Mass Tourism is Destroying Greece’s Mythical Coast
Somewhere on Earth is setting sail for the Aegean Sea. A natural boundary between Europe and the Near East, this interior sea of the Mediterranean basin has been inhabited since prehistoric times. An unpredictable sea surrounded by rugged mountains, it has given birth to great myths.
and fired many an imagination peter is a collector of tales fascinated by the ruins and legends of the cyclades he has appointed himself guardian of these treasures is constantly discovering relics and works tirelessly towards creating marine protected areas hortense left her native france to lead a nomadic life on board her sailboat she follows the winds of the sea This artist has created a world of her own, a dream world where the earthly laws of gravity have given way to poetry. Miralis, an accomplished climber, has found his equilibrium on the most mythical of mountains. He lives year-round on the peaks of Mount Olympus, abode of the ancient Greek gods, where unspoiled nature guides his footsteps and nourishes his soul. Mount Olympus for me is the place where I live and that's where I've done pretty much everything in a high emotional, spiritual and mental level. So, I don't know, it feels like and it is the center of the universe for me.
The Aegean Sea is a vast territory scattered with islands. Wherever one looks, there's the outline of a shore. There are close to 10,000 islands and islets, and surely just as many folktales and epics. At present only 170 islands are inhabited. This is the cradle of the first empires of the sea, those powers which by mastering the wind and currents dominated its populations.
Unlike mountains which impeded circulation, the sea opened tremendous thoroughfares onto the rest of the world. Here, the shores provided the shelter necessary for trade to grow. There, a refuge for pirates, or a natural rampart against barbarian invasions.
The Cyclades Archipelago, in the heart of the Aegean Sea, is a maritime crossroads between Orient and Occident, where down through the ages one civilization continually followed on the heels of another. Fifteen years ago, Peter Nicolaides founded the Aegean Institute here in order to study and protect the treasures of the Aegean Sea. The level of the Mediterranean Sea has been continuously rising, covering certain traces of the past.
Ancient Greece has still not yielded up all its secrets. The sea has swallowed them in places, so one has to take to the air to observe and measure these vestiges. i started studying these channels about 10 years ago they they they really fascinated me so i started thinking about the fact that they're so huge and there's so many around paros that it must have something to do with a major economic activity now paros has been exporting marble in a big way since 700 BC, because that's when we started building the Parthenon. So there was a need for a lot of marble. So I think this is most probably a very clever way to build the marble. onto ships, barges, or whatever.
So I've been spotting structures like this all over the island. This area is really wonderful for discovery. When a thick vein of exceptional marble, lignite, was discovered in the heart of Paros, it changed the island's destiny.
Thanks to its fine, translucent texture, this marble was highly prized by the greatest sculptures of antiquity. The frescoes of the Parthenon, as well as the legendary Venus de Milo, owe their deep eternal luster to this stone. If you want to see one sculpture, you close your eyes and you feel it by hand. The earth gives us the gift of the stone and we have to respect that. For myself, I think in not gold, something more than gold.
I have a life in my hand if I work in that stone. Emmanuel is perpetuating the reputation of Paros marble. He's proud to carry this heritage.
All of my workers, if they have a mouth to talk, they say, leave me alone for all the time and touch it, touch it, touch it, touch it. I couldn't remember how many times I have to do that, that, that, many times. The place where they cut the stones, many people have killed, have dead there. It's not easy to take one block like that, 10,000 kilos, and make it by hand. Now I have the machine, and the machine leaves it up, the machine cuts it. Ten years they're not machine, everything by hand.
So they are heroes. They build the Acropolis, they build by hand. They are very smart because they find the solution.
I think nothing stops them. I wish to go the time in back to stay just a day, just a week, you know, to see how is it. I dream many times what they do, if I have a difficult work, I try to find the solution in the years before. I see how they do it.
The marble of Paros retains a part of its mystery. Peter, eager to get his information firsthand, has come to the Marati quarry to meet Emmanuel. These are no mere quarries. They are in fact more like marble mines.
