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00:00I'm on a journey around the fabulously diverse country of Greece.
00:11It'll take me from her historic cities to her most remote outposts.
00:19I'll be meeting Greeks from all walks of life and learning about their traditions and the way they live.
00:27You see one and think that's a jump and then you think this one isn't. But it is.
00:33Greece is also the birthplace of European history.
00:38This is where Western civilisation began. Drama, democracy, language, science, medicine.
00:45This country has given us so much and it's influenced the fabric of our everyday life.
00:52In this programme, I'm going to explore some of the 1400 Greek islands.
00:59Each has its own story to tell, with a fascinating history spanning thousands of years.
01:06It's always very strange to know that where you are is exactly where people from biblical times or history books or legends were.
01:16Here. It was here.
01:19Along the way, I'll be taking my research seriously.
01:24I shall ignore health and safety at my peril.
01:29They don't suddenly just go blip like that, do they?
01:31Sometimes.
01:32Oh, well, okay.
01:33Sometimes.
01:34And we'll meet a Greek shipping magnet in a journey to find out how one of the world's greatest maritime nations has influenced so much of what we take for granted today.
01:49First, long as beyond.
01:52It has ever been finished when it's gone through their image of Jerusalem,
01:57with the United Earth difference in Symphony and creo.
02:02HopefullyAgainant and jungles remain either.
02:04Than in my community with Hosanna and Fiona Borrow.
02:06This has been into our Alliance of Germany.
02:07This is strictly United States of Europe.
02:09In the nature of the world's greatest maritime nations,
02:12and you find Klimasville.
02:14Obviously, you are British countries are quite lucky,
02:16and you must not be surprised at this sahaja word sanitized forever.
02:18The island of Spetses is half a day by sea from Athens.
02:26One of Greece's famous shipping magnets has flown us at his expense to his luxury yacht,
02:32so that I may talk to him about what it is to be a Greek islander and seafarer.
02:42When you come to Greece and you're told you're going to meet a Greek shipping magnate,
02:47you kind of hope that the boat will look like this.
02:54Fabulous.
02:56Calimera.
02:58Captain Sarkos, how lovely to meet you.
03:02I'm happy to have you on board.
03:04Captain Sarkos is a self-made man with the sea in his blood.
03:08His family started as maritime traders, and over the centuries they've conquered the world's shipping routes.
03:24Despite Greece's economic woes, he still finds time to be on board his beautifully built catch, the Christian bee, which he bought from the Bulgari family.
03:30I believe that we do have it in our DNA to live by the sea, for the sea, from the sea.
03:43What even created our nation was the sea, and the wealth and power that came from the sea.
03:51They transport foodstuff, they transport what is needed for the construction and the infrastructure.
04:00They transport what is needed for the energy, which is mainly coal and oil, and now gas.
04:13The success of Captain Sarkos's family, and others like him, was born from necessity.
04:19Centuries ago, island life was poor, and it was difficult to eke out a living.
04:23So they took to the sea to seek their fortunes.
04:28And so the sea is what they became masters at.
04:31They ruled the sea. They ruled the ancient sea.
04:35And then with the great Greek shipping magnets, they ruled the modern seas as well.
04:41Captain Sarkos's forefathers would be green with envy over the technology available to seafarers today.
04:48Once, many sailors would be required to set the sails.
04:51Now, it all happens at the push of a button.
04:57I had no idea that you could set a sail by pressing just a lever, and that beautiful sail on your own.
05:04A musician, a piano player, has his keyboard.
05:07He's a smiling keyboard.
05:09It's fantastic.
05:11Is that a Union Jack we're flying?
05:13What is this red flag?
05:15This is the English flag.
05:16It's the English flag.
05:18And why have we got the English flag up?
05:21Because we have you on board.
05:23English guests.
05:24Is that true?
05:25Yes.
05:26Well, that's fantastic.
05:27The open seas, the distance between the two ships must be, must be big enough so that you have the time to stop here or maneuver here. You take it a little bit more to the starboard, which is the right. You're doing very well. Fantastic.
05:58I don't know in that.
05:59It's about 25 years.
06:00But I say it's not exactly what it is.
06:01Why did we find the Poros Canal?
06:02Well, the way you're going, we wouldn't be surprised.
