GOING PLACES: Check out the mainland. There is far more for the traveller to Greece than island-hopping, writes Seona MacRéamoinn, a veteran explorer of more than 20 years.
There is a familiar image of Greece: a small church perched on a rock, with dazzling white walls set against a brilliant azure sky and a cobalt sea. This is island Greece, but not the face of Greece that I began to explore and be intrigued by since my first visit. That was in 1981, to Crete, and while I was completely seduced by the sea, the stillness, the colour, the language, the sense of history and even the politics (spotting the legendary Papandreou, who was on my flight from Athens to Crete for some last-minute canvassing), it was something of an odyssey before I discovered mainland Greece.
Perhaps it was hearing too many student tales of Ios and Mykonos, Santorini and Paros that made me wonder what else there might be to discover. The next island I visited was Thassos, as far north from Crete as you can get. The island lies off the Haldidiki peninsula and led to another wonderful surprise: the city of Thessaloniki.
I had already been awed by Athens, refusing to have swathes of pollution or erratic traffic distract me from the sight of half-ruined temples across a busy city intersection, not forgetting the towering Acropolis.
Thessaloniki was, by contrast, small, quiet, with a reclaimed seafront and, while not competing with the temples of antiquity, nevertheless has one of the finest museums anywhere. The refurbished archaeology museum includes a shimmering golden exhibit from the tombs of Philip the Second of Macedonia.
Thassos elicits memories of honey and pine, of a pretty harbour and a small Greek amphitheatre, of green and wooded bays and a mountainous centre. The ferries leave from the town of Kavala, probably not noted in most travellers' tales, but I have reason to recall it.
Schedules entailed staying overnight and dining in an idyllic garden taverna. Heady with that summer feeling of heat on skin and retsina on tongue, we ordered another bottle from the white-shirted man passing our table. When the bottle was delivered by a different waiter, he announced it was compliments of a gentleman dining at the far end of the garden.
As we began to face each other to raise a toast (and baffled thanks) I recognised him as the "waiter" whom we had urged to bring on the wine. Our benefactor began to speak. "Welcome, welcome. I am the Mayor of Kavala." A good omen, I thought: insult the municipal authorities and they buy you wine!
That experience drew me back to explore parts of the north - either west, where the landscape was more Tuscan than Greek, all dark cypresses and olive trees and sloping hills; or east along the Haldidiki to Ouranopolis, as far as you can go in northern Greece before Turkey looms.
This is where the ferries leave for Mount Athos, one of the last precincts of monastic life where women are not allowed to venture (even female animals are banned). The monasteries are huge repositories of icons and other art, closed to all female eyes. I do recall dark mutterings about what one could expect in a country that only gave women the vote in 1952 ...
Another striking image from my first time in Thessaloniki: I remember standing on a street corner in the centre of the city and reading the road signs that pointed to Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Athens ... Sofia was closer than Athens, I realised, utterly changing my idea of Greece as a strictly southern Mediterranean land. But Greece is like that. One of the reasons that I am drawn back to it again and again is the sense of perspective you get on history, civilisation, life.
A visit to the Peloponnese is where the scale of culture is perhaps most vivid. Here you are at the southernmost extremity of the Balkan peninsula. As you stand among the ruined sites, the sense of history is so strong, with stories and myths swirling all around you: in Mistra or Sparta or the vast theatre at Epidavros, where in summer the Athens Festival comes with productions of the classic plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles or Euripedes.
The Greeks have a talent for tragedy, it must be admitted. Myth and reality collide in Mycenae, as you look at the Tomb of Agamemnon and remember about the fall of the House of Atreus, with all its bloodiness and curses of the Gods, told by Homer and then re-imagined and re-worked by so many writers, including Irish ones.
Poet Theo Dorgan sailed into Ithaca last year as a 50th birthday present to himself. It was part of his love affair with Greece which has been going on for more than 20 years. This might explain his commission to write a libretto with composer Howard Goodall for the Royal Albert Hall, where Jason and the Argonauts was premiered last month.
