Tom Kelly's Greek odyssey

It's audit time in Greece as the IMF and European Central Bank thumb through the country's books to see whether it qualifies for the next tranche of bailout money ... Sydney lawyer and former NSW Public Solicitor Tom Kelly sails the Aegean ... How are the Greeks bearing-up? ... Dinner with Kate Mailer on Sifnos ... Stories of Lady Jeanne Campbell ... How to save Greece ... Justinian travel feature 

Athens new Acropolis Museum

I'M on my eighth visit to Greece and wondering what changes I will notice since my last visit five years ago. 

It's also my sixth visit to the island of Sifnos where I will be crew on a caique (traditional diesel and sail powered fishing boat) kept there by my old mate Kevin Anderson.

Since he retired 25 years ago as Deputy Chief Magistrate of NSW, Kevin has been an annual visitor to Sifnos and at 83 is fit and still a strong swimmer. 

On arrival at the excellent Athens airport, which was built for the 2004 Olympics, I am secure in the knowledge that the public conflict between police and opponents of Austerity, which has appeared on my TV screen so often in the last year, is unlikely.

There's no point in demonstrating against the government, when there isn't one.

Those demonstrations have been mostly confined to Syntagma Square opposite the parliament.

I had checked the prices of the Hotel Grande Bretagne, one of the great hotels of the world, which is right on the square.

The only person I know who has stayed there is a former Australian government minister who was on official business. Not surprisingly, rooms now are heavily discounted, starting at only €200 a night.

Although it would give a great view of the battles between rock-throwers and teargas propellers, I decide to stick with the much cheaper and still good Attalos Hotel, on the edge of the Plaka. 

After checking-in, my partner Linda and I make the 15-minute walk to Syntagma. We pass the Orthodox Cathedral, which is undergoing comprehensive renovations - the only significant capital works we spotted in four weeks.

Churches, like cockroaches, are depression-proof.

The area between Monastiraki, the Plaka and Syntagma has always been full of thriving tourist shops. However, this time vacancies and closures are noticeable, discounts abound, bored shopkeepers look forlorn and non-Greek faces are few.

At the fur shops that are still trading, mink cardigans are going cheaply, for those who are into that sort of thing.

Most of the shops that used to be open after 10pm to catch mellow post-dinner tourists are now closing-up at 7pm. There are large discounts on clothes if you offer cash. 

At Syntagma Square in the balmy late afternoon all is quiet.

There are about a dozen inactive potential demonstrators milling about, not unlike those who have been a fixture at the top of Martin Place in Sydney and at Melbourne's Federation Square.

The Greeks have had much to protest about and my mind goes back to media reports in April when a 77-year-old Green man shot himself in the head and left a suicide note, saying:

"Since my advanced age does not allow me a way of dynamically reacting, I see no other solution than this dignified end to my life, so I don't find myself fishing through garbage cans for my sustenance."

There's now lots of graffiti all around Athens, something I hadn't seen before. One scrawl translates, "Don't blame the migrants, blame the bosses".

This is a reference to the Albanians, who are prepared to work for low wages, and Pakistanis who will do so for as little as €25 a day.

This is grist to the mill of the New Dawn Party, the neo Nazis, who have emerged recently on the political scene. The Albanians have been in Greece for the last 20 years, but the large numbers of Pakistanis are new.

It is a long Marco- Polo like journey for them to get to Greece.

At Syntagma, we take-in the curious ceremony of the hourly changing of the guard in front of the parliament.

The two new guards look quite fetching in their khaki frocks as they slowly goose-step into position. They stand to attention and are then inspected by a more senior officer in long trousers, who proceeds to apply sun cream to their expressionless faces.

Austerity has not yet stopped this commendable exercise in health and safety. I am reminded of going to the beach with my mother 60 years ago. 

As a result of the austerity there are said to be 25,000 Greeks sleeping rough in Athens each night and we see some of them around Monastiraki Metro Station.

Most of the others must be away from the tourist and central areas, or perhaps emerge after we have gone to bed in the Attalos.

That evening we head for the trendy Psiri area just behind the Attalos - a bit off the tourist beat. There are plenty of locals, but a lot of them are not dining.

A large group arrives at a café and orders coffees. We suspect they may have eaten in their homes before coming out to socialise. Others in bars sit on their drinks.