06:06The Poros Canal is a narrow stretch of water which passes the tiny island of Poros, which coincidentally
06:14for greece began 40 years ago i was sharing a flat in london and we decided to save up our money
06:20and come to greece this was 1966 and i'd been told to go to an island which i thought was poros
06:30we bought our tickets and we came and we were brought by a ferry to this enchanting little town
06:36we found two rooms in villagers houses and stayed there and it was only later actually during the
06:43trip when somebody said why did you come to poros i said i think that's where we were told to go
06:50poros and naxos and they said not poros it's paros and naxos paros another bigger island much further
06:56up and you came to poros but by that time we'd fallen in love we had the best holiday you can
07:02imagine and that is where my love affair with greece started it was just enchanting
07:13over the centuries greece's islands have attracted the attention of many invading forces
07:32perhaps the most famous of these is the ottoman empire between the 15th and 19th centuries
07:39the ottomans from turkey dominated the seafaring nations of the mediterranean
07:44using the greek islands as strategic bases for their ships they were bitterly resented by the
07:49greeks whose own empire 2000 years before had stretched from athens to india by the early 1800s
07:57the people of greece were on the verge of a revolution one of the key revolutionaries was a
08:02woman called bubulina who today is recognized as a national heroine her home has been preserved and
08:09is looked after by philip demercis bubulis a descendant of bubulina yes this is the big living
08:17room of bubulina's house she was born actually inside a prison in constantinopoli she grew up here
08:23on spezia she married twice both her husbands died at sea with sea battles with the barbarian pirates did they
08:31have their own ships their own ships yes and they used to take her and they used to take her with
08:36the ships you know something unheard in those days for a woman to sail then she had and she inherited a
08:42very large fortune which she spent it in the first three years of the greek war of independence she gave
08:48all her fortune for for our freedom in 1820 bubulina used the wealth she inherited from her two seafaring
08:57husbands and built a small navy of eight ships to blockade ports against the ruling ottomans
09:04a year later she was raising the greek flag having helped to liberate nafplion the city which would
09:10become the new greek capital now this is a very famous painting here in greece this is the original
09:17and it shows bubulina attacking the castles of nafli look at the way the painter has met the men inside
09:23the boat look at the carrying fear all of them they are scared yeah in comparing the way he has made
09:28bubulina you know standing up you know fearless she is the only woman in world naval history that
09:35she's got the title of an admiral an honorary title an honorary title given to her after the her death
09:40but i think that that must be a first in the whole world the whole world as she liberated islands and ports
09:46from the ottomans she risked her life to save others particularly the women from the ruling pasha's
09:52harim however bubulina's last days were not to end at sea she had a very unfortunate end of course
10:00and she was killed here on species in a family argument believe it or not after all that so it
10:06was a very very tragic tragic and inglorious if you like and for this woman that she did so much for her
10:12country bubulina may have had an inglorious end but like our bodicea she's one of europe's greatest
10:20heroines tomorrow i'm traveling to crete greece's largest island whose history has been shaped by tyranny
10:29and warfare
10:43homer wrote in his epic poem the odyssey there is a land called crete in the midst of the wine dark sea
10:50a fair rich land after such sentiment who could resist the journey to greece's far-flung outpost
10:57far behind me is mainland greece and athens far in front of me is libya but this island that we're
11:13coming into is crete the largest of all the greek islands this is its capital heracleion now it was
11:20incredibly important both to the ancient greeks and the minoans and all the people before that
11:26because of its position it was sitting bang in the middle of the ocean everybody who traded had to come
11:31past it's fabulously beautiful it's already got a feeling not quite of greece halfway between greece and
11:41africa half way to the beginning of the middle of the earth and why not because it's the birthplace
11:48of zeus god of gods
11:58it's the first time in the war that the nazis encountered mass resistance from the local
12:15population some of the fighting took place near mount psilorites zeus's birthplace in its shadow lies
12:39a village called anoia eleni fanori utu my translator has brought me to this small town which was at the
12:50center of the cretan resistance during the german occupation many of the townspeople here lost their
12:59lives as a result during the occupation nikos fasulas a bootmaker in the village narrowly escaped execution
13:09by the nazis
13:18can i sit here how long has he been a cobbler
13:31so he was making shoes during the war
13:34can you tell me about that time
13:51mr fasulas was also an eyewitness to one of the most daring exploits of the second world war
