1 APRIL 1966, Page 26

HOLIDAY TRAVEL

Sun, Sea and Islands

By ANDREW ROBERTSON

I was sorry that he missed out on the Paros lobsters and the local wine, which is unresinated and full-blooded dark red. But, of course, on his return we found that the hospitable islanders had not let him get away entirely with his austere diet. He had found them neighbourly, kind and incurious. Paros is peaceful, like so many of the lesser-known islands. I wonder for how long this can be, as the tourist tide sweeps wider and deeper. Already Mykonos has something of the air of a Riviera fishing village in transition to a major resort. Beginning as an Athenian summer retreat, it has become international. It also has a daily boat service from the Piraeus, so that it is on every holiday itinerary. There is even a first-class hotel, now. I was lucky during a short stay to be able to use a cottage annexe to one of the hotels. Living simply like the local people makes the break with everyday metropolitan living cleaner—if you like it that way.

My old friends, the Club Mediterranee, taught me, in the words of their founder, Gerard Blitz, that 'Greece is sun, sea and islands,' bearing us off in caiques to fend for ourselves and go skin- diving off uninhabited islets between Corfu and Paros, and organising rugged sailing trips, known as Odysseys, to places where the inter-island steamers never go. This is one of the best ways to soak up the essence so well distilled by Louis Golding in Goodbye to Ithaca. But it can be done also by using the island ships, some with regular schedules (unless disturbed by the meltemi in summer or the vorias in winter, the north winds that blow with stunning force), many without, their sailing depending upon cargoes and passengers. To get mixed up with the Tinos pilgrims during a meltemi leaves a memory like a scar. One is proud of it.

My first island was Corfu, known to Greeks as Kerkyra, and among the most beautiful as well as the largest. Schoolboy Greek tried out on a pith-helmeted Corfiote cop elicited a response in elegant English, followed by an in- vitation to raise a cricket eleven against the Byron Club. This was later discussed (and dis- carded for want of players) over a bottle of tsitsinbirra, the ginger-pop they learnt to make when the island was a British base for half a century. A brief encounter with the mummy of St. Spiridon and an all-night supper-party over langouste, ouzo and a thirty-five-pound grouper are among the kaleidoscope that whirls in my memory at mention of Prospero's island.

After this everything must be anticlimax. But no. In spite of being the ten-millionth-and-first visitor to the Acropolis, to Delphi and Olympia, it is your first that counts and the other ten million, Zeus be praised, are nowhere. One makes jokes about it, standing beside the Parthenon (They just don't look after their public buildings in this country."Yes, they might have patched them up a bit, old man'), but that is a silly British attempt not to reveal the satisfaction that wells up just because of being there and seeing what has been read about and wished for. We hardly teach Greek any more, but somehow, sometime we suck in just enough knowledge to be aware that Western civilisation began here.

On my first visit, with a small group of French, our Greek guide suggested sweetly a swap of Cyprus for the Elgin marbles. When the French had the temerity to laugh, he reminded them that they still had the Winged Victory in the Louvre. At that moment, I think that we would all have voted to hand back the lot, forgetting the value these relics have for those who cannot afford to go, but regretting all the destruction wrought by religious prejudice and wars of independence.

I suppose that the most mundane, souvenir- hunting tourist feels a certain irksome responsi- bility about 'doing' the sites, and I know that they are forever short of time to take them leisurely and literally in their stride, though this is the way. You can do it alone or with an intelligent group. Better to see a little and enjoy it than to exhaust senses and sensitivity crossing names off a map.

In short, if you go to Greece once you will be frustrated unless you make a promise to your- self to go again, and again and again. You could put it like this: why go anywhere else? Flying by night excursion a return ticket is £76 8s., by day £85 8s., valid for a month's stay, other- wise the tourist fare jumps to £105 16s. If you drive to Brindisi it costs between £5 and £6 to ferry over to Corfu or to Igoumenitsa on the mainland, plus a fiver for each passenger. To Patras, well on the way to Athens, the two rates rise to £7 10s.