The next day we visit the superb new Acropolis Museum, which was not completed when I was last in Athens five years ago.

I suspect that it will be the last significant piece of public infrastructure that the city will see for many years.

The fabulous Parthenon friezes have been reconstructed, although half of the sculptured marble panels are plaster casts of the originals that were stolen by Lord Elgin and reside in the British Museum.

Again there are are hardly any non-Greek faces among the visitors. 

*   *   *

Santorini

WE leave Athens on the short flight to Santorini.

Our hotel near the top of the caldera with breathtaking views has six apartments, of which only one other is occupied.

The tourist area is quiet at night, but by the day is busy with day-trippers from the giant cruiser ships that are moored hundreds of metres below us.

Two ships a day disgorge hundreds of visitors in the mornings. I suspect that these tourists may be paranoid about the demonstrations in Athens, even though only a small part of the city is ever volatile.

Among the tourists on the island are a large number of Chinese - doing their little bit to bolster the Greek economy, as they have ours. 

There are some fine restaurants, which are far from busy as the majority of tourists have reboarded their ships in the evening.

There is an excellent local beer called Vulcan, a reference to the of the island's volcanic history. The label says that it has five percent alcohol content and that "50 percent of all profits made from this beer will be used to assist the reduction of the Greek national debt".

I am skeptical about this altruistic claim, but decide to do my best to contribute, in case it is true.

Leaving Santorini we take a ferry, mostly devoid of other passengers, to the small, enchanting island of Folegrandros.

I had sailed there with Kevin and stayed briefly 15 years before. It is only 48 square kilometres in size and has the most picturesque medieval chora (main village) in the centre, comprising a series of public squares linking ancient churches, which are shaded by large trees and surrounded by restaurants and cafes. 

Our resort is a few minutes walk to the chora and judging by the number of keys that permanently sit in the pigeon-holes at reception it seems to be about three- quarters empty.

However, the chora is well-frequented by Greeks, as we have arrived during the Greek holiday and religious festival of Pentecost.

After good eating, drinking and swimming we take the local ferry to Sifnos. 

*   *   *

Sifnos

SIFNOS is the perfect island. Not as flash as Santorini and not as tiny as Folegrandros. 

There are beautiful sheltered beaches; the scenery is stunning; it has a successful farming industry growing the same produce that has been grown there for hundreds of years; a excellent reputation for pottery; and a fully functioning medieval town on the edge of a high cliff with the sea a few hundred of metres below.

Sifnos has ensured that all new structures are built in the traditional style and are white-washed annually. 

About a dozen people, only half of whom are tourists, disembark from our ferry - but there is minor chaos on the wharf caused by the hundreds of passengers waiting to board for the trip to Piraeus.

It is Sunday evening and they are all Greeks returning to Athens.

Kevin and his partner are there to greet us and we sit down at the nearest taverna to have few welcoming drinks and watch the chaos slowly clear.

There were quite a few sleek BMWs and Mercedes queuing to get on the ferry to Athens, the like of which I have never seen in Australia.

Kevin says these vehicles probably owe more to a bank than they would be worth, as until recently the Greek banks were telephoning customers several times a week offering big loans, which were totally payment free for the first few years.

There soon will be bargains in repossessed flash car sales.

The apartment where I usually stay is one of six set in an olive grove. The others are empty.

The buses to the beaches are usually full of tourists at this time of the year but, except for about three local women shoppers, we are always the only passengers.

The beaches are quite empty and we have no trouble finding a quiet spot under a shady tamarisk tree.

The jewellery and other tourist shops are empty of customers. The island's sole barber is standing forlornly outside his shop. We are yet to see anyone having a haircut. When things are tough people make do with a home cut or just let it grow. 

It is not unusual for us to be the only diners in a restaurant, where the lamb and seafood is remarkable.

Not only do we get the best of service but there's a chance to chat to bored waiters.

One is very articulate and helpful and reveals that he is a qualified micro-biologist who is interested in working in Australia.

During lunch the restaurant proprietor, with whom I've regularly chatted during visits for the past 25 years, estimates that tourism has dropped by 70 percent.

I ask him for a Vulcan beer, which he says is only available on Santorini. I mention the label referring to the Greek debt.

