I’ve spent 35 years exploring Greece. Here’s how it’s changed

Halcyon days: Travel writer Heidi first visited Greece in the late 1980s

I first visited Greece in the late 1980s. I didn’t want to go – my boyfriend at the time had to twist my arm. To me it was that boring place we learned about at school. When we arrived in Athens, the heat, the noise and the pollution were so bad I begged to fly straight home.

But then we joined the backpacking crowd, caught smoke-wreathed ferries to the islands, slept on idyllic beaches and stayed in tiny rooms with hard beds and vicious mosquitoes, but also welcoming owners who showered us with cheap wine and raki. I soon decided I wanted to move there. Decades later, I did.

These days, those pokey “rooms” have been replaced by luxurious resorts, the ferries are sleeker and less smelly, and overtourism has become a serious problem, but that wonderfully welcoming attitude – what the Greeks call filoxenia – still exists (if you know where to look). There are also still plenty of under-the-radar islands and rarely-visited mainland areas that remind me of the Greece I came to love all those years ago.

Greece welcomed a record 40.7 million overseas visitors last year - Getty

The scourge of ‘nefos’

Nefos was the word on everyone’s lips when I first wandered the potholed, Namco Pony-lined streets of Athens 35 years ago. This was the name given to the dense fug that would hang low over the city at the height of summer, which was created by a toxic cocktail of hot, sunny days and diesel-spewing cars. It sealed in the heat like an oven and ate away at the ancient monuments.

After a five-year programme that included building a metro and transforming the Plaka district into a traffic-free zone, the city has cleaned up its act somewhat in recent years – you can actually see the Parthenon from a distance now, and don’t have to wash your hair every day to get rid of pesky diesel particles.

Earlier this year, however, a study carried out by the Grenoble Alpes University (UGA) ranked Athens among the world’s most polluted cities, mainly because of car exhausts and wood-burning stoves. So things haven’t been completely fixed.

‘Nefos’ was the name given to the dense fug that would hang low over Athens at the height of summer - Alexandros Maragos

Money talks

Around since antiquity, and restored as the official national currency after Greek independence from Ottoman rule in 1833, the drachma lost its value because of hyperinflation during the 1930s. By 1945, one British sovereign would buy you a whopping 70 trillion drachmas.

When I arrived in Greece in the late 1980s, the conversion rate was more reasonable but the hassle of dealing with so many zeros was always a headache, even though you felt like a millionaire as you dispensed 100-drachma (25p) tips with lordly abandon and paid your taverna bill with wads of 1,000-drachma notes. In 2001, Greece switched over to the euro and – despite sporadic calls to bring back the drachma – those days are over.

‘You felt like a millionaire as you dispensed 100-drachma (25p) tips with lordly abandon’: Heidi pictured on one of her early trips to Greece

Life’s a beach

Back in the halcyon days before tourism really took off, Greek beaches were slices of paradise where you could sunbathe with or without swim togs as long as there weren’t any Greeks nearby. Suntan lotion was usually 0 factor Ambre Solaire or a few drops of olive oil, and sunbeds and parasols were as rare as hen’s teeth outside of the main resorts.

The only thing to spoil the peace was dynamite fishing, which was still popular up until a few decades ago (to which countless fishermen with missing fingers can attest). You’d often hear a loud boom and be rocked by shockwaves as you swam in limpid seas. Although never officially banned, dynamite fishing is practically unheard of these days, and clothing-optional beaches are few and far between.

‘Rooms! Rooms!’

Anyone who travelled in Greece 30 years ago will remember stepping from a ferry to be mobbed by crowds of locals screaming “Rooms! Rooms!” and waving handwritten cards that proclaimed: “Good preis!” “Hot water!” or “Egg brekky!”

Packed into the back of a battered Hyundai pickup truck, you’d be carried off through the velvet darkness to a remote concrete blockhouse prettied up with a dab of whitewash and a dollop of bougainvillea. After a restless night on a mattress made of corrugated iron you’d be woken by your kindly host, who’d serve you hunks of freshly baked bread from the village’s brick oven and a murky cup of Nescafé as you blinked at an idyllic beach washed by waters the colour of peacock feathers.

How things change. Over the past decade, luxury hotel development in Greece has surged. According to a recent report by the Greek branch of the estate agent Savills, around 1,000 new four- and five-star hotels have opened in the country over the past decade, with the number of one- and two-star options falling by 20 per cent. I can’t say that I miss the rock-hard mattresses or monastic rooms, but the sense of freedom and adventure back then was hard to beat.

Greece is now full of luxury resorts like Odera in Tinos - Christos Drazos

Crowded house

With a record 40.7 million overseas visitors last year, it’s hardly surprising that overtourism is an increasing problem on Greece’s most popular islands, such as Mykonos, Zakynthos and Santorini. The mayor of Santorini, Nikos Zorzos, last year implored “the powers that be” to take immediate action in order to relieve the strain on island infrastructure caused by more than three million annual arrivals.

Back in the 1980s, however, superstar Santorini was just another backpacker stopover. And, since most travellers came to Greece for the beaches – and Santorini’s were black and burnt your feet – it wasn’t even particularly popular. The tourism boom had only just got underway in Zakynthos too, so there were no lager louts in Laganas. As for Mykonos, which currently sees around 2.4 million tourists per year, you could still find space for your towel on Super Paradise beach or sip cocktails without taking out a bank loan.

Santorini is now one of the busiest islands in Greece - Getty

Food for thought

Greek food is now seen as one of the world’s healthiest, but back in the 1980s (when some Britons counted fish and chips as a gourmet meal), the salads, shiny olives and home-grown vegetables that were the staple of local dishes were far from popular. Olive oil was seen by some as downright unpleasant. Since there were very few tavernas serving “foreign” food, pizzerias were always packed.

Nowadays Greek food is rightly revered and tourists wax lyrical about that olive-oil-doused salad or delicious grilled octopus. If Greek food hasn’t changed an iota, however, the price tag certainly has.

A land of sexism

I remember one middle-aged local Lothario greeting me, as I stepped off the ferry in Paros, with the following: “You like men? You like to kiss men? Kiss me, girl!” In the 1980s, philanderers like this – known as kamakia (harpoons) in Greek – were a frequent hazard for female travellers and we often joked about their standard pickup line: “I will give you beautiful babies”, generally delivered with a thumb-flick to the crotch.

These days Greek men are far more subtle, but if you go to some of the out-of-the-way villages and islands, you might still meet one of those kamakia, who thinks that promising to give you cute offspring is the world’s best chat-up line.

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