Summer holiday, happy birthday celebrations, singing waiters and Greek hospitality.
So there we were floating in the middle of the Mediterranean and pinching ourselves at the sheer idyllic tranquillity. It was like something out of a Joseph Conrad novel with all those salty, sea- going, nautical adventures. For a moment your mind took you yearningly back to that famous Cliff Richard film where an old Routemaster bus trundled its way along a sun baked Greek road while Una Stubbs and Melvyn Hayes laughed and gallivanted their way around the Med. They looked like those rock stars who spend most of their careers writing joyous songs on the back of cigarette packets, happily carefree and full of the joys of summer.
We're all going on a summer holiday. No more worries for a week or two. Fun and laughter on a summer holiday to make our dreams come true. Truly, it was time to re- charge our batteries, don a natty sombrero or maybe the very popular trilby hats so rakishly worn by the men. And then my wife, father in law and I climbed aboard a Thomson cruise ship and ventured into the smooth, centrally heated seas of the Mediterranean, the vastness and immensity of it all leaving us all in a state of breathless astonishment, a dreamlike location where life simply couldn't have got any better. But life is there for the living and how we supped at the nectar of good living.
We all know that, for the best part of several decades, cruising has become the most fashionable choice of holiday for the Brits. In the old days perhaps the stereotypical images that became associated with cruising seemed unavoidable. Cruising the world was coated with an almost stardust glamour, an expedition on the high seas that had to be accompanied with dinners with the captain, quoits at the back of a ship then wining and eating in an atmosphere of stupendous elegance. It has to be said that we were not disappointed. Then there were the singing waiters and the daily happy birthday celebrations topped off with an appealingly colourful selection of balloons.
For the best part of a week the Spirit ship provided us with a floating five star hotel, gracious hospitality from all of the members of the excessively welcoming staff from the waiters to the entertainments officers and then the chambermaids who could never had done enough to make our holiday one we'd never ever forget. They smiled, they laughed, joked and giggled, sprayed our hands with a cleaning fluid almost constantly and then made us feel deeply at home. To those of a cynical turn and a misery guts disposition it might have smacked of superficiality and show but no this was the real thing and we all loved the attention, the pampering, the positive vibes, the endless merriment and mirth. We've all become cruising converts and there can be nothing finer or more luxurious. Travelling couldn't get any simpler.
I have to admit that it's taken me quite a while to be converted now but cruising really does tick all of the right boxes. It's a long, glorious voyage into a world far removed from the nitty gritty of life back in Britain where life becomes rooted in a constant treadmill of rush hour traffic to work, sprinting for the early morning train, paying all manner of bills and then going through the whole repetitive schedule over and over again until eventually it all wears us down with its mundane predictability.
And so we all set out on our exotic adventure with very few expectations because we knew we'd be lavished with all the goodies that come almost automatically with cruising. From the moment you step on board all the whistles and bells are literally rung with some resonance. The fixtures and fittings are there for your further delectation and the ship nosed its way out of a port in deepest Dubrovnik, a jewelled island, a scarred and bruised but still defiant remnant of the old Yugoslavia.
Our first afternoon was spent in Dubrovnik, a brief excursion around a quiet, modest but still fairly lively spot where most of the locals seemed to be wandering around in sleepy siesta mood. A small huddle of taxis were furiously haggling and bartering for your money. There were our friendly tour guides who just wanted you to go on their tour which had to be cheap and worth the money because they were quite clearly convinced that their guided tour would prove to be the ultimate bargain.
My wife, father and law and I then set out on what was billed as a Jewish walking tour but the attendance was not the one we were hoping for so the rest of the tour consisted of a quick stroll around some ancient walls and what seemed to be the semblance of dusty sunken baths from some thousands of years old civilisation. It probably didn't lift our hearts but at least it was a gentle introduction to our first day on the cruise. We were promised an extremely old synagogue but didn't quite know what to make of the whole experience.