They were worked for centuries. They testified to the brutality of the work and the determination of the quarrymen. Over 150,000 slaves were worked to the bone in these quarries.
Look at that here. It's very wide. You see that? The small piece there. Stuff like that they want. Not the next one. That one they want.
So, and here you see how they finish the roof. Look, all of that. Thousand, thousand, thousand, million hammer in there.
Incidentally, the hammer in ancient Greek is called tukos. Look at here Peter, fantastic is our fire. This stone was so prized that the quarrymen went to unprecedented lengths to extract it. The finest marble lies deep in the bowels of the mountain, so they had to move thousands of tons of earth and stone to reach the heart of the vein.
Some of these galleries are 500 meters long. The soft, fragile stone would break easily, and then it would be worth less. These blocks, abandoned for centuries, will never see the light of day. That piece of stone, for example, we are best in all the world because you can put the light and say the normal is 10 centimeters.
They say, yes, but look at here, it's more than 10. Here is 15, 20 or... Yeah, easily. They have not a battery many years before. So it's oil lamp.
Yeah, exactly. That's the lichnea. And they put the lichnea back of the marble and they look inside the light. That gives the name Lychnitis.
So the Parian marble has the name Lychnitis. Lychnos. Lychnos, yes. The French writer Jean Gionnot said, when mysteries are very clever, they hide themselves in the light. The history of the Cyclades is made up of these many highlights, and there's still much to be learned beneath the shimmering surface of the sea. Peter, an underwater engineer, has been diving for over 50 years.
He has been applying his technical know-how to oceanography. This is a marine protected area, at least on paper. But now what I'm trying to do is to implement this. And within these marine protected areas, it's not only the fish that we want to...
uh to grow in size and numbers but it's an area where you can run experiments we can run research yeah you can learn uh you can enjoy you know geology biology and technology okay He is currently studying the corrosion of submerged metals. Peter sets up an array of samples on site. They'll be checked regularly. The objective is to analyze the degradation of the wrecks around Paros in order to better preserve them.
The sea is a vast reservoir of knowledge and surprises and discovery. makes you feel, it keeps you feeling young. The fact that you observe and then discover always keeps you in a state of excitement, zest and, you know, passion for what you're doing. Peter, a tireless explorer, records all the discoveries he makes in his archipelago. Knowledge is really the ultimate emancipator. Wherever I look, I see geology, biology, archaeology, history, or just plain beauty, aesthetics.
So this kind of thing, I think, has a very, very positive effect on the mind, the brain, the soul, or whatever you want to call it. And you do feel a sense of elation, calm, harmony, you know, all these nice words. Preserving the vestiges of the past, but also ensuring the resources of the present.
The future of the Cyclades lies in its coastlines. Peter devotes all his time and energy to protecting this fragile equilibrium. He travels the islands, working with other active players in the spirited life of the archipelago. I see myself as an interface between the fishermen and sort of local communities in Cyclades and the research and scientific community.
And we are putting together a plan to create a network of marine protected areas in the Cyclades. That's extremely important because it's been done in the rest of the Mediterranean, in France and Italy and Spain, and it's very successful. And we haven't done anything like that in Greece.
So until 2020, we're supposed to have about 10% of our seas under protection. On the island of Santorini, they are celebrating a small victory. A marine protected area has just been established.
New hope for all those who want to see the island's waters come back to life. It seems to me that the protected maritime area that you had proposed, be that one right over there. The fishermen have accepted it, but we have to agree on the distance. Yes, right.
Kyriakos Prekas is the union representative for the traditional fishermen. He and Peter are working with others at finding alternative solutions to ensure the survival of Santorini's fishermen. What will save us is being legally permitted to become fishing guides for the tourists.
That will breathe new life into our industry. Well, for you, the stakes are really high. That's right, Peter. You know, as soon as we have the authorization to take tourists on board, we'll adapt our boats.
To protect the sea, the sea that provides nourishment and hope to the Greek people. Now Kyriakos has to convince the other fishermen to stop fishing in these protected areas. You know, I'm almost 60. Our grandfathers and fathers left us a sea alive with fish.
