Athens Greece Sights

It’s a wonderful world out there, stacked full of places you spend your life hearing about and hoping one day to visit. We all have our wish lists, don’t we.

When the opportunity comes to hit something on that list, the excitement can be overwhelming. I’m not shy to confess that it always gives me the world’s biggest buzz to have that I’ve always wanted to…now I’m here! moment. Equally, there’s a buzz factor every time I’m with a group as they have their own moment of unrestrained excitement at ‘being here’. It’s great to witness.

How many places have given me ‘the moment’? Yes, quite a few—something I can feel lucky about. And there’s one that still does it to me every time. It’s one that must be in most people’s if only, one day I’d love to category and can be found, down there in the SE corner of Europe. Its shores lapped by the beautiful waters of the Aegean, Adriatic and Mediterranean seas. Yes, it’s Greece.

What is it that does it for me? I guess it’s a mix of many things. So much human history has emanated from this corner of Europe. If you sit and think, how much is in our language, civic tradition and learning having originated here—it can be mind-blowing at times. Try it for yourself or amongst your friends: at the risk of feeling like a Monty Python script, have your own ‘what have the greeks done for us?’ moment. Then, of course, there’s all the mythology stuff of classical times; the talk of gods and goddesses etc (an interesting bunch of characters if ever there was one!) Food for anyone with even the slightest of colourful imaginations, oh yes. And to this day, you can still touch these thousands of years of human history via the classical sites; the ruins of temples, stadia, cities. It’s incredible that these sites of human antiquity are still here, nestling amidst modern cities, on the islands, in the heart of a countryside still in everyday use by the Greece of today. Real buzz territory. (OK, and speaking as a northern European, you can’t beat the Mediterranean climate and outdoors lifestyle. The thought of aquamarine seas lapping shores and the soundtrack of cicadas from morning to night). All in all, an irresistible combination.