13:56when two british agents william stanley moss and patrick lee farmer assisted by the greek resistance
14:03kidnapped the german commander of crete general kriper
14:07disguised as germans they passed through 22 checkpoints before climbing to the village of anoia
14:13and spiriting him away to the mountains it was a huge propaganda coup for the allies
14:19and later became the basis for the movie ill-met by moonlight
14:25did he seek general kriper pastor
14:29he saw it it's true i saw him
14:32the germans pursued them for 18 days but they were unable to stop the british taking the commander
14:48prisoner and transporting him to caro
14:52in reprisal it was ordered that every male in anoia should be executed
14:56and that the town itself should be destroyed he must have seen the terrible reprisals on this
15:04village i read that it was raised to the ground
15:18did you lose friends personal close friends from this village during the reprisals
15:24in the first time
15:47look at this order by the german general commander of the garrison of crete
15:53because the town of anoia is the center of the english intelligence on crete
15:58and because it was through anoia that the kidnappers with general von kriper
16:02passed using anoia as a transit camp
16:05we order its complete destruction and the execution of every male person of anoia
16:10who would happen to be within the village and around it within a distance of one kilometer
16:17so that was when
16:18this little village this tiny town was completely raised to the ground
16:26most of anoia's 4 000 inhabitants sought safety in the mountains while the nazis took three weeks to
16:32destroy their town patrick lee farmer one of the two british agents who kidnapped general von kriper
16:39became a household name his daring exploits are still told today
16:45and there's a great story of general von kriper watching the dawn coming up one morning making a
16:49great quote and i'm ashamed to say i don't know whether it was in greek or ancient greek or ancient
16:53latin and patrick lee firmer completed the quote and they looked at each other and realized that
16:58without a war they would have been friends they were just people of exactly the same kind of background
17:04vital to the operation to kidnap the general was the crete resistance
17:09when they weren't fighting the germans they lay low in the mountains living with the shepherds
17:16the shepherd's descendants still tend their flocks as they would have done during the war
17:20one of the shepherds manolis is taking me to the very same pastures we're going up in this it's a
17:33four by four the track gets very tough from here on
17:44it's easy to see how the resistance fighters could have melted away into this landscape
17:50of the way of life hasn't changed much for centuries
18:21cretan resistance fighters would have had to live much like these shepherds do today
18:26on a basic diet of meat and cheese
18:31way that we make it and the meat and the cheese is from very very old years
18:35yes from very very old years we have the tradition and we keep it can i feel yes yes
18:41so it actually feels at the moment just like milk
18:45but presumably with this heat underneath it it's kind of
18:48thickening up like custard the woman's are better in that from the men the men are better in the meat
18:55i see woman's task men sitting watching meat and women's actually stirring i see
18:59the men are better in the men's
19:06look special sheep milking trousers going on here when the fighters weren't disrupting the germans
19:11they would have had to chip in with the work in the fields
19:14well i watch you first i think
19:18i want to dimitri you you show me you show me
19:21the meat is the one of the best
19:24yes you show me once you show me once and i'll have a go
19:40will you forgive me for not having a good looking because the thing is is that if it was one sheep
19:44very tame sheep and it was um very calm and there was nothing much happening i could have a go at
19:49it and get it badly wrong so it's quite a skill with a hairy avalanche waiting you can sense you
19:55know there's quite a sort of expectation here that it's going to be done and done properly
19:58and i'd mess it up you know what i mean oh a lovely jump you just can't tell which ones are going to
20:07jump and which ones aren't you see one think that's a jump and then you think this one isn't but it is
20:28not all about it the longories are going to be interesting
20:33east along the coast from heracleion there is a tiny fishing village which sits opposite the island of
20:39spinolonga
20:45in the past locals used the heavy fortress to protect themselves from pirates more recently
20:51in the first half of the last century spinolonga was one of the last leper colonies in europe
20:58Aris, a local boatman, has kindly agreed to take me to the island.
21:04Thank you. You're welcome.
21:07Though leprosy has been virtually eradicated in Europe,
21:10hundreds of thousands of new cases still occur each year
21:13in the developing world.
21:15It's an archaeological place. That was the hospital.
21:18This one here? Yes, the big one in the middle was the hospital.
21:21It's been a long... It was like a real town.
21:23The people had their private houses.
21:26Yeah. You can see the small buildings.
21:28They had a cafe, they had a normal life.
21:30The only difference was that it was like a prison.
21:33If somebody was inside, he was not allowed to go out.
