My former travels to Greece 1977-1997

In the summer of 1977 (shortly after Elvis Presley had died at Graceland), I got a call from my high school mate Denise. She told me that she and 2 other girlfriends planned to go to Greece for one month with the Interrail ticket and wanted a male guy with them. I had just been jobbing one month at a gourmet restaurant, had some money on the side and had actually nothing planned for the rest of the summer holidays. So I agreed and joined them. I didn't know anything at all about GR at that time in my life. With our bagpacks we took trains from Luxembourg to Brindisi and then embarked on the ferry to Patras, GR. After the night passage to Patras, we took the train to Athens and stayed at the youth hostel in Athens for some days. It was August, we slept outside on the rooftop of the hostel.

Then we went "island hopping" by regular ferries. First to Ios island (cyclades), where the locals really seemed to be annoyed by all the long haired noisy youngsters invading their little island. Next stay was Sikinos island, next to Ios, a very small island without cars, only donkeys and only a port and a village on the hill. Quite an experience.

Last stay was in Antiparos island which was a bit more touristic.

I got severely sun burnt twice, had a sun stroke, got attacked by jelly fish and sea urchins, also all new experiences to me.

In the early 80ies I went back to GR and stayed in Santorini, Syros, Samos and Ikaria. Athens was awful in summer, constant smog alert, nearly unbearable.

2 years later we went to Crete and tried to avoid the touristic Northwest side of the island. We stayed in Matala, Plakias, Paleochora and Chania. We walked the Samaria gorge (the longest gorge in Europe), that was really awesome.

I must admit that I actually didn't understand life in Greece at the time and, like most tourists, had this cliché of a Mediterranean country in my head.

Now I do know better. But this you can only learn it, if you stay for some longer time in a country and get into the everyday life there.