Back in their day, they were careful, so they didn't need marine protected areas. Nowadays, they are. They're a necessity because we've ransacked everything. The entire planet should take a serious interest in the sea. I really believe that.
Hey, y'all, I want to leave simply another little stone or hopefully several little pixels in the picture. I think this is what I could contribute. The fact that everything's important, everything is part of the puzzle, is just knowing how to connect the dots and look at the larger picture. Thank you. The Aegean is more than a sea.
It's the realm of Aeolus, god of the winds. The sea, flanked by mainland Greece and Turkey, acts as a funnel which accelerates the winds from the north. Aeolus blows hot and cold.
In the summer, he unleashes the Melton. In winter, the Boreas. violent winds that cut the islands off from the rest of the world. In that case, the Greek port authorities declare apagoreftiko, sailing prohibited. Yes, good morning, sir. I'm calling you regarding the weather forecast in the area around
Brightimno for the next 24 hours. Over. No, no, 8, 5, 6, 4, 4. Okay, thank you sir, I've been doing well, bye bye. Bye, bye. I like having to adapt to different conditions,
feeling that I'm not part of the normal world. Diving is a million miles from that world. All the worlds change, the ones we're born with. The weightlessness, the sound, the way of seeing things, you have to use your body in a totally different way.
You don't get that anywhere else but on the water. The sea, being on the water, is a form of refuge, a refuge from noise, from today's world that moves too fast. When you're on the water, time stops. who experienced the world in a different way. Hortense Le Calvaise made her first dive at the age of 17. She soon turned professional and became a diving instructor.
When she met Mathieu, she got him diving too, opening up for him a different vision of the world. For me, art is the capacity of seeing what's familiar in a new way. It's being able to step back, and assume completely different perspectives on what we take for granted, what we consider banal. Now we're working on an installation called Posedonia. The inspiration came from the Posedonia seaweed.
We recreated it as if it had taken over certain objects, as if they had already spent a length of time in the water. Hortense is 25 years old. She studied fine arts in Amsterdam, then sculpture in London.
But driven by her desire for freedom and adventure, she opted for a nomadic life, far from the conventions and dictates of society. I decided to live on a boat when I was 15. Seeing my parents living in a house, that was dreadful to me.
Always in the same spot, no way. That's why I learned how to sail. For me, sailing was above all an escape route.
On a boat, anywhere you go, you're at home. It's awesome. Hortense and Mathieu share the same passion for the sea.
They've been sailing together for three years. This boat has become their only home. The boat is named Forlène 6 and it has become the name of our studio. It's a kind of traveling workshop where you can experiment. We really hope to have someday people come on board and collaborate with us.
We're on little workshops here and there on the islands, depending on what comes up. Last landfall before Africa, the largest island of the Aegean Sea, it marks the boundary with the rest of the Mediterranean. It has a milder climate in winter than the rest of the islands and offers shelter when the strong winds sweep across the waters of the Aegean Sea. Hortense and Mathieu have spotted a peninsula, Balos, on the western tip of Crete that might be a good place for a dive. They're looking for a bay sheltered from the winds and currents.
Look at the breakers. The weather should be okay by the time we get to the beach. Impossible to come all this way on foot. Yeah, no way, we're lucky you picked us up.
The studio is very new. We only started at the beginning of the winter, in December. Yeah, this adventure only started four or five months ago. The research is important, in the sense that each time we see what works and what doesn't. And we have a lot of ideas, so we really have projects that just pop up and our goal is to carry out as many as possible. So, I left, and now I'm going to the French merchant marine.
The location scouting is very important because each installation demands a specific setting. For some pieces we'll be looking for crystal clear water, others we'll want sandy bottom or rocky formations. Like Laundry for instance.
We really needed to find big rock formations to attach the two ends of a clothesline. It's different every time. The Mediterranean's transparent waters, the absence of tides and the shallow shores, make the Aegean Sea the ideal workshop for this duo's projects.