21:36The doctors and nurses, they lived here or they came across...
21:40Yes, they were here, lived with the sick people together.
21:44I don't know much about leprosy.
21:46Do you catch leprosy or how do you get it?
21:49The truth is that nobody knows yet how you can get leprosy.
21:55They found the medicine, everybody's okay, but they can't found how...
21:58How it started? Yes.
22:00In the 1940s, an effective treatment for leprosy was discovered
22:04and Spina Longa was finally abandoned in 1957.
22:10Just over here is the main gate.
22:12The people from here, when they passed this gate,
22:16was only lepers. Nobody else except the lepers.
22:20This must have been frightening to come here as a leper,
22:23to make your first entrance through a sort of...
22:25Yes, the first feeling when you come in this island.
22:27Big iron gates and then...
22:29Yes.
22:30In 1904, 251 patients were settled on the island.
22:35And then during its 50 years as a leper colony,
22:38more than a thousand people passed through its gates.
22:41Once on the island, the patients received food, water and social security,
22:46as well as medical treatment.
22:49Aris's great-grandmother was a nurse here.
22:52The way to the hospital.
22:53And here's the hospital.
22:56The doctors, the nurses, all these people was here.
23:01Every day, take care of the people.
23:04The life was very hard.
23:06I know stories from my grandmother.
23:08It was really difficult also for these people.
23:10I think people thought it was a disease you could catch.
23:14If you want to try to go inside, maybe we can do it.
23:17It says no entry. Okay.
23:19You want to try?
23:21Yeah, I do.
23:26Big windows, high ceilings.
23:31Yes.
23:32Windows with bars on them.
23:33Look at this.
23:34This must have been some sort of sick bay with such high windows
23:38with the old shutters.
23:40You know, they have so big windows and it's so high
23:44because the air has to pass because the smell, it was really bad.
23:50It smelled?
23:51Yes.
23:52The sick people had a very, very bad smell.
23:58Imagine here, all sick people who are in the beds,
24:05to see the village and all the area outside,
24:08and they don't have the chance to go from here.
24:12And if they were in this hospital, they knew they were going to die.
24:15Yes.
24:16Yes.
24:17And you can see the
24:43Scotland produces the finest whiskey in the world the area to the east of spina longer reportedly produces the finest rocky on the island of Crete
24:54The favorite drink in Greece is rocky
24:56But they drink who's oh they drink with taxa brandy and so on but rocky is what everybody drinks. It's a sort of local moonshine
25:03I call hooch
25:05I imagine it differs from area to area and I thought that it might be made like all white spirits from I don't know potatoes or
25:12Sort of celery choppings, but it's not it's made from grape skins
25:19I've drunk it. I love it. I think it's delicious. You don't drink lots of it
25:22You just have small amounts, but today I'm going to a town a little village called city
25:27And I'm going to meet somebody who's going to show me how he makes it because apparently
25:31Each family makes its own
25:33I never really thought of that
25:39Stelios Patrakis has the biggest rocky making still or kazani allowed for personal consumption in the region
25:46I'm
25:48I'm
25:49I'm
25:51Thank you. Yes, yes, yes, smells beautiful
25:53One of no potato or a potato
26:00It's pure
26:01It's wonderful. I can't think how to say wonderful
26:05In a pair of ho
26:07In a pair of ho
26:08In a pair of ho
26:12The grapes are mulched down in water and then heated over an open fire
26:16Steam rises through the teapot shaped kazani and is then cooled in a tank of cold water
26:22And as it cools it turns back into liquid
26:24And the liquid is pure alcohol and the first which comes from the woody stem of the grape
26:31Is lethal it's 98% proof and the old women here use it for medical purposes
26:36They use it for cleaning and for back rubs and things alcohol rubs you've heard of this
26:40But the second is this unbelievably pure clean clean liquid
26:45And you don't get hangovers from things like this because there's nothing added
26:49It's completely pure once the first woody alcohol is taken off you've just got this extraordinarily clean pure style
26:57So it just takes two hours to make this dancing mixture
27:00It's unbelievable
27:01And quite a large quantity of it too
27:04Just taste it again to make sure you know
27:11Do you know it takes it tastes better with every sip
27:14You become slightly less articulate but more appreciative with every sip
27:17Several times a year family and friends get together for prolonged rocky making sessions
27:24Tastings are an excuse for a huge feast
