Sun-kissed Greece does not feel on the brink
My head is a spinning confusion of Greek images.
Infected by covering the most recent Greek elections earlier this summer, we decided at short notice to dash down here for a week in the sun. Gosh! When it comes to Greek sun, they sure do have it: hot, hot, hot… day after day.
And that, of course, is the great Greek story in a nutshell – sun, sand, rocks, sea, wondrous and remarkably inexpensive food, fabulous people, the greatest expanse of antiquities on earth, and BUST!
But Greece, despite these spinning images, is still Greece. The road from Athens to Piraeus is littered with block after block of shuttered and deserted commercial premises.
Our island bolthole disguised a number of homes and shops for sale and others shuttered.
Yet in the harbour – or as far into it as their vast bulk allows – every evening a different gaggle of gigantic motor yachts appears, proudly billowing the Greek blue and white flag at their stern, sporting opulent owners in their mid-ships.
Some of these vessels indeed may have been rented to equally opulent Americans, Russians, or Germans, but in the main when we see a Greek yacht, it tends to be definitively Greek.
Are we seeing sea-going packages of non-tax payment? We slightly suspected that we are.
Yesterday the FT reported that dozens of “high-end” Greeks, including the former head of a Greek state bank, had taken large sums of money out of the country and that many had recently acquired “high-end” homes in London.
But there is still wealth about inside Greece. There is also terrible suffering – 22 per cent unemployment, perhaps 50 per cent unemployment amongst 18-24 year-olds. And yet, and yet, the country still functions.
The island ferries still run to time. The bank cash machines disgorge whatever you ask of them. Shops and restaurants accept credit cards. In short, there’s a country waiting at the very least to be holidayed in.
For no very good reason, the fall-off in tourism is perhaps 15 to 20 per cent. No-one knows for sure.
Greeks tend to flee Athens in boiling August, but that does not explain the hotels and some of the sites seemingly very much less than full of tourists.
We spent yesterday morning at 8.00am on the Acropolis as the sole visitors. By 8.30am there were a few more, but by 9.00 am it was time to leave – the cruise ship deluge had begun.
These are tourists who eat sleep and drink on board. It’s the landlubber tourist who is missing. The fabulously simple, yet vast and inspiring Acropolis museum was similarly lightly populated.
Yet Greece does not feel like a country that is going to fold. Indeed I’m reliably informed by an excellent source that the assorted looming deadlines on the euro front will be met and satisfied.
That has to be countered by the unhappy taxi driver who told us he thought the danger of fascism still stalked the land and that the political classes were still in trouble.
I guess it depends who you talk to. But next year I’m looking to book for September in the hope that it may prove a little cooler. I’m not in any doubt that our island bolthole with still be there somehow, along with the rest of Greece – and I suppose, not being a betting man, I’d bet my bottom euro that it will still be IN the euro!
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There are 12 comments on this post
I am always baffled that those who have more money than most of us can dream of in a whole lifetime, are never satisfied. They always want more, or at the very least to make sure they keep every penny of what they have, leaving others to do crass things like paying tax.
Perhaps if we spent as much as we have on finding if there might have once been life on Mars on researching the greed gene in humans, the world might be a better place.
Change the research on Mars with the spending on weapons, and I’m with you all the way.
Jon,
Crooked Greeks bidding against crooked Yanks, Russians, Italians, Saudis for property in Corruption City? Shurely shome mishtake?
Worry not. Mayor Johnson is presently schmoozing the Murdoch Mafia. That should make things right, huh?
Sounds like you’re on an island similar to Idra. Which might be appropriate, because that’s where Leonard Cohen composed most of his music-to-slit-your-wrists-by
It’s the usual story, it’s the rich wot gets the pleasure & the poor wot gets the blame – in Greece, as here
The Greeks are lovely, friendly folk. We’ve enjoyed their hospitality many times, although September suits us better. How do they manage to work in the August heat?
I suspect that you are correct about them still being in the Euro next year. Not because of them, but because Germany, Spain and Italy need them to be
Enjoy the holiday!
This year we went on holiday to Greece out of love for the country and wanting to support it – even in a small way.
We went to Corfu which suffered from the same levels of empty units and a dramatic drop in footfall you talk about. The most frightening aspect was the empty tills. The resorts have no money. Tourists, garnished with 5, 10 and 20 euro notes from travel agents find no one able to give them change. Storeowners were rounding down rather than up to secure the sell.
This year the Greek tourism industry finds itself in the eye of the crash. How they survive next year will be the key. Where we stayed was spotless, if a little frayed around the edges. Most tourists were older though – no teenagers going on holiday after exams, we noted, they had been filling the streets the last time. It did feel a little lost, though. Perhaps stunned by the last year. We’ll still go back, if it’s still there.
Interesting Jon, thanks – have a great holiday and look forward to seeing you on the TV again soon. Best wishes, Jane
Good blog Mr. Snow and on leave time too.
Understand completely what you are describing in Greece as I am in Dublin and the feeling here is quite similar. There is 15% unemployemnt in Ireland and that number has not moved in about three years, but those still in work just continue on as before. Maybe they do not live in the same style as those Greeks and their Aegean motor yachts, but the sense is the same whether it be Greece, Ireland or Portugal it seems. The unmeployed and the desperate are being forgotten, whether it is social dislocation or just that the better off feel powerless to help so many who are boderline destitute, who knows.
It is just strange that the same old systems of power and patronage remain utterly immune from reform in all of this economic turmoil. The financial sectors in London and indeed Dublin too could easily go by the sobriquets: Longhanistan and Dubekistan, except that would be far too disrespectful to the peoples of south and central Asia on the day the Standard Chartered scandal broke, bankers and financiers would appear to occupy an ethical and legal vacuum and have nothing but contempt for ordinary people.
Be careful with that ‘bottom Euro’ bet. If the current off-shore energy and military machinations come to fruition, you may find your next trip there in the Dollar Zone.
Tourism in Greece was and still is thriving. This won’t change as Greece is an excellent travel destination with beautiful sea, sun, landscapes and fresh food and nice people. What has happened is that some of these Greek people and businesses now must be more honest running their business and the regular Greek and tourist expects them to behave and pay their fair share of taxes since they have stolen from them for past decades. Their is still big resistance in Greece from the public sector and elite class to prevent changes as they have benefited massively. But tides are changing and if Greece doesn’t change then the regular Greeks have nothing to lose even if they see the nation in economic catastrophe as it will simply bring in the change required very dramatically.
Careful, Sam: Mars Curiosity cost c. $2.3 billion, it’s true, but London 2012 Olympics cost c. £11-13 billion. In dollars, that works out I’d guess at about 7-8 times MORE than the space probe.
Greece’s political and business elite have long been known to take money out of country to buy London ‘high-end’ homes, thereby pushing up city’s property-price inflation, otherwise known as house-price rises, to beyond obscene. That’s another reason we need land-value tax (LVT), as indeed does every country.
ditto .. far to hot to venture out and see whats going on in midsummer