Rattvig Hotel, Northern Sweden, Summer Pole

DREAMING ABOUT SCANDINAVIA

Maybe it is because of this string of hot-hot-hot weather we’ve been having in Arizona, but I’m thinking about northern climes–Scandinavian countries come to mind. I’ve spent quality time in Sweden, and a bit of time in Finland, but still have not made my dream trip to Norway’s fjords or the charms of Denmark.

It is possible that I can win a trip at this fascinating site about Scandinavia. And maybe you can, too. To win an I-pod and other goodies, submit a travel story. To win a trip to Scandinavian on Iceland Air, just comment on one of the stories you’ll find at the site.

Deadline: JULY 13  (HURRY!)

If you need some inspiration for travel to Scandinavia, here are some past articles from A Traveler’s Library.

Finland: The Year of the Hare; A Winter Book; A Summer Book.

Helsinki Outdoor Museum

Uh-oh, nothing from Denmark. (Need recommendations, please)

FLY TO GREECE

Temple of Hephaestus in Athens

This contest somewhat misleadingly says fly to your favorite Greek island and then offers a choice of Athens, Crete or Mykonos for your five-day/four-night stay. But, hey, ANYPLACE in Greece is fine with me, even if Athens is not an island, and my favorite island of Siphnos is not a choice. Besides, the contest is sponsored by Voskos Greek yogurt–always a GOOD thing, and a food I associate strongly with Greek islands. Check out the Facebook Page of Voskos Greek Yogurt.

Deadline: July 31

ANOTHER TRIP GIVEAWAY

Door of our VRBO Paris Apartment

HomeAway is celebrating its 20th anniversary (they also own VRBO, y’know.). Go to their website to learn how to win a $5000 vacation rental and airfare for FOUR–or nineteen other nifty travel prizes–adding up to Twenty–get it?

Deadline: August 12

WANT MORE CHANCES TO WIN A TRIP?

Travel Onion, a consolidator of Travel Blogs, offers a page with travel contests. Good stuff!

Like contests? Do you enter on-line contests? Ever win a trip somewhere? Those that came with “winner must participate in a seminar on time shares” does not count.

And how about Denmark literature–suggestions??

(I received no compensation for promoting these contests, and all the photos are the property of Ken or me. If you wish to reuse a photo please ask first.)

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British cover

Destination: The Mediterranean and Middle East

Book: The Way of Herodotus: Travels with the Man Who Invented History (2008) by Justin Marozzi (Also available for Kindle) (In England the title is The Man Who Invented History: Travels with Herodotus.)

This book has become even more appropriate since the wave of unrest broke out in Arab countries. We’ll be doing a series of articles on books relating to Arab countries over the next few weeks.

Poor Herodotus has suffered the fate of so many experts who make their subject accessible to the masses. He made history so interesting that he was exiled from him home town during his lifetime. Later, Plutarch dissed him and present day “serious” historians shun the father of their own discipline as an amateur.

Justin Marozzi, in Travels With Herodotus, runs the risk of being shunned himself by his fellow historians, since he dares to combine history with a travel memoir. Not only that, but his approach manages to make history–dare I say it–popular.

Marozzi, who says that when he read history at Cambridge, (American translation: when he studied history) Herodotus was off the table. His later introduction to The Histories created a dedicated fan and he decided to pursue the same journey that Herodotus undertook.

Although Marozzi makes no attempt to slavishly follow the physical path of Herodotus‘ travels around the Mediterranean and points nearby, he closely follows in the master’s philosophical path.  Since I have never read the entire Histories, the author reminded me that Herodotus set out to learn why two countries went to war. The Histories opens:

Herodotus of Halicarnassus here displays his inquiry, so that human achievements may not become forgotten in time, and great and marvellous deeds–some displayed by Greeks, some by barbarians–may not be without their glory; and especially to show why two people fought each other.

And while history still pursues many questions of human behavior, the question of why two countries fight each other still captures our attention.

