, we had stood at the Port of Piraeus at Athens to get on board a gigantic passenger ship sailing to Crete… Just as Alan Bates, the shy, handsome Englishman visiting Greece for the first time, had stood in pouring rain, in the film’s opening scene. Awaiting our ship’s departure, we had sat in a café, watching gulls swooping down, old Greek ya-yas with scarves tied under their aging chins, hardy sailors eyeing pretty young kopelas…didn’t Bates do the same when he first encountered Zorba at Port Piraeus, mesmerised by the laughing eyes of the incorrigible peasant? The Englishman’s view of life was to change forever with his Greece experience. So too, we were inclined to believe, would ours.
Spectacular bay
Right now, here we were in the Chania harbour, 40 years after director Michael Cocoyannis had filmed his story of lust, intrigue, adventure and revenge in a remote Greek village. Slicing our way through the icy Aegean blue for a 40-minute ride to Stavros Bay, we suddenly came upon the sparkling blue-green bay surrounded by chocolate-brown mountains. Isn’t this where Irene Papas, the beautiful tormented widow, fell in love with Alan Bates?
We had two bracing hours to swim, sunbathe, snorkel in the astounding expanse of the bay. Intoxicated with it all, we walked along the very strip where Hollywood technicians must have set up their trolley shot of Anthony Quinn’s final signature dance ending the film. A guide tells us in charming broken English that Quinn had a fractured foot, but had told no one…instead he had secretly improvised on his dance to cope with the pain. And that is the very exact dance, step for step, that is a ritual even now at every big Greek wedding!
We stood eagerly in a line, random tourists forming an impromptu clique of friendship, linking arms around each other’s shoulders. Zorba style. Our guide-turned-dance-instructor shouted a full throated “O-Pah!”. We laughingly fell into step; swaying left, swaying right, a sudden kick, a slow step back, then working up a steady frenzy…as the soundtrack from the film played on a tinny stereo player placed on the sand… One of those holiday moments that makes one think: what experience in life could be more rewarding than travel?
Moments to treasure
So we pondered, over (what else?) our bowl of fresh Greek salad in one of the island’s many bustling tavernas, Christiana, where a replica of Lassally’s Oscar statuette proudly sits as you enter: reminding proud locals of the part their island played in promoting tourism to Greece.
We reluctantly tore ourselves away from the exhilarating atmosphere of Stavros. Yet, there were more goose bump moments in store when we returned to our Hotel Contessa in Chania.
While we have no way of knowing for sure if the room we stayed in was exactly where Zorba’s “night of carnal pleasure” was shot, we do know with absolute certainty that Theofanus Street — just outside the façade of Hotel Contessa — is exactly where Zorba comes lurching out, punch happy with drink, pursued by a young lady in furs.
Today I have the film’s DVD — to watch whenever I want to be instantly transported to the heady moments of an astonishing holiday. I have, of course, the power of the pause button, to go frame by frame over Hotel Contessa — so immediately recognisable as the authentic Greek-style hotel where we stayed, 40 years after Zorba did! To stop at the scene where our hotel manager Giorgios is a mischievous eight-year-old, running an errand for Alan Bates.
And with the first strains of the divine santuri — Zorba’s beloved lute-like instrument — I cannot resist the urge to jump up, arms stretched in readiness, to do the dance we learnt on a pristine strip of beach in Stavros. The infectious zest of Zorba washes over… which also never fails to remind me of the lesson I came back home with: Laugh more. Dance a lot. Live life everyday to the fullest.
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Quick facts
Crete is the largest Greek island, of spectacular beauty and history; the site of Knossos civilisation and Minoan artifacts, the original ‘labyrinth’, which is a must for history lovers.
Stay at Chania: Many affordable, cosy, homestyle hotels along harbour front like Hotel Contessa: €66 with breakfast for two( www.contessa-hotel.com).
Places to visit: Stavros Bay, four-hour boat tour for the Zorba experience.
Getting to Crete: Ferry rides depart from Athen’s Port Pireaus every day at 8 p.m.; arrive 6 a.m. at Chania ( www.in2greece.com).
Best time to visit: April to July.
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