In his Travels in England Nikos Kazantzakis talks about “rhythm.”
“Τι είναι λοιπόν ρυθμός; Μια κεντρική κίνηση όλο αρμονία, που κυβερνάει το στοχασμό και την πράξη μας.”
“What is rhythm, then? A single central movement, all harmony, that governs our goals and actions.”
My first response to this is that Kazantzakis’s “rhythm” is equivalent to will. To a […]

Browsing through the archives of Archaeology on this very wet Greek day, I pause to read a piece called “Artful Surgery” by one Anagnostis P. Agelarakis. The subtitle states: “Greek archaeologists discover evidence of a skilled surgeon who practiced centuries before Hippocrates.”
The remains of a woman excavated by Eudokia Skarlatidou in the Clazomenean colony […]

Meanwhile, in a previous issue of Odyssey magazine, I’ve a brief article that introduces some books one might like to read if one is keen on getting to know Greece/Greeks through fiction.
Click on the magazine cover to get the PDF:

Equine galore
Discover untamed rural Greece on horse back through agro tourism
Ancient Greek mythology spoke of centaurs wild beasts that were half-man and half-horse and roamed the mountains of Arcadia and Thessaly. And Homer wrote of the notorious Trojan Horse, one of mankind’s most famous instances of subversion. Contemporary Greek horses may be less famous and […]

Verdant mystique
In recent years, the idea of Samothraki as the Greek island destination with a difference has been getting around by word of mouth. Those who hail the merits of this north Aegean island speak whimsically of its singular mountain terrain, its abundance of crystal clear water, its archaeological finds along with an intangible mysticism […]

Barren beauty
Kythnos isle’s mythical waters, miraculous icons and solitary beach trees
It has been said that Kythnos is the least interesting of the islands that make up the Cyclades. Maybe it’s the peculiar barrenness that makes it so. Whatever the reason, the isle situated between Kea and Serifos generally attracts fewer visitors than its more popular […]

Durrell Island
The Durrell brothers spent happy years on Corfu and now a school offers learning holidays in their name.
“You have two birth-places,” wrote Lawrence Durrell, the Anglo-Irish author best known for his experimental novel, The Alexandria Quartet, “you have the place where you were really born and then you have a place of predilection […]

10 TIPS ON HOW TO SURVIVE ATHENS
by Kathryn Koromilas
Chaos has ruled Athens since ancient times and with a record number of visitors set to arrive this August the god of disorder will be hovering in the wings. Want to survive your visit like an authentic Athenian? Stick to these insider basics:
1. Decoding chaos
With a map […]

AthensScapes: Mets
 by Kathryn Koromilas
     
 ONE hundred or so years ago, if you said you were going to Mets you would be referring to the name of a beer-drinking hole that appeared in around 1870 and whose owner, fascinated by the Battle of Metz during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, baptised his entertainment spot after the French […]

AthensScapes: Psyrri
by Kathryn Koromilas
IT’S early afternoon in Psyrri. The streets are quietly enjoying a lazy siesta before a busy evening when hundreds of feet will traverse them in search of their evening entertainment in the numerous restaurants and bars that have emerged here in the last couple of years.
I’m sitting with a friend in an […]