Since Marozzi himself is a historian, his following in the footsteps of Herodotus  includes going to Iraq and pondering the American involvement in the Iraqui war.  This was the only part of the book where I felt the author let down his master.  Herodotus wrote with scrupulous even handedness about the Persians and the Greeks, assuming that while each side believes they are right, there is some justification on both sides. Herodotus says:’

Everyone without exception believes his own native customs, and the religion he was brought up in, to be the best.

That is a wise observation, and keeps The Histories from being a diatribe against the Persians and an apologia for the Greeks. However, Marozzi’s strong anti-war feelings come out in his long chapter on Iraq–much longer than is justified by Herodotus’ own brief visit to Babylon.  He shows us that there are differing opinions on whether Herodotus actually took an anti-war stance himself, but Marozzi hangs his hat on perhaps the best-known quotation from the father of history: “In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war fathers bury their sons.”

Detail of Ishtar Gate, now in Berlin's Pergamon Museum

Modern scholars also disagree about the accuracy of Herodotus, and about that, Marozzi says,

My own inclination is to believe him, while retaining a gentgly raised eyebrow at some of his taller stories.  If, in his foreign reportage, we judge him as an ancient travel writer, rather than as a twenty-first century historian, then the verdict is more favourable.  We shouldn’t forget that Herodotus is the first great travel wrier as well as historian and that travel writing has a long and distinguished tradition of artifice and exaggeration.

Despite the fact that he throws a bit of mud on travel writers, this strikes me as a reasonable approach to Herodotus.

An Egyptian enthusiast for Herodotus says, “I think he’s quite wonderful, charming, he’s an absolute riot, a great storyteller, the best way to get people to read history.” Egypt was totally unknown to Herodotus’ world, and he very accurately described mummification and the size of the pyramids. (See a Herodotean quote that opens a guest post on Egypt.)

If you are fascinated by the ancient world, don’t miss the site of Musee Achemenide.  This collection of 8000 items from 15 museums around the world, traces the history of Persia. Now what would Herodotus made of that, had he been a traveler with a lap top?

I liked this book and think it is a valuable tool for travelers to  Greece, the Middle East and north Africa. I like it so much that The Way of Herodotus will not show up in my next giveaway, so you’ll have to buy your own copy for your own traveler’s library.

Disclaimer time: I bought this book myself. So there! I did, however borrow that lovely Ishtar Gate photo from Flickr and I HIGHLY recommend that you click on it to read the narrative that goes along with it. Very informative.

And if you want to read more about Herodotus:

• Freya Stark follows Herodotus up the  coast of Turkey
• Find old travel books
• And on my personal reading list, I’m adding Travels with Herodotus (Vintage International) by Ryszard Kapuscinski and the classic travel book, The Histories by Herodotus.

Have you ever let classical writers guide your way? In what countries? We traveled with Thucydides at our side in Greece.

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Kate Nelligan in the title role of 1985 movie Eleni.

Destination: Northern Greece

Book: Eleni by Nicholas Gage

A GUEST POST by Michelle Duffy

Eleni is a story of passions. The passionate love a mother has for her children; the passionate fervor of men and women who take up arms to improve their world; the small passions which we call neighborly disagreements but which, given the right circumstances, can have terrible consequences. It is a story of family and of tradition told against the backdrop of the Second World War, the Cold War and the Greek Civil War. It is a story of immigration told by someone who knows what it was like to be left behind and then later, had to learn how to become an American.

Nicholas Gage starts with the execution of his mother. He tells his own story about his emigration to America and how he felt compelled to tell his mother’s story even from a young age. We learn about his first visit to Greece in 1963 when he realized that he was now a stranger in this village where, just 14 years before, ‘every tree and rock’ had been familiar to him.

We feel the depth of his emotion as he begins to understand that he cannot write his mother’s story from memory, that to tell it well he has to take the reader to Greece to the pre-war years and describe the hardscrabble life of the people in the bare, mountainous villages in the Mourgana mountains on the Albanian border – where his mother grew up. He has to accompany the reader through the war years in that village as the factionalism between the Democratic (EDES) and Communist (ELAS) groups was building even as the country was occupied by the Nazis.

