about Greece and the Greek islands, a BBC documentary filmed in 1976
There are about two thousand Greek islands, and every year more tourists visit them, some to study the past, some to sail from island to island, some to marvel at the architecture or the abundance of wild flowers, some to bask in the heat or bathe amid incomparable scenery.
I was fortunate enough to be sent there by my Saudi Arabian employer to manage his commodity trading and fleet of bulk carriers from a rooftop office with panoramic views over Piraeus and the islands of Salamis and Aegina. It was a big job but I did sneak in a few visits to the islands during the eighteen months I was there. I could've and was indeed asked to stay longer, but youthful hubris made me think there were still greener pastures and so I moved on, much to my later regret.
Decades later, and in retirement, I think back with great fondness to my "Greek days", and treasure Lawrence Durrell's book "The Greek Islands". How glad I would have been had I known this when I was on the spot, and how sorry I feel to have missed out on so much while I was there!
"Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened." Whoever has said that, if truth be told, I'm still trying to find out how to do that.