There are many literary connections between Ireland and Greece. Greek fans of Patrick Kavanagh will be able to read his work in their own language in his centenary year, as along with Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley and others, the Monaghan poet has recently been translated into Greek.
Some writers who have worked in Greece include Desmond O'Grady and Rory Brennan, both of whom spent many years in Paxos near Corfu. Corfu itself is the setting for an annual summer school established by writer and critic Richard Pine themed around Anglo-Irish writer Lawrence Durrell and his brother Gerald, who moved there in 1935.
And many writers have written of and around Greek places and themes, including Paula Meehan and Gerald Dawe, who have both spent time amid the Minoan culture of Crete. Brendan Kennelly turned to the ancient Greek dramas and wrought great translations from the stories of the Trojan women, Antigone and Medea.
Seamus Heaney has made several visits to Greece, especially the Peloponnese, which feature in his sonnets into Arcadia and Mycenae. He, too, has drawn on Greek drama for his version of The Cure at Troy and The Burial at Thebes, which was produced at the Peacock Theatre in Dublin earlier this year.
Simplicity and sophistication collide in Greece too, as do a sense of the primitive and the cultured. And everywhere there is the sea, the olive trees, the mountain honey, the pine and the lemons, the oranges and the figs ... and the light - the light that turns the leaves of the olive trees from green to silver, that sears into white walls or dapples on the sea, creating a luminous colour blue that is only Greek. It is the kind of blue that startles in its intensity. The language also draws you in, as you have to work with an unfamiliar script. But then there is the pride when you can suddenly recognise the word for "bread", "water" or "wine", or the destination for your bus route.
It also sets you off excavating your own language to uncover the roots of so many words that owe debts to Greek. Every place name belongs to legend or history, rather in the manner of the Irish science of "dinnseanchais" or the lore of place names. But it's not just history of course, it's philosophy, science and art and medicine and psychology and astrology. No wonder one gets that sense of perspective, illuminated always by the water, the stillness and the light.
The beauty of Nafplion
Between fortressed cliffs and the bay of Argolis, at the edge of the Peloponnese is the wonderfully atmospheric city of Nafplion. The first capital of a newly independent Greece in 1829, Nafplion has a broad seafront promenade, lively squares and small winding streets piled high into the towering hillside. Here the fortress of Palamides lures the energetic and curious to ascend the 899 steps to survey the town and glisteningly blue bay below.
The Turks and Venetians, among others, paid their customary house calls to Nafplion over the centuries, leavened with some Greek resistance. The wrought-iron balconies and tall narrow houses are testament to architectural influences. These are now preserved under conservation orders in the old town and some have been transformed into small hotels, painted in blues and pinks, greens, ochres and white.
Artisans of all types work and sell their crafts here, with streets teeming with fine silversmiths, textiles and ceramics in both modern and traditional forms. Plateia Syntagmatos or Constitution Square, lined with cafés, resounds in the summer evenings with the screeching of small bikes and children's gleeful voices, as locals and visitors drink in the soft air and the older men sit playing backgammon.
Nafplion is a perfect base to explore the Argolid. Epidavros, Mycenae, Argos and Trins are close by. It is only about two hours from Athens and a hydrofoil links it with the island of Spetses, thinly disguised as the setting for John Fowles' novel, The Magus.
Six great Greek travel agents:
CV Travel is one of the pioneers in villa holidays and have some top properties: infor@cvtravel.com. Skyros Holidays is noted for yoga and 'holistic holidays': www.skyros.com. Filoxenia Escape Packages arranges fly drives and other adventures in Greece, specialising in the Peloponnese, the mainland and unusual islands: www.filoxenia.co.uk. Laskarina Holidays, well regarded for off-the-beaten-track island vacations. info@laskarina.co.uk. Sunway Travel in DúLaoghaire is associated with Sunsail Holidays, for sailing trips to Greece. www.sunway.ie. Budget Travel has been arranging packages from Ireland to the more popular islands for years: www.budgettravel.ie, and the national carrier is Olympic Airlines: www.olympicairlines.com.