Eleni’s story sets the tempo and emotional depth of the book. Gage skillfully alternates short factual chapters framing this tragic story within the contemporary political situation in Greece and the world. His training an investigative reporter for the New York Times comes out strongly as he maintains his powerful narrative while interspersing references to the people and sources he used to develop the factual basis for the story almost imperceptibly. You will feel the hunger of the children as the deprivations of WW II lift only briefly to be replaced by the harsher and more complicated Civil War. You will cry for the village girls wrenched from their conservative homes to be trained as andartinas – guerrillas. You will ache for the hearts and arms of the mothers whose children were taken in pedomasoma.

Like the British soldiers mentioned in this story, on my first visit to Greece – in 1991 – my expectations were heavily influenced by a “romantic mist distilled from the poetry of Byron and Keats”. Rudely awakened by the hustle and bustle of modern-day Athens, I went looking to learn more about this fascinating country and a family member recommended Eleni. Reading this powerful story has helped me understand Greece at a much deeper level than as a casual tourist, in fact, you might say that it started my love affair with this enigmatic country. I’ve been back to Greece twice since that first visit  and I plan to return many more times if I can.

Michelle Duffy

Michelle blogs as WanderMom and is co-author of Wanderlust and Lipstick: Traveling with Kids. She is currently planning a 15-month round-the-world trip with her family. She is a co-founder of the travel bloggers’ fund-raiser, Passports with Purpose and of BestFamilyTravelAdvice.com.

Michelle is a busy lady, and we are fortunate to have her share one of my own favorite countries, and a book I also found inspiring.  I particularly want to put in a plug for Passports with Purpose. Please check it out. I’ll be participating. Last year we built a school in Cambodia. This year the goal is a whole village in India. Good for the founders, including Michelle!!

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It’s a meme?? As Barbara Weibel at Hole in the Donut Travels says, Remember playing tag when you were a kid? Slapping someone on the back and yelling, “Tag, you’re it!” Well, I’ve just been been ‘virtually tagged.’

My friend and fellow travel blogger, Donna Hull, My Itchy Travel Feet was ‘tagged’ to participate in the meme known as My Three Best Kept Travel Secrets, and after telling us secrets about Tucson,  she tagged me.

In Barbara’s blog she explained (a meme, which rhymes with cream, is a catchphrase or concept that spreads rapidly from person to person via the Internet). This particular one was started by Katie of Tripbase.com So here goes.

My 3 Best Kept Travel Secrets in Greece

Mani village

The Mani Peninsula. The Peloponnese Peninsula of Greece teems with variety. The ancient sites of Mycenae (where Agammemnon hung out), and Olympia (where you can run on the ancient track–but not in the ancient dress style, that being nude), beach towns, Kalamata olives, mountains and rushing streams–and the strangest bunch of domiciles I have ever seen. In the Mani, you will spot clusters of tower houses–square, one room atop another with no door on the ground level.  It looks like a medieval attempt to protect against another kingdom, but in fact it is 19th century attempts to protect against neighbors.

Keriamakos Cemetery, Athens

The Kerameikos Cemetery in Athens.  Starting in 1980, on-line friends suggested I go there, people who lived in Athens said it was one of their favorite sites, and still I hesitated. Not that I have anything against cemeteries, but there is SO MUCH to see in Athens.  Last year, on my fifth trip, I finally walked the short distance between my Syntagma area hotel, past the Monastraki metro station (you can take the metro from Syntagma to Monastraki if you’re a real wimp). Everything they said was true. For 1000 years Athenians were laid to rest here. The ancient  markers include some gorgeous carving. The small museum’s display about the mass graves during the plague brought me to tears. I could not believe my luck at being able to walk in the path of Plato. Okay, Matt Barrett--I finally went. And now I’m telling others and they are probably saying, “but there is SO MUCH to see in Athens.”

Vai Beach, Crete

Crete’s Eastern Beaches. Quiz question of the day. Where is the only place in Europe you will find palm trees? Oh, yeah, you probably read the heading, didn’t you?  Well, it is true.  A beautiful  beach on the east coast of Crete makes like Miami with palm trees and soft sand.  Now you know I love Greece, but, folks, when you go to the islands for the beaches, you are barking up the wrong country–those beaches are mostly rocks and pebbles. Not at Vai. And when you think about it, the next stop south is Africa–across the Libyan Sea, so of course there are warm waters and palm trees.

