EUROPE TO-DAY

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 12375, 14 June 1938, Page 2

EUROPE TO-DAY

TRAVELLING IX GREECE One should not travel in Greece without being prepared for inconvenience, and without being ready for a thorough change in manners. Not that it is dangerous, for one may go all over the mainland and among the islands without fear of mishap. But travelling in Greece is not quite the same as travelling in our land. For example, one does well to take a mosquito net—especially during a summer visit. Macedonia may have given the world Alexander who conquered mighty cities, but Macedonia is invaded every summer by armies of mosquitoes which uo one there seems able to destroy. And then rural Greece —like rural Italy—is pretty rural. You may bo sure of finding amiable people, folk who are eminently hospitable and kindly (except if there is some sort of civil-strife going on, when they get nervous and short-tempered) but you must not be surprised if there is no hotel with the doors open for you. You must be ready to go to a monastery or convent, though this will be no hardship, for you will be royally received and entertained. Then again, yon do not ring the bell and ask the waiter for the menu. You take what is given, and look cheerful: and if the food is rather primitive, well, you thank the stars it is at least good and wholesome.

The wine, by the way, may be pure and good, but it will probably have a dash of resin in it, and this lends it a harsh taste. The cheese, too, will be bitter, so you will sprinkle sugar over it. The bread—of course—-is not quite the same as }ou are used to at home, but travellers cannot be choosers, and you will enjoy black bread as much as white if you are hungry. You will drink goats’ milk, for the peasantry hereabouts have no cows, or very few.

And with all this you will observe that the Greeks are a people worth getting to know—handsome, talkative, and desperately earnest.