27:28Lovely little olives
27:32The cooking is overseen by Stelios's wife
27:36Now this is extraordinary because it's the most wonderful way of eating globe artichokes
27:42Which is in the northern countries we tend to boil them entirely until the leaves become loose enough to drop off
27:49Then you scrape the leaf cut the choke out and just eat the artichoke out
27:54Here they cut them and eat them raw
27:56In fact it's just the same thing you eat as much as it
27:58And sometimes when you take it you can scrape it with your teeth
28:01Then you eat these lovely crunchy bits
28:03But these bits
28:05Which usually are cooked here
28:06Which usually are cooked here
28:08They raw with lemon juice on
28:10It's wonderful
28:11And we can try that at home
28:12The traditional music played in part on a Greek lyre is accompanied by equally traditional Greek dancing
28:33Under the influence of the raki and against my better judgement
28:38I'm persuaded by Stelios's friends to take part
28:42This is my idea of utter hell is being made to do
28:46Dancing without any tuition
28:48But pretending that it's completely normal
28:56I've got a lunatic on my right
28:58Who thinks he's leading the dance
28:59He's leading the dance
29:21Far across the Aegean Sea is an island which played a significant part in the lives of the ancient Greeks
29:27Cos was a destination for the sick who wanted to be healed
29:33What began here thousands of years ago continues to play a significant part in our lives today
29:42For this is the birthplace of Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine
29:50He believed in clinical observation, logical analysis and the healing power of nature
29:55He believed in putting the patient at the centre of the diagnosis
30:00He believed in diet, he believed in a healthy environment
30:03And above all, he managed to tell people that it wasn't their fault that they were ill
30:09It wasn't a punishment from the gods
30:11It was simply because the body was sick
30:12So he managed to separate completely religion and medicine for the first time ever
30:18To this day, many doctors still take the Hippocratic oath before they practice medicine
30:25They say Hippocrates, though mortal, is descended from the god of healing, Asclepius
30:30Manolis, a local historian, is taking me to the Asclepion, a sort of health spa and healing sanctuary
30:41Some scholars say that in fact Asclepius was the first real doctor, he was human
30:46And after being so good and so perfect in medicine, after he died they made him a god
30:51Oh, I see
30:53And they invented the myth
30:55That's very rare, isn't it? To become, to be made a god
30:58Yes, it's very rare
31:00And Hippocrates, who is a descendant from Asclepius, is the 18th descendant of the god himself, of Asclepius
31:08So medicine running in the family
31:10Yes, exactly, that was the way
31:11Yes
31:12There were hundreds of Asclepians in ancient Greece
31:15But now, looking at these abandoned ruins, it's quite difficult to imagine them buzzing with life
31:21There should be in more than one terraces, so in most cases there would be three
31:26Is this the first terrace here?
31:28Yes, this is the first terrace, which was devoted to the body
31:31The second one would be devoted to the soul
31:35And the third one to the spirit
31:37Body, soul, spirit
31:39And here we would have the rooms for the patients, all surrounding the first terrace
31:44So like a great, er, sort of hospital later
31:49Yes, exactly, exactly
31:51Also they've chosen the most beautiful position
31:54It was a prerequisite to have a unique location
31:58And presumably a prerequisite to have water
32:00Yes, exactly
32:03Very interesting statuette up at the top
32:05It looks like pan or something
32:06Exactly, the small god of the woods
32:08Half a goat, half a human
32:09I think he's playing a pipe
32:11Exactly, the pan pipe
32:13The pan pipe
32:15It's like the green man
32:17We have the green man in England, who's very like pan
32:19He lived in the woods, he had no sort of morals as we have them
32:24Everything was fine
32:26All right
32:27All the morals were good, all this was good
32:29You take that, it's yours, it doesn't matter, I have it
32:31I'll leave you, I love you, I'll leave you
32:33He had no morals
32:35Something like the 70s
32:37Something like the 70s, actually
32:39With pan pipes and letting the hair go
32:42Having fun, celebrating
32:44Above the hospitals stood the temples
32:47So that patients could worship their gods and show their gratitude
32:51People therefore came here with a sense of absolute purpose
32:55They came because they were ill or they wanted to get well
32:58But they knew, they had the faith already
33:00They knew their god was here
33:02They would bring what, what would they offer?