So time for me to tag someone:

• Jessie Voigts of Wandering Educators
• Craig Martin of Indie Travel PodCast
• Alexandra Grabbe of ChezSven

YOU’RE IT!

Photo of Mani from a web site that identifies it as taken by cantaloupe99 at Flickr. The photo is no longer in that collection. But click on the photo to see a quote from fav author Leigh Fermor from his book on the Mani. Photo of Athens Cemetery by Vera Marie Badertscher, all rights reserved. Photo of Vai beach from tournet.gr–click on image to see more pictures and get more information on eastern Crete.

And what are the secret travel spots that you have not told us about? Time to come clean.

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Zorba dancing

Place: Crete, Greece

Book: Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis (1946)

Movie: Zorba the Greek with Alan Bates and Anthony Quinn(1964) and subsequent musical, Zorba

Several years ago, during our travels in Greece, Ken and I had a marvelous 10 days of driving back and forth across the mountains of Crete and exploring its rough-edged beauty. I was particularly happy to learn that we could stroll on the very beach that Anthony Quinn and Alan Bates danced across to the unforgettable (and in Greece, at least, inescapable) theme song of the move, Zorba The Greek.

The Greek director, Michael Cacoyannis, shot the film on Akrotiri peninsula of northern Crete in Chania . The famous Zorba dance (click for you tube clip) took place on the beach of the small town of Stavros, and these many years later, the town’s tavernas still make a buck off of the honor.

Zorba continued to haunt our travels in Crete, not just because you cannot get through an evening without hearing the song and watching somebody try to do his best Zorba imitation on the dance floor. But also because his spirit so reflects Greece. And why not, Kazanzatkis, the creator of Zorba in the novel also named [amazonify]0684825546::text:::: Zorba the Greek[/amazonify] , himself born in Crete, still ranks as one of the most evocative writers about Greece, its religion and thought.

During our journey, we stopped at a small mountainside village hoping for a cup of tea, but the makeshift cafe on the front porch of an old couple had only cafes (The powdered Nescafe foisted off as coffee on Americans.) When she saw I was disappointed, the woman came out with a big bag of gray-ish dried weeds.  By gestures, she told me that she had collected them herself in the mountains above her house, they grew only in Crete, and they cured many things, particularly women’s complaints and colds. (I am always amazed by the depth of conversations carried out with complete lack of the other person’s language.) I recognized it as a sage plant, perhaps a variety that grows only there. Someone told me it was probably dittany, but she used the leaves, not the blossoms, so I still think it was sage. Years later when I opened my paperback version of Zorba the Greek, I was amazed to see it opens with Zorba having a cup of sage tea.

When we sat on the old couples’ porch, we could see the characters in Kazantzakis’ novel and the movie passing by on the street, or peering suspiciously at us from the more populated cafe across the street. The exuberance and love of life of Zorba were all around us.

I remember many images from the movie, but the strongest, most disturbing scene convinced the young scholar (Alan Bates) to leave the hedonistic life of Zorba and return to his studies.The villagers gather at the home of a dying woman like so many vultures, and the moment she is pronounced dead they swoop in and strip her house. The scene disturbs and opens the traveler’s eyes to a darker  side of the carefree-seeming image created by Zorba with his ready smile and willingness to ignore convention.

I truly believe that Zorba and his creator Kazantzakis provide the best guide to the Greek traveler. Despite all his novels about Greek Orthodox religion, Kazantzakis turned to Buddhism, and I have a t-shirt with a quote from him, in Greek: “I hope for nothing, I fear no one, I am free.” Perhaps that is the secret to the exuberant love of life experienced in Greece. If you hope for nothing, you are free of yearning.

The author also said: “Every perfect traveler always creates the country where he travels.”  Let’s hear your reaction to Kazantzakis’ quotes. Please join the discussion.

For other posts about Greece and Crete, see the By Country page.