When I did my first dive it was such a revelation to realize that you can work on the water. You can do what you want. It's great. I can stay down for an hour, even two if the water is warm and I don't go too deep. I really wanted to combine my art studies with this newfound passion. The photography is really the trace of this fleeting moment.
It's not the end of that moment, and it's not the goal either. It's the outcome. It's what we can share, for now.
The everyday objects, reworked by Hortense, come to life as in fanciful tales. The sea brings them into relief. They cast their spell on us.
They tweak our curiosity. We really combine all our passions in order to create images, to surprise people, to amuse them. So we are really creating our very own world, and then we hope that it strikes a chord in other people.
to shed convention and break free of the norms. Hortense is writing her own life story. The story of a free woman with a poetic soul.
The sea has taught me everything. It's always been a great source of inspiration. I've always sailed. I've always lived close to the sea.
I couldn't do without it. The sea? It's my home. It's my childhood. It's the only place where I feel good.
Hortense and Mathieu work together to compose a world of their own. An imaginary realm where the laws of gravity are suspended. A space where water and wind are the raw materials of their adventure. Like cathedrals thrusting towards the heavens, the meteora are a masterpiece of nature.
Meteora, in Greek, means suspended in the air. The early hermits saw in this mystical place the handiwork of God and the ideal setting for prayer and asceticism. They withdrew into these natural caves and hollows, cut off from the world of humans. In the 14th century, Greek Orthodox monks, early mountaineers, undertook the construction of a breathtaking series of 24 monasteries devoted to seclusion. No roads, no stairs.
Ropes and pulleys the only link with the outside world below. Six of these monasteries are still active. This site has lost nothing of its mystical aura. It's also a favored destination for the more daring climbers, where they tackle these 300-meter cliff faces and challenge the void. Michalis Stilas is one of these rock climbers for whom the sky is the only limit. to climb as high as the gods for some it's a way of life for others a profession of faith ultimately the quest here at the meteora has been the same for centuries solitude silence and ecstasy when you're in difficult positions you you really really focus on the next millisecond And it's really your whole universe becomes just a tiny bit of rock or of ice, and your whole life and your whole inner existence depends on this tiny bit of rock and ice.
When a second becomes a century, then everything else is easy, just easy. That's the beauty about climbing. It's the instant and it's the greatness of the ride. To go knocking at heaven's gate, Miralis has taken up year-round residence where no one else dared to live before.
At over 2,600 meters altitude, in one of the highest refuges in Greece, he is the guardian of Mount Olympus. This place over here is the balcony of the refuge because you have the void just past this point. First, when you're close to the edge, you feel more mortal, which is a thing that we tend to forget in our out-of-the-mountain life.
And then it's the view, you know, when you have the gap and the air under your legs, you feel like a little god, you know. So, yeah, it's definitely a very exposed place. And when you're very close to a dynamic place like this... you get a little higher. Rather than a single mountain, Olympus is in fact more of a massif, with nine peaks over 2,600 meters in altitude.
Unconquered for ages, often cloaked in clouds, the ancients considered it as the center of the world. It was the sacred abode of the gods of Greek mythology, forbidden to mortals. In the heart of the winter, which lasts six months here, there can be up to four meters of snow on the ground.
I wouldn't have thought myself eight years ago to be coming to spend a whole month here in the winter. It was a science fiction scenario for us, even for us. But when you live in the nature and you adapt with the rules of nature, then everything becomes really easy. First your mind adapts to a certain idea, to the conditions, to the natural conditions, and then everything else follows. Now you get ready to climb? The nearest village, Lito Oro, is 20 kilometers away, and there's no road. At the time I have to go up and down for the supplies to resupply the refuge.
It's a really good chance to get back in shape for future projects. During the long winter it takes at least a two-day hike to make the climb and restock the refuge. A drawback, but it doesn't stop Mihalis. I have been climbing Mount Olympus for 30 years. In the last 10 years I'm managing refuge Kakalos.
So I can't remember how much times I climbed since my youth up on this place. Pretty much it's countless times. Just if you think that only this winter I've been there 35 times, only in the winter, that means that for the past 10 years, a great proportion of my life belongs to Mount Olympus. As long as there's still snow in the mountains, the mules can't climb the trail to the refuge.
