We had visited the excellent Acropolis Museum before the site itself, its trove of treasures depicting everyday life, allowing ones imagination to easily meander to that time. Perhaps their exquisite gold jewellery glinted in the sun as they strolled the temples with offerings of incense and honey-dripped sheafs of wheat. I can imagine the beautifully adorned women in their flowing tunics, the chiton or the sleeveless peplos, maybe a himation (cloak) for cooler winter months. Statues honouring Greek mythology posed dramatically – Apollo and Athena Nike the goddess of victory, Zeus, Hercules and the messenger god Hermes. Like all Greek temples, it was richly ornamented in vivid natural colours of blues, reds and golds. My engineer partner suggested that he would rather see the Parthenon fully reconstructed and on that point I had to protest. I thrilled in the ruins, content for them to hint at the once glorious past. But life then, as now, plays out on the stage beneath its glorious prominence, fanning out over the plains and hills of old Attica.Īfter climbing the limestone crag of the Acropolis (literally ‘highest point of the city’), the magnificent ruins stood before us. While there is evidence that the hill was inhabited as far back as the fourth millennium BC, it was the astute and forward-thinking statesman Pericles (495 – 429 BC) who coordinated the construction of some of the site’s most important structures and others that followed: the delicate Temple of Athena Nike, the grand entrance of the Propylaia, the Erectheion with its maidens columns – all stunning even in the fractured mosaic of their sun-bleached remnants. Its Ionic columns still evoking the power and refinement of ancient Greece. The breathtaking view of the Parthenon held us spellbound as we lingered over drinks that first evening on the rooftop bar of the Herodion Hotel – feeling close enough to reach out and touch its aged, elegant marble. We stayed in the shadow of the Acropolis. It speaks of the founding of democracy and art, poets and scholars, and theatre of the great odeums where orators and actors guided and chided the world into independent thinking, towards democracy itself. Yet Athens is not a trivial holiday experience, it is humbling if one sets the span of a life against its timeless presence. It became our local ‘go-to’ and from that first long indulgent lunch, the stress of the move from the past few months was lifted a sense of recovery from the planning, packing and heartfelt farewells of India. We were sitting in an outdoor taverna, Scholarkheio, a family run restaurant since 1935 situated in the quaint streets of Plaka. “And how could you not, the food is enough to never want to leave!” “I can see why your mom loved it here so much,” I proclaimed on the first afternoon as we lingered over a languid lunch of Greek salad, spanakopita, bread, olives and a carafe of local white wine. Bruce’s mother was very much a willing accomplice to the twice-yearly forays to Greece and Turkey. I had heard some of these stories through the years yet now being here, I could more easily imagine George as he transformed into Georgios during his visits. “He would unleash his Ancient Greek to the bemusement and delight of patrons in back-street tavernas and working men’s clubs,” Bruce recalled fondly, visualizing the scene with amusement. Visiting Greece often with Bruce’s mother, Isabella, they had mostly forgone the tourist streets in cities such as Athens, Heraklion and Kalamata, preferring the clubs and haunts of local Greeks. He notably earned a Doctorate in Classics in his later years, studying the Ancient Greek language in parallel to better read the texts. George Greenaway Wilson was a didactic dad who took great joy in sharing his love of literature and military history, his bookshelves crammed with the works of Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Euripides.

My husband’s father had been a classical scholar, a longtime philhellenic a professed lover of all things Greek.

Greece was the perfect choice… and there was another poignant reason. It was the perfect choice for our brief interlude. Keeping in mind that we would be laden with a pile of suitcases as we moved from India, we wanted somewhere en route to our destination, ideally warm, and a contrast to Asia.

I had loved Rome, Paris and Istanbul… but Athens! It is profoundly special and awe-inspiring in its expanse of history and graceful beauty.

Greek meander