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Greek Bell Ringer on Siphnos, Greece

Destination: Greece

A Crowded Heart by Nicholas Papandreou

This is a new soft-cover book, only read by me, no marks. A novel that might well be a memoir of the childhood of the son of a very important political family in Greece and how the ups and downs of politics affects the family’s everyday life.  Good details of Greek culture in this poetically written book.  Discussed here very recently– on July 29.

Photography by VMB. All rights reserved.

It is not too late to enter! Following the rules that you will findwhen you click here, make a comment on any post or tweet me a reply message @pen4hire. Be sure to follow the rules.

And don’t miss announcements of prizes and winners. Subscribe by RSS feed (click that big obnoxious orange button above) or if you want me to send you each post to your inbox, click here to Subscribe to A Travelers’ Library by Email.

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Book: A Crowded Heart by Nicholas Papandreou

Temple of Hephaestus, Athens

Anyone who is tuned in to Greek politics in the past fifty years, has heard the name Papandreou.  Son Nicholas, who started as an economist, left the “family business” to become a writer and share his short stories and poetry with the world.  His novel, [amazonify]0312186851::text::::A Crowded Heart[/amazonify] (1996) tells the story of a family dominant in Greek politics, but it is, the book title assures us, A Novel.

Papandreou’s love for Greece and his mixed feelings about the family dynasty as portrayed here certainly make for “a crowded heart.” A small boy sees and observes much in the small details of life.

When he was only eight years old, he was assigned to go to a small village and become the godfather at a baptism, because hundreds of requests flew in Make a comment or from political supporters and his father could not fill all the requests himself. When the boy is expected to make a speech he recalls his beloved grandmother telling him a story about his grandfather.

“I’m jealous of you politicians,” a poet once told my grandfather, “because you meet so many people.”

“I’m jealous of you poets,” my grandfather replied, “because you meet so many uncontrollable passions.”

The writer in the Papandreou family, Nicholas, in his novel’s opening lines show the poetic touch that makes you want to travel to Greece.

“To describe Greece I would share with you a tomato on the sandy beaches of Skopellos, open a sea urchin with my penknife and serve you the scarlet eggs inside while the salt stetches the skin on our backs…I would dry you a starfish and hang it on your wall so you could smell the salty Aegean in your room, and ask you to breathe in the aroma of osier, broom and ginger root.”

Reading that makes images of Greece flood into my mind from my five visits there and roused the yearning I always have to go back again.

His depiction of the devotion of the Greek people to their socialist heroes  in A Crowded Heart, and the loving relationship he has with his grandparents and sister make it very hard to believe this is a novel rather than a memoir. At any rate, this book, even if it is not strictly memoir, or strictly travel literature, paints a detailed, beautiful, and culturally educational portrait of modern Greece.

Does a novelist ever escape from being a memoirist on some level?

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On Siphnos, Greece

Siphnos, Greece

Fishing Boat, Siphnos, Greece

Do summer days make you wish you were on an island? See some books about about Greek Islands, and specifically about Crete. And over at Spot Cool Stuff, I wrote about my idyll on the island of Siphnos.

Or journey to the Caribbean with this British travel writer.

St. Lucia, Caribbean

Have a nice trip to the islands!

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Yesterday, I was thrilled to turn on the computer and travel via live streaming video to Athens for the opening of the new Acropolis Museum.  What you see above covers only a bit of that day.

The biggest surprise for me was that the Greeks who have been down-playing their differences with the British Museum, firmly voiced pleas for the return of the Parthenon marbles in speech after speech. The President of the Hellenic Republic said, “It is time to heal the wounds of the monument by returning them where they belong,”  Greece’s Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis said in a speech. The museum can help bring “the reunification of the Parthenon marbles. Because the Parthenon marbles speak in their entirety. This is the way to show the integrity of everything they stand for.”

The museum director, as he led the tour, made no bones about pointing out what was real and what was stolen. “The head of this horse is in Athens and the body is in London.  The body of this horse is in Athens and the head is in London.”Pointing out the plaster copies of pieces of the Parthenon frieze that reside in London, he said, “We are dealing with history in a realistic matter.”
“It has been removed. It should not have happened, but unfortunately, it did happen.”  He expressed his gratitude to the museums like the Heidelburg and the Vatican who had returned pieces from their collections.