Our first day took us into the heart of the Greece, the cradle of civilisation, Greece at her most charming, her most beautiful, her most visually striking and a Greece that has been there for so long now that perhaps we've taken it for granted. This was Greece with its timeless mythology, its tales of thunderous battles, blood soaked conflicts, Homer and Apollo, its relaxed exuberance, its rampant and modern tourism, the mysteries that may never be resolved and the secrets carefully hidden away in its broken temples.
The first port of call was Athens, the capital city of Greece and the birthplace of the Olympic Games. In 1896, Athens was the place where it all happened for the Olympic movement, where the rings were formed, the ideals set in place and the amateur ethos of sport laid its first foundation stone. We all know what happened when those big, bad school playground bullies of commercialism joined in. By the beginning of the 21st century the world went back to Athens but this time the central theme was money and high finance with just a hint of Mcdonalds in the air and huge tins of Coca Cola.
We were taken to the original Olympic stadium which, to all outward appearances, looks as though somebody has come along and completely sliced off one half of the site and left it in a horrible state of dereliction and disrepair. There still remained the rising tiers of the amphitheatre but somebody really ought to get hold of the builders and architects because this looked like appalling neglect. Still there was a prominent reminder of Greek history in the middle of a bustling capital city.
Then we moved onto Corinth which, as the name suggests, has its derivation in the Corinthian spirit, the spirit of fair play and sportsmanship which should reside quite comfortably in the Olympic rule book but frequently gets all mixed up in doping scandals and corruption. Corinth is surrounded by crumbling ruins, more antiquated churches, a couple of monasteries for good measure and a very real presence of the past and the present
Corinth has crumbling pillars and columns wherever you look, more chalky dust, and more coughing vestiges of once proud buildings which have now vanished into a empty pavement where all voices fall on stony ground. The tour guides will tell you of the destructive earthquake which flattened Corinth many hundreds of thousands of years ago and how Corinth picked itself up again and re-built from scratch. The Corinthian spirit may seem tired and old fashioned but the romantics still believe that we can go back again and it may not be too late after all.
Then there was Katakolon, perhaps one of the tiniest shipping ports in the whole world. In fact if you didn't know any better you could have been sure that Katakolon wasn't there at all. Not a great deal of any significance seems to take place in in Katakolon apart perhaps from a group of fisherman playing a noisy game of draughts outside an equally as boisterous taverna. Apparently the smashing of plates in Greek restaurants isn't quite as common as it used to be but here in Katakolon the licence to entertain is still applicable. Once again Katakolon had more tortured temples, crushed columns and piteous pediments with loose stones. But the Olympic narrative seemed to be almost sorrowfully scattered about like a war torn city, destroyed for ever, wiped from view irreparably.
We then trod on the hallowed ground of Itea which to the outsider, looks as though it must have been the spiritual home for all of Greece's great philosophers and thinkers from way back when. Here Apollo can almost be sensed and the whole story once again maybe fondly recalled. Once again the monasteries are prettily dotted about Itea like daisy chains. Wherever you go graffiti seems to be the most artistic form of world expression and Corinth, Athens, Katakolon and Itea are no different. Huge letters and decorative flourishes are printed on more or less every Greek wall and here are the indelible messages of disaffected youth and some very telling protests into the bargain.
Then there are those delightfully narrow and twisting back streets and alleyways, tiny souvenir shops tenderly embracing every corner of every street. There are more cafes and more restaurants where perhaps restaurants should never be but do exist. There are tightly knit rows of shops that sell jewellery in golden abundance, sparkling diamonds and rubies glinting and winking at you seductively. The shop owners optimistically invite you in for a day of heavy investment but then sadly retreat when they discover that you're only window shopping.
So here endeth my first holiday report and my initial set of observations of those small, unheralded corners of Greece that never hog the national limelight but it's now time to reflect on a week of unbridled joy and pleasure. These are the watercolour prints of ancient Greece and for the next couple of weeks I'll tell you a little more about our Greek pilgrimage. It was quite the most memorable of all vacations and one that will echo and resonate throughout the ages with memories that will be stored away for posterity and richly remembered.
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