Greece 1978-1981

At the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s, Karen and I had a short-lived thing for Greece, mainly the Greek islands. We went three times, once to Crete in, we think, 1978, and twice to Rhodes, in 1979 and 1981.

The islands were just beginning to be mass tourist destinations in 1978. They'd long been known to bohemians and hippies as a cheap, warm place to hang out. Leonard Cohen was living on Hydra, writing poetry, in the early 60s when he met his Norwegian girl friend Maryanne. Joni Mitchell wintered on the same island a few years later, until she missed her "clean white linen and...fancy French cologne."

Karen and I were drawn to the Aegean more by the lure of cheap package holidays. At first you could only easily get to the islands by going to England, which is what we did in 1978. We spent a few days in London at the beginning of our holiday, doing touristy things.

Speaker's Corner at Hyde Park, London. No memory of what the dude on the soapbox was gassing on about - probably the certain road to hell we were all treading.

The clock tower at Hampton Court Palace

Presumably the view from our hotel - no memory of where it was.

I don't know why this pair of posters attracted me, but the one on the right confirmed the date. It's for a musical, England, England, about the London gangsters, the Kray brothers, written by counter-culture figures Snoo Wilson and Kevin Coyne. It opened in 1977.

The precincts of a large church, but no idea which. That's Karen behind the iron gate.

The precincts of a large church, but no idea which.

No clue exactly where this was taken, but in London, I'm pretty sure.

We also fit in a flying visit to Paris - or we may have done. Karen has cast some doubt on this. I certainly remember a trip in which we were in London, then trained down to Dover and caught the Channel ferry over to France. Judging by the order in which the pictures appear in the album, it looks to have been all part of the trip to Crete, which is certainly plausible. Karen says it might be a different trip. The London, Dover and Paris pictures (to follow) definitely were the same trip - Karen's hair and clothes are the same in all three places. Who knows? In any case, for some reason, I took a lot of photos in Dover that survived. 

These first few are of Dover Castle. The one of me posing at the castle gate in my cool new leather bomber jacket was staged for a reason. In 1965, my father took an almost identical picture of me that was famous in the family. He called it 'The Sulky Tourist' because of the sour expression I was wearing. I probably was sulking too, but not on this trip. The others below were taken around town - as I remember, fairly close to the B&B where we stayed. I've always loved the one of Karen sunlit in the archway.

I'm pretty sure this was the dining room of our B&B in Dover where I discovered that I actually did like tea, if it was brewed correctly so that it was a clear, reddish brown, not the inky substance my parents, and Karen, drank.

Isn't she lovely! That's me in the background.

The next day we got on the Channel ferry and bopped over to Paris. I can't remember how long we stayed, but judging by the small number of surviving pictures taken in such a photogenic city, no more than a couple of days, maybe only one.

Eiffel Tower (Yes, the verdict's in - she is lovely.)

We weren't very imaginative tourists apparently. It had only been seven years since we were
here last - did we really need to do the Eiffel Tower again?

I'm not certain, but I think this is in the grounds of Notre Dame.

This for sure is Notre Dame.

Near our hotel?

Tuileries Garden

Presumably the view from our hotel window.

We went back to England and, according to my timeline, caught a flight to Crete from there. Or did we stop in Athens? Initially, I was thinking we'd flown to Athens, then taken a ferry from Piraeus, the nearby port. But I have no memory of that boat ride, and I'm thinking now we must have flown directly to Crete. There was certainly an airport then, at Heraklion, the major city on the island. And it started receiving charter flights from Britain as early as 1971. So it seems likely. It was all part of a cheap Thomas Cooke package we'd bought before leaving home. (How did we manage that in the pre-Internet era, I wonder? Can't remember.) 

The tour operator bused us to what felt like quite a remote location. We stayed in a resort that I remember us thinking was a little out of our league. It was fairly posh. Most of the others on the tour appeared to be middle-aged, middle-class Brits. 

There was a little fishing village down a dirt road that was starting to be developed for tourism. We walked to it a couple of times and had lunch there once. The waiter had a hard time getting us to understand that he was offering, in addition to what was on the menu, whatever came off the fishing boats which were coming back from their morning's work. He finally waved at the sea, where one of them was just steaming into port.

But where was this place? We don't really know. Karen thinks is was on the southwest side of the island. We have pictures that seem to give some clues as to the local topography, but after an hour poring over the Google Earth map of Crete, I gave up trying to figure out where it was. Of course, it would almost certainly have changed, possibly beyond recognition, with all the tourist development in Crete.

I originally thought this was the view from the ferry as we came in to Heraklion, but if we flew, that doesn't make sense. I think it's Heraklion, though.

A port-side restaurant in Heraklion? I don't think we ate here.

We're fairly certain this is a view over the grounds of our resort.

We did go to Knossos, the Minoan archaeological site. There is some disagreement between us over how we got there. Karen insists she remembers me driving, but I can't think where we would have rented a car, given the remoteness of our location. I also have a dim memory of riding a public bus along the north coast highway. No matter, only one picture of Knossos survives, along with fragmentary impressions of the place.

Next up: Rhodes.