33:04They would expect you to bring something, for example an animal
33:07You didn't have any money, you could always find some nuts, some milk
33:11In most cases, the animal would be killed, cut, the intestines will be burnt
33:17So the smoke would go up to the gods from Olympus and they would be pleased that you are remembering them
33:22But the rest of the animal would be eaten
33:25The ancient Greeks realised they couldn't be healed through worship alone
33:29So through incredible foresight, they also built a medical school inside the grounds of the temple
33:35To teach the science of Hippocrates
33:37Here it would be something like a podium
33:40Their teacher would be here teaching them the lesson
33:43Hippocrates was the first one to cry out and say that there is never an illness without a natural cause
33:49Before him, they believed very much that the gods were given the illnesses
33:54Hippocrates said, I respect the gods, but I'm sorry, there is never an illness without a natural cause
34:00He went so far that until the 19th century, his books were still being studied worldwide
34:05So here we are at the third terrace
34:09Just like today, sadly not all illnesses could be healed
34:13So on the third terrace was a temple where those about to die could give their soul and spirit to the gods
34:19Yes, yes
34:20And what does it look like?
34:22It looked like something that you wouldn't want to miss and something that would make you feel so humble, so small
34:28Yeah
34:29That by giving your soul to the god, you were sure that you would be healed
34:35This was majestic, enormous
34:38Exactly
34:39Dominating this hillside
34:40Yeah
34:41Exactly
34:44Amor
35:10Sunrise on Kos.
35:12Manolis has arranged a trip to the neighbouring island of Nisiros,
35:16which is home to an active volcano.
35:21Kos and Nisiros are part of a chain of volcanic islands
35:25which stretches across the Aegean.
35:31In Greek mythology, Poseidon is the tempestuous god of the sea,
35:36who was seen to throw a huge rock at an escaping titan.
35:40As it crashed into the water,
35:42that rock became the volcanic island of Nisiros.
35:45And every time the volcano erupts,
35:47people believe it is the pinned-down titan trying to escape.
35:51The last eruption was in 1888.
35:55Nisiros is a tiny island,
35:57and one of its few vehicles is the school bus,
36:00which we commandeer for the day.
36:06The volcano, with its five craters,
36:11covers almost half the surface area of the entire island.
36:21Stephanos is the biggest of the five craters.
36:24The smell, it's sort of sulphurous,
36:37but it's got even another smell on the back of it as well.
36:41Yes.
36:43And what is really unique is that he's alive,
36:47he's changing all the time,
36:49depending on the weather, depending on the wind.
36:51If it is rain, it's never the same.
36:54And the fumaroles, how close to them can we get?
36:57Not really close, because as close as we get,
37:00the crust is thinner.
37:02Yeah.
37:03Because the steam that comes out from the fumaroles
37:05is up to 100 degrees Celsius.
37:07Look at these fantastic colours,
37:08this sour yellow and baked.
37:11This must have been from, what, rain and then drying out?
37:14Exactly.
37:15If you listen, you can actually hear it bubbling.
37:18Yes.
37:22This is not good to touch, is it?
37:24Not good to touch.
37:25One of the nicknames is Akolos.
37:27Akolos.
37:28Kolos is bum.
37:29Exactly.
37:30Akolos, bumless.
37:33So, if you sit, you're going to burn.
37:36Phew.
37:37I'm quite enchanted that in such a place of desolation
37:40and sort of absence of life, there are such stunning patterns.
37:46You couldn't find an art designer to make you lovelier,
37:51more beautiful arrangements of how these, how it dries.
37:55It's as if nature just doesn't have to bother to be ugly or horrible.
37:58Nature is an artist itself.
37:59Around everything, it's just beautiful.
38:02They don't suddenly just go blip like that, do they?
38:04Sometimes.
38:05Oh, well, okay.
38:06Sometimes.
38:07That's why you should never go...
38:08No, I'm honestly not going to do that.
38:11I think I'll just not do that.
38:15This feels almost as though we're on another planet here.
38:18Yeah.
38:19Some say it resembles the moon, how the moon would be looking like.
38:23That's why Moonraker was shot here.
38:26Moonraker?
38:27Yes.
38:28The Bond film?
38:29Yes.
38:30Roger Moore?
38:31Exactly.
38:32Some shots of the moon, they were just exactly where we are right now.
38:34How extraordinary.
38:42We're catching the ferry to Patmos.
38:44We've got about ten minutes to get all this stuff on.
