GREECE - part 1

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· GREECE - part 1

In a Nutshell. Today Greece is one of the smaller and less important nations of Europe. Her size is approximately that of Alabama even counting all of her islands and her population less than New York's. In a way it is hard to believe that this is the land from which sprang Western Civilization.

Mainland Greece is not, largely, one of the more attractive countries of the continent. The greater part of her land area is mountainous, rocky and colorless. There are exceptions, of course, many of them.

It is in her coasts and her islands that Greece achieves beauty, and I doubt if I've ever taken a more exciting trip by sea than those inter-island journeys that leave Piraeus, the port of Athens, for the Cyclades, the Dodecanese, Crete, Lesbos, Corfu and the others. On such trips it is easily seen why the Greeks, or rather the Minoans who preceded them, became the first great seafarers. Each island of the Aegean Sea is within sight of two or three more at least. And they stretch like a bridge from the Asia Minor coast to the Greek mainland. Even primitive man must have been able to construct adequate craft to make such short journeys early in human history. In fact, remains are found on the larger islands of the Neolithic period.

Greece, at the height of her Golden Age achieved pinnacles that many scholars consider never to have been passed since. The Parthenon on the Acropolis is named the most perfect building ever constructed. The greatest philosophers the world has known walked the streets of Athens hundreds of years before the birth of Christ. The sciences, our modern law, the theatre, literature, all had either their beginnings or tremendous impetus from this poor land.

Today she is largely a sad memory. Everywhere you see the remains of the Old Greece, the temples, the walls, the theatres, the sad fallen columns. And it is in this Old Greece that you find the land's appeal, for modern Greece is one of the most poverty stricken and backward countries of Europe. Only in Spain, Portugal and Yugoslavia do you see the poverty that you find in Greece.

As always when wages are low and the people poor, the country is a cheap place in which to reside. Greece is today, possibly the cheapest country in Europe, the only possible rival being Spain, another land of poverty and low wages. As always, the larger cities such as Athens and Salonica are higher priced but even Athens is cheap compared to any other capital of Europe.

I would say that to retire in Greece, either on a small income or with the intention of working out some local manner of making a living, you should have a basic interest in the cultural background of the country, otherwise you might find life in Greece on the drab and uninteresting side, particularly if you remained in Athens or elsewhere on the mainland.