Beauty and Beastly behaviour

Greece is my country of birth and, despite spending a large chunk of my adult life elsewhere (mainly in London) - you, my loyal reader, well know that I consider myself a passionate Londoner - I am currently due to circumstances beyond my control spending most of my time enjoying the Greek summer and autumn.

Recently my wonderful friends T. and T.  K-S came from Finland to spend a week visiting a country that they had never seen before, giving me the opportunity to show them some of the sights of this, most touristy of countries. My kind nephew allowed me to us his little car and off we went, hurtling around the Greek countryside, up mountains and down dales, for there is a lot to see in terms of ancient sites, but also lots and lots of countryside unknown to most. And let me tell you - and some of these roads and places were new to me too - that a lot of it is magnificent, not at all like the tourist pamphlets showing arid Aegean islands and lots of beaches.

Sure, Greece has many islands, not all of them arid and most of them worth visiting both for natural beauty and in pursuit of a good time. Most everyone knows this, as lots of publicity has been generated internationally about the Greek Sun, the Greek Sea, the Greek Beaches. Hardly anyone outside Greece, however, and not many people within either, know all the fabulous mountains, forests and attractive towns and villages that abound. There are many unspoilt or not over-spoilt places to visit, modernised with sensitivity, alive with locals and not just tourist traps, waiting to welcome the lucky traveller heading their way. A new wave of good quality hotels has also sprung up, often unfortunately nicknamed 'boutique hotels' that offer good quality hospitality and prices that reflect this, but not unduly.

Partly by luck and partly by judgement we stayed in a nice hotel fitting that description nestling on the bottom of Dimitsana, a lovely large unspoilt village in Arcadia, in the heart of the Peloponnese. Our hotel was perched above a ravine with a swirling river (not visible but audible from the hotel) and offered dramatic views, clean mountain air (we were at 1000 metres altitude approx.), comfortable rooms and was close to a network of amazing, if confusing, mountain roads. These roads, sometime through thick forest, others hanging on the sides of the mountains, were a driver's dream - empty, curving and largely in ok condition for fast driving. We had a great time driving hither and thither.

Alas in the middle of nowhere, often in pristine countryside we, more than once, were unfortunate enough to encounter rubble and rubbish discarded without a thought for the environment. As some of the stuff dumped was clearly household stuff or builder's rubble it had to have come from local people or businesses. How can individuals live in the midst of exquisite beauty and think nothing of dumping their rubbish wherever it suits them?

Of course the excuses are many, and some of them may even be valid to a point, but it upsets me no end to witness this carelessness and cavalier attitude with the environment, particularly as large swathes of Greece have been ruined beyond redemption by humankind and progress. Is it not enough that we have brutalised our seafronts in the name of enjoyment and holidays, do we really need to destroy our mountaintops as well? Yet most Greeks can be heard proclaiming that they live in 'the most beautiful country in the world!' but there seems little interest in preserving and taking care of this beauty.

Careless, selfish, stupid, destructive behaviour is not a Greek prerogative, of course, and can be found all over this world of ours. I resent it, will never accept it as somehow inevitable and will try to oppose it wherever and whenever I encounter it and am able to. Perhaps you, dear reader, would care to help?