Greece

Many years ago I took a summer vacation in Greece. I got to see many parts of the country except the north, where Alexander the Great came from. My trip was memorable, and I think about this beautiful country and its people all the time while reading today's news about their financial distress.

I landed in Athens and spent a good amount of time wandering around the Acropolis. In those days you could still walk all over the Parthenon without restriction. I remember reading that the architects built the Parthenon columns at an angle, which was necessary to create the illusion, given the size of the building, that the columns were straight. The paradox of needing to build crooked in order to appear straight demonstrated to me that on occasion the end does justify the means.

Soon enough I concluded that Athens itself was crowded and not very memorable, so I signed up for a 5 day bus trip through the nearby Pelopponese. This small area contains many of the city-states of ancient Greece that I studied in school. We visited sites like Corinth and Sparta. Unfortunately, to my chagrin, there was practically nothing left to see. After hours of travel under a broiling sun, for example, we got off the bus to take a picture of a single Corinthian column! The main fact from this trip was that rivals Athens and Sparta were only a few miles apart as the crow flies, but the hilly and winding roads took hours by bus-- obviously days for troops on foot.

The real glory of ancient Greece, besides the Parthenon, is best seen sightly north of Athens at Delphi, where the famous oracle was located. Here was a complete set of stone buildings on a site a thousand feet above a beautiful green valley. An unforgettable experience, especially when you remember that they took these prophecies seriously.

The rest of my Greek vacation was spent visiting Greek islands in the Aegean Sea. There was little to do but go swimming every day in crystal clear blue water under sunny skies and eat Greek salads-- always with feta cheese and olives-- and fresh seafood while watching goats with tinkling bells around their necks scamper up the hillsides. The towns on these islands were all similar: small, white-washed stucco houses on hills above a small harbor with brightly-colored fishing boats in front of small cafes filled with locals and tourists.

I hope to go back some day. Greece is such a beautiful country. It's a Greek tragedy to see what is happening to this country and its people.