38:46I can't tell you how much stuff we travel with.
38:48I haven't got a ticket.
38:53I've got a ten.
39:00Thank you, thank you very much.
39:04It's rather hairy.
39:05I mean, there's a sense that these really only stop.
39:07If they're not really concerned, they just say,
39:09we're stopping, ten minutes, it goes up, gone.
39:12The ferry from Kos to Patmos takes just an hour and a half, stopping equally briefly at the islands of Kalimnos, Leros and Lipsi.
39:26I was trying to get your head around the idea that this is all one country, that it's absolutely customary to travel by boat all the time, because everywhere feels like little different nations almost.
39:44They're zipping around like this, and they're all different little islands, and they're all Greece.
39:50It's wonderful.
39:51This, however, is not Greece.
39:52This is Turkey just there.
39:53But in the old days, of course, it was ancient Greece.
39:56Just down the coast is a place which used to be called Halicarnassus and is now called Bodrum.
40:01You can take a ferry from Kos to Bodrum.
40:03Don't take 19, 20 minutes over there.
40:06And that's where the master of history, the first man to write history in a way that made it a story that people could understand.
40:15He wasn't always dead accurate, but he was considered to be the very, very first great historian.
40:20His name was Herodotus. Magical man. Fantastical. I love people who, when they can't really get all the facts, just make it up.
40:29I think we do probably the same today, actually.
40:37Patmos is dominated by an 11th century monastery dedicated to St John the Divine, who was exiled to this small island by the Romans in the first century AD.
40:50It was while living here in isolation in a cave that he dictated the last book of the New Testament, Revelations, to his faithful assistant.
41:07This is just extraordinary. This must have been the entrance to the cave.
41:11This is the cleft in the rock through which he heard, apparently, the voice of God speaking.
41:17Just through here.
41:21And now we're inside the cave.
41:24We would have looked straight out down over the hills to the sea.
41:28He'd been exiled.
41:31Now maybe just because he was a troublemaker, or maybe ancient Rome had sent him away.
41:35But anyway, he stayed here for about two years in this cave.
41:39The cave is dappled with these dints, and he found a dint here.
41:44And apparently this is where he lay and slept.
41:47So they've made a little crown over that holy place.
41:50And because he was quite an old man, when he got up he'd found a little notch in the wall which used to put his hand in and pull himself up through his hat.
41:57Here we see John resting, receiving the wisdom, and here, supported by angels, are the seven churches of Asia Minor.
42:08And the stories he was receiving in this sort of period of intense meditation were absolutely phenomenal.
42:15And I don't think it matters really which religion you are.
42:17To read the book of Revelations is in itself a revelation.
42:22So many of the words we know, and so many of the things we say, like the four horsemen of the apocalypse, that's from the revelations.
42:28Fire and brimstone, a bottomless pit, ruling with a rod of iron.
42:32All these phrases come from the book of Revelations.
42:37What an extraordinary place.
42:39It's always very strange to know that where you are is exactly where people from biblical times or history books or legends were.
42:52Here. It was here.
43:09It's the evening now and we're just heading towards Athens.
43:13It's the evening now and we're just heading towards Athens
43:38and it's the end of this extraordinary journey around some of these islands in Greece.
43:45It has been eye-opening.
43:47I don't think I ever realised how different every single island was.
43:50Each one seems to have its own character, sometimes its own customs,
43:55its own particular pride in its own olives or wine or particular cheese-making skills or its own history.
44:01But the thing that has impressed me most is how far-flung Greece is through her 1,400 islands.
44:11How do you make a country like that work?
44:14Of course, it's only quite recently that it has been Greece as we know it as a country.
44:18Before it, it was the Hellenic people, the Hellenes, who spread all over these lands
44:23with their own particular customs and enmities between each other,
44:29all uniting against the yokes of countless empires which seem to have trodden all over them.
44:34And yet, at the end, they spring back again.
44:38Absolutely amazing.
44:40And still the Greeks are grounded, as it were, if that's not the wrong word, in the sea.
44:45And I think that's what's made it so thrilling.
44:47In the last episode of my odyssey, I shall travel to the fiery heart of Greece.
44:59Whoa, little boys! Oh, my God. It's just strangely scary.
45:04Climb halfway to heaven to visit the gods on Mount Olympus
45:08and see monasteries suspended in the air.
45:17Climb halfway to heaven to heaven to heaven to heaven.
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