Greek island life | a Greece holiday travel guide

Greek island life

Visitors to the Greek islands will soon notice that the Greek way of life is quite different from that at home. The first hint will probably be the relaxed Greek attitude to timekeeping. They have a motto - do tomorrow what you can do today - and this easygoing approach to life fits in well with the tourist on holiday.

The unhurried Greek seems to enjoy life and this is nowhere more apparent than at the regular religious festivals when a whole island can turn out to enjoy the street celebrations. Greeks are also very hospitable, especially to strangers. They have a word for it 'filoxenia', althoughit means more than just being friendly.

Literally, it means 'love of strangers' and it may result in getting invited to a Greek fam ily celebration and being offered the best food and wine in the house. Greeks take great pride in generosity to strangers and it is what can define a Greek island holiday. If you don't have cash to pay for a taverna meal you will be told to 'pay tomorrow'; if it rains (unusual) you may be offered an umbrella to return when you are next passing.

Family is also very important to Greek culture. Sons usually stay at home until they are married. Mothers tend to dote on sons, especially when they are young. Men rarely help with the running of the home and many will be found in the local cafe, especially early in the morning before going to work.

Greece money

One of the great benefits of a Greek holiday used to be the healthy exchange rate. The strong £ meant plenty of old Greek drachma for your cash and there was a time you could get a decent meal with wine for around £5. Those days are long gone, never to return. Greece is in the Eurozone and prices are nowadays more on a par with those in the UK.

Euro coins come in eight denominations: 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 50 cents.
Banknotes come in denominations: 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200 and 500 notes.

The rate of exchange for euros hover at 70/90p = 1 euro so the easiest way to convert prices on the fly is:

Convert € to £ multiply by 7, 8 or 9 then divide by 10
So €7 = 7x7 = £49 / 10 = £4.90 — say £5
Convert £ to € multiply by 10 and divide by 7, 8 or 9
So £7 = 7x10 = €70 / 7 = €10

Greek pharmacies

Many islands have a health centre despite their small size. Young trainee doctors are often posted there for our equivalent of an intern year and are usually very good and, most importantly, often speak excellent English - so you can explain what is wrong without an embarrassing pantomime performance.

Pharmacies are also a good place to visit for common ailments. Pharmacists in Greece are very often highly trained and can offer good medical help and advice for free - unlike assistants in British chemists who always seem, to me at least, one pill short of a party. Again there is usually someone there who speaks excellent English. Medications can be rather more expensive than in Britain.

Care in Greek hospitals has much improved in recent years and is now generally very good too. But note that nurses will only perform medical duties - they will not look after you as the proverbial angels do in British hospitals, you are expected to take care of yourself ill or not. On the islands, of course, you won't get to hospital without a boat trip.

Skiathos street

Greece and concrete

Greeks love concrete. They pour the stuff everywhere, usually very badly. Wet cement is tamped down with old bits of wood and the result - an uneven, unsightly mess.

As long ago as 1997 the government clamped down on shoddy and indiscriminate building, but it was already 20 years too late to save many streets from breeze block squalor. It can be seen everywhere.

Take care on the street too. Repairs are often unfenced, kerbs can perch 20cm above the road and concrete steps can vary enormously. You get used to it, but beware - most holiday accidents happen in the first 24 hours (well before you get used to it).

No Greek street scene would be complete without an unfinished building on the go. Houses are often left half finished, some for years at a time. Builders may turn up from time to time for a brief flurry of cement mixing, but then they leave the half-built homes for weeks, months, even years

Naxos street

Greece and litter

Landscapes of such beauty that leave the rest of us gasping in wonder are seen by the Greeks as nothing more than a thumping good site for tipping a load of old junk. There is a hillside in Kefalonia that is awash with forgotten washing machines, coolers and fridges and a seaside cliff site in Paros that looks like a demolition junk yard.

Roadside verges on the islands are almost everywhere covered in litter. Plastic bags are the most popular, but cans, bottles and nylon rope are not without their followers. In towns and villages you will find roadside bins surrounded by bottle, boxes and bags.

The biggest litter dumps of all are often the beaches and the sea. Plastic bags bob along like shoals of jellyfish and bottles, cans and nail-riddled driftwood are a common sight.

Paros hillside

Greece and fencing

I am not one to argue that chain link fencing does not have its place in the modern world. Military installations, industrial compounds, dangerous mine shafts and poisoned wasteland all need protection from interlopers and crude ugliness may be the price to pay for making such sites secure. Not in Greece.

Greeks throw up chain link fencing anywhere and everywhere it is bent, rusting, broken and completely ineffective for its original purpose (whatever that may have been). The stuff just lies around in a purposeless sprawl.

There is a historic coastal site at Alyki in Thassos of astonishing natural beauty that boasts the ruins of some of the earliest Christian basilicas. It also harbours a concentration camp labyrinth of ten-foot-high rusty chain link fencing, the only purpose of which appears to be to keep visitors off the ruins.