They come halfway up, then they have to turn around and head back down to the Aegean Sea. Thereon, the climbers have to backpack the supplies the rest of the way up. Mount Olympus, in the northwest of the Aegean Sea, has fascinated people ever since they've lived in Greece. its feet in the sea and its head in the clouds. It rises to close to 3,000 meters. Its flanks slope gently into the Mediterranean.
It's the highest mountain in Greece. And in the dying rays of the sun, its shadow stretches far into the sea. 30 kilos of supplies each.
And they tackle the home stretch to the refuge. Alex and Nikos are old friends of Michalis. It wouldn't be possible to run the refuge without them. Well, house is officially assigned as the place that you get to spend most of your time, right? So the place where I get most of my time for the last five... eight years actually, it's right there, it's below the throne of Zeus. So the refuge for me is my house because that's where I work, that's where I live, that's where I ski, that's where I climb, that's where I'm hoping to do my research in the future and put all these things together in the blender and it makes a home, a very nice home.
It feels like the center of the universe for me and having a house In the center of the universe, it's something I feel really privileged about that. What else? Michalis was the first one to have the pluck to open the refuge in winter. One has to have a touch of madness to take this path. More than a few hikers have been put off by the bridge of Lemos. The sheer drop of 1500 meters, the slightest fall would be the last. This fine line you have to draw between your abilities, your desire, your passion, nature and what you really want to take out of this thing.
People believe that it's really stupid to go climb mountains but... For me it's like a world of wisdom because I've been in the university for many years. I have a doctorate degree in geology but the things that I learned, not about the rocks, but about myself on the mountain, nobody could ever teach me these things.
So it's this relation that keeps me going on and evolve as a mountaineer and after that evolve as a person. I don't know if better person or worse person but I definitely define myself. through my mountaineering experiences Christos Kakalos Refuge, perched on the Plateau of the Muses, was named after the first Greek to climb Olympus.
It was a hundred years ago. Now Michalis is getting ready for a climb to the summit, a way for him and his climbing partners to celebrate the end of winter. I got hurt in the mountains maybe more times than I should have. And that's not because of the mountain. It's just because of me. It's because of my mindset.
And because of... not obeying some rules that the mountain sets for standard. The philosophy is the same anywhere you are. But speaking about Olympus, this is the place where everything started and for me this is the place where still everything keeps evolving.
I don't know until then, until when, but it's definitely like climbing the infinite sphere. It's never gonna end. Mount Olympus as a base camp, the ridgeline as horizon, and the summits as leitmotif. Mihalis has tackled the most demanding mountains on earth.
The Alps, the Andes, the Rockies, the Himalayas. He took part in the only Greek expedition to climb Mount Everest. Braving the heavens has brought its lot of accidents. Walls, fractures, frostbite.
The mountain has also taken the lives of several of Nihalis'friends. You accept even dying. You never want to die, of course, but sometimes you have this really high emotion when you're up there, when you're over the edge, that you say, okay, I'm going to push it a little more and then... It's worth my life. But my experience tells me that this is not the case. I go in the mountains to get more life, not to give my life.
This is really addictive, to be honest with you. I can't change that for anything in my life. Conditions are good. The snow is a little bit soft but we need 120 meters to reach the top of the ancient gods, the pantheon.
Hello Zeus! 2917 meters. Mitikas is the highest peak of Mount Olympus, the summit of Greece. Ah, oh boy, Well, here we are, somewhere on Earth, three friends sharing the joy of being connected to the Earth, the sky, the snow and the sea.
Michalis Stylas has never been religious, but like the ancient Greeks, he feels the force of this place, the throne of Zeus. The God of the Gods is an intimidating sight for mere mortals. It's above all the sculptor of the greatest of the divinities, a masterpiece of nature. For the ancients, the abode of their twelve gods and goddesses was this airy, perched on the balcony of the world, caressed by the Aegean Sea, suspended in the air and cloaked in eternal snows.
2025-02-22 21:19