Here at A Traveler’s Library, we celebrated all week.

• Monday: The movie “My Life in Ruins”
• Wednesday: Greek Mythology in a book
• Thursday: Greek Mythology on Stage
• Friday: Travel to Athens with Links to articles about the New Acropolis Museum
• Saturday: Lord Byron speaks out about the Theft of the Parthenon Marbles

You can see earlier posts on Greece at the Articles by Country page.

Although we interrupted the schedule on Tuesday to pay tribute to the protesters in Iran with a look at Reading Lolita in Tehran, we spent five (now six) days in the same country. Do you like to see a whole week dedicated to one country, or would you prefer to mix things up? Please let me know so A Traveler’s Library will be what YOU want it to be.

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The Parthenon in Athens, Greece

Destination: Greece

Read: Childe Harold, Canto II, XI-XIII and XV By Lord Byron

If you are lucky, you’ll tune in to the Acropolis web page in time to hear the ceremony of opening today. (They have a video embedded in the web site, but don’t say what time. Presumably quite early U.S. time)

I want to close this week’s emphasis on Greece with part of a poem by the biggest Grecophile of all, George Gordon, Lord Byron, who left England to travel widely. His poem [amazonify]1426412231::text::::Childe Harold[/amazonify] , starts with a preface that quotes Fougeret de Monbron, “The universe is a sort of book, whose first page one has read when one has seen only one’s own country.”  He lived for a time  in Greece and help them in their war of Independence against the Ottoman Turks. You will find a Lord Byron Hotel in the Plaka below the Parthenon, on a street that he probably traveled.  You will find roads and tavernas and everything you can imagine named for Lord Byron in Greece. The Greeks remember their heroes.

The British Museum supporters are horrified at the thought that people will see the return of the Parthenon marbles as some kind of acknowledgement that they are a national symbol.  That is why they pound away on their point that they are now exhibited in a museum that shows bits and pieces of many civilizations so that people can understand the whole. The Greek argument hinges on showing the carvings in situ–or as close to situ as possible, since modern air pollution makes exposure in the air impractical. These two antithetical points of view go beyond politics.

The awesome new museum in Athens, with its skewed top floor paralleling the Parthenon and its glass walls that allow people to look at the marbles and the original site all at once, make a moving argument for return that has nothing to do with nationalism.

Childe Harold by Byron

Canto XI

But who, of all the plunders of yon fane
On high, where Pallas linger’d, loth to flee
The latest relic of her ancient reign;
The last, the worst, dull spoiler, who was he?
Blush, Caledonia! such thy son could be!
England! I joy no child he was of thine:
Thy free-born men should spare what once was free;
Yet they could violate each saddening shrine,
And bear these altars o’er the long-reluctant brine. (Poem continues on next page)

Canto XII

But most the modern Pict’s ignoble boast,
To rive what Goth, and Turk, and Time hath spared:
Cold as the crags upon his native coast,
His mind as barren and his heart as hard,
Is he whose head conceived, whose hand prepared,
Aught to displace Athena’s poor remains:
Her sons too weak the sacred shrine to guard,
Yet felt some portion of their mother’s pains,
And never knew, till then, the weight of Despot’s chains.

Canto XIII

What! shall it e’er be said by British tongue,
Albion was happy in Athena’s tears?
Though in thy name the slaves her bosom wrung,
Tell not the deed to blushing Europe’s ears;
The ocean queen, the free Britannia, bears
The last poor plunder from a bleeding land:
Yes, she, whose gen’rous aid her name endears,
Tore down those remnants with a harpy’s hand,
Which envious Eld forbore, and tyrants left to stand.

Canto XV

Cold is the heart, fair Greece, that looks on thee,
Nor feels as lovers o’er the dust they loved;
Dull is the eye that will not weep to see
Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed
By British hands, which it had best behov’d
To guard those relics ne’er to be restored.
Curst be the hour when their isle they roved,
And once again thy hapless bosom gored,
And snatch’d thy shrinking Gods to northern climes abhorr’d!

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