This article is taken from the July 2024 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

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“Crete is a chimera, a monster of myth: a rhinoceros-headed salamander swimming resolutely towards the West, whilst the Peloponnese, like the hand of Adam in the centre of Michelangelo’s fresco, seems to tender its promontories regretfully towards the East, scattering a handful of archipelagos in the guise of an adieu … I pass hours in this manner, dreaming over the map of Greece.” 

I wish I had written that, but it’s the opening of Lucien d’Azay’s Un Sanctuaire à Skyros, a surreally tender novel of fatherhood, goats and Rupert Brooke, which I am adapting this summer. The launch for Lucien’s latest book, Vénitiennes au peigne fin, at the Albero d’Oro Foundation at Palazzo Vendramin Grimani, was my last Venetian engagement before embarking for the Dodecanese.

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Wild sage and Branston pickle

Perhaps Greece has always been more of an idea than an entity, but in many ways the Dodecanese barely seem “Greek” at all, having only become part of the country in 1947. Their Ottoman legacy lingers in the densely-flavoured food. Italian idioms can still be heard. 

For visitors, the islands have a hierarchy — holy Patmos at the top of the chain and butterfly-shaped Astypalea are full of chic sailing boats and toney French types, whilst Rhodes and Kos are more touristically democratic. 

The village where I am staying shuffles historical palimpsests like a card sharp — on Fridays I’m woken by the Jet2 bus delivering a fresh crop of exhausted tourists from their 5am arrival, the rest of the week it’s cockcrows and the crazy hiccupping of donkeys. Black- swathed old ladies still turn out to gather wild sage and marjoram at the roadsides, their headscarves blown askew by raging quadbikes. Time has stopped entirely in one place though, the local mini-market, which stocks Branston pickle, Warburtons crumpets, Heinz salad cream and Bisto gravy powder. Who is going to 1972 for their holidays? I really want to know the person who is rustling up a jug of instant gravy in 36 degrees …

Suitcase shame: over the years I’ve become quite friendly with the lost luggage ladies at Athens airport. When my bags eventually turned up, the locks had been jemmied with a screwdriver, but I needn’t have worried. Fifty-two kilos of books and a few shabby sundresses were obviously not what was hoped for. Embarrassing that I have nothing worth nicking, and such a disappointment for the thieves. 

No woman is an island

In Willy Russell’s play Shirley Valentine, Shirley (immortally played by Pauline Collins in the 1989 film), is shocked at her teenage daughter’s horror when she announces she’s going to Greece unchaperoned. The disgusting intentions of ladies of a certain age at large in the islands is definitely a trope (witness the recent, grim Two Tickets to Greece), but while I haven’t entirely given up on a Tom Conti lookalike inviting me on a boat trip, I was most put out to be hailed on the beach by a pair of Venetian neighbours. 

Venetians don’t really go in for holidays, considering them a vulgar innovation, but when they do go away, they have a preference for places which are hard to reach and require a boat to go swimming. It seems Tilos and Nisyros are going to be full of people I had thought I wouldn’t see until September, which is most unfortunate given the reprieved sundresses the thieves thought beneath them. Though again, when it comes to vacation looks, the Brits really are stuck in a timewarp. Why must British men wear shorts at all times because They Are On Their Holidays? Why the short-sleeved shirts, frequently with “amusing” tropical print? Why the vests? Why the billowing rolls of scorched tattooed blubber? I don’t care if it is fatphobic, just cover up your gut.

Fight them on the beaches

Nothing I enjoy more than a demo, so I’m keeping an eye on “Reclaim the Beaches”, a protest movement against illegal privatisation which began on Paros last year and soon spread to other tourist islands. 

Locals are furious about the exploitation of public spaces by businesses who are covering beaches with sunbeds and demanding that visitors pay as much as €60 per head to enjoy what is officially public property. Many of the concessions occupying the shores have rumoured links to organised crime and are pushing traditional businesses out. 

The wild beauty of Greek beaches must be protected from what Greeks call “Mykonosisation”, but it’s also sad to see people’s behaviour being corralled in this way for commerce. Why should a mattress and invasive music be compulsory? The “Towel Movement”, as the press have named it, has another attractive feature — instead of marching with banners, demonstrators make their point by occupying a beach and then just … sunbathing. 

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It feels slightly fraudulent to be writing a ‘Woman About Town” column this month, as I’m not going anywhere particularly culturally worthy — I’ll have my head in a book or the Aegean. But I have visited the stunning archaeological museum of Rhodes, housed in the majestic headquarters of the Hospitallers, and will be hopping to Tilos to see the miniature elephant fossils and Patmos for the contemporary music festival. 

Maybe the best thing about travelling in the Greek islands is the ferries — the smell of cardamom and oil and tobacco, the imperturbable sailors hoisting impossible baggage, the ubiquitous enormous priest and giant doughnut-seller, the rush to the rail for a sighting of not always imaginary dolphins, the addictive isleophile’s exhilaration that today I will find another tiny and sparkling world.