He smiles and says as part of austerity measures, company tax was been increased to 50 percent. This is good news. Now we can now drink lots of any brand of beer or wine and feel virtuously philanthropic.

There is still a coterie of regular foreign visitors on the island, some of whom own houses and stay for many months or even permanently.

Through Kevin, we have dinner with American actress Kate Mailer and her husband and daughter.

She is a daughter of writer Norman Mailer and they are staying in the house that was restored by her late mother, Lady Jeanne Campbell, who was a friend of Kevin and who I met on the island about 20 years ago over cups of coffee.

Jeannie was one of those extraordinary people who find themselves on a place like Sifnos.

She was one Norman Mailer's six wives, but not the one he famously stabbed. 

Campbell, Mailer & pooch

She was also the granddaughter of newspaper publisher Lord Beaverbrook, daughter of the reprobate Duke of Argyl and related to Carl Marx's wife.

Her amazing obituary, which was published in the London Telegraph and reproduced in The Sydney Morning Herald, claimed that she had bedded the three alliterative presidents in the one year: Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro and had affairs with Randolph Churchill, Fascist Oswald Mosley plus the alleged wife murderer Claus von Bulow.

She was also the mistress of Henry Luce.

Kevin says he asked her about the Mosley rumour, to which she replied

"He pursued me through Britain and France but never got there."

It sounds reminiscent of Mandy Rice Davies' famous response to Lord Astor's denial of their affair: "Well he would, wouldn't he?"

The follow-up national election was held during our stay on Sifnos, although it was surprisingly unobtrusive.

A poster for the Syriza Party appeared on the railings of a park in the main square but disappeared a few days later.

This is the hard left, anti-austerity party.

The election was held on a Sunday with polling was held at the schools. That is where the similarity to our elections ends.

Here there is no absent voting, so some people had to come to Sifnos from other islands and the mainland in order to cast a vote.

We drove past one of the schools, and except for more than the usual number of cars parked nearby, you would not know it was a polling place.

There was no one outside the school, no signs, photos or bunting and no one handing out how-to-vote cards.

Maybe the Greeks, who are all reputed to follow politics more keenly than we do, make up their minds in advance and do not need how-to-votes or posters.

The result is a victory for the two traditional opposing parties that campaigned to ameliorate rather than renounce the terms of the austerity. The majority of the Sifnos votes went to Syriza Party.

After two relaxing weeks of sailing we catch a packed ferry back to Athens and start making our way home. I walked through the ferry and could only identify the Mailer family as non-Greek. 

*   *   *

Part of the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon, now in the British Museum

BY the beginning of July the weather in Athens is getting fairly hot.

On the train to the airport I see three obviously psychotic persons on the platform and in our carriage.

As ticket inspection seems non-existent, presumably due to reduction or elimination of staff, the underground platform and the air-conditioned train may be a sensible way of dealing with the heat of Athens.

Even with their mental illness untreated, they may be better off than those in public psychiatric hospitals. There was recently a public plea for government money from the medical superintendent of the country's largest public psychiatric hospital, which had run out of cash for food for its patients.

There could be no better measurement of the breakdown of civil society than this. 

As if austerity is not causing enough hardship, the absence of tourists is causing a terrible additional layer of suffering that the Greeks don't need.

Tourism is a key part of the economy. Athens had nearly 20 million tourists in 2009 and tourism has employed one-in-five- Greeks. 

What can be done? 

First, go there. Organise a law conference or just go as a tourist. The islands are exquisite, the historic sites marvellous and the people as friendly and helpful as anywhere in the world. The exchange rate has never been better and everyone you need to deal with will speak English.

Secondly, think about retiring there. There seem to be a lot of healthy oldies everywhere you look. 

Thirdly, the recent suggestion that the Olympic Games be held in Athens on a permanent basis should be strongly supported. Like so many things we take for granted, if it was not for the Greeks there would be no Olympics. Sure, they stuffed around building the stadia, but the infrastructure is now all in place and they were able to put on a very successful event. It would be a most useful four-yearly boost to their economy. 

Fourthly, make the thieving English return the Parthenon marbles stolen 200 years ago. Having all those marvellous marbles in place inside the Acropolis Museum, would be a great tourist magnet.

Tom Kelly