RANT AWAY -and it was a GREAT RANT i did not have the energy to get into it more but you nailed not just symptoms but causes! - you let us come in your inbox and rant THANK YOU - and now i'm realizing this is some kind of digital gathering similar to you having a house in a central street and us passing by your avlí and all going "did you hear about the latest stupid thing this and that person did to us;! And then get it off our chests, well Mediterraneans are going to Mediterranean, we find ways to process things communally, even digitally and anonymously XD Mediterranean living is "living outside" sharing joys and sorrows and frustrations together, and its so healthy. Is this me going way off topic? Yes and No. People dont know/dont want to admit Greeks are Eastern European Mediterraneans and try to erase our civilization, because they profit from spreading propaganda. Simple ignorance is fixed with knowledge and experience, but ideologically driven propaganda for profit is serious problem. This is why accurate portrayals of civilizations are non negotiable, they are not unecessary charity (!) but making sure we are grounded in reality, and you know, basic respect. Also to reply on how come people still dont know whatw e look like in such touristy country. My theory is foreigners have less contact with us and our culture than we realize and make assumptions based on mass tourism-based experinces. often offered by non-Greeks. Frex The way tourism is now, theres too many resorts catering to foreigners tastes' offering everything they need lessening contact with real Greece, and many just come for beaches and sunbathing & pick sunny destination based on that. Between this, cruise ships just popping by, popular destinations crowded with tourists not natives, and tourists end up having more contact with each other, also with foreign workers, foreign owned hotels, greek owned places but pandering to tourists, natives just get lost in the multicultural mix (so familar to USAians they dont question it) and people who already know little about us get wrong impression. also usamerican who come in droves are notoriously reluctant to get out of their bubble and experience natives' culture. BUT! Also even tourists who want to experience Greece make crucial mistakes, because they dont look up how the culture differs from theirs, you are not going to experience Greece if you go to lunch at 12:00 and you'll only see tourists that dont look like greeks there. If you go party at foreign music playing bars/clubs and then go early (compared to greeks) to bed, your experience is not greek and not with greeks. κοκ. Idk thats my theory. Also the laslt Golden comment abou Acheans reminds me i increasinly see comments about Minoans being "western europeans" and northwestercentral europeans starting to claim them as "western craddle ancestors" jfc
Ah that image you created felt so pretty and old school nostalgia... like I am in my yard taking care of my basil pots (lol) and you pop up from behind the bars of my yard fence and tell me "did you hear about this new ridiculous thing?"! And I go like "Yeah Maria was here just a minute ago and she told me!" Then we both throw our hands in the air in the Greek "whatever" gesture! Haha I love it
I think you make many valid points about the experience of tourists in Greece the recent years, ever since Greece turned from a touristy to a mass touristy country. What you describe is the reality for many of the tourists coming to Greece. I still want to believe however that a considerable part of those 40 million annual visitors care to have more quality time in their Greek vacation, not only for the reasons we discussed earlier but for their own sake as well, obviously.
OH MY GOD this about the lunchtime!!!!!!! I have recommended it in a lot of answers with travelling tips. It's the classic image of Greek summer, a lonely tourist all alone in a desolate restaurant, he and his salad :P To be fair though, this is an easy mistake to make when you are used to your own routine, circadian rhythms, eating times... But it leads to inaccurate impressions and certainly a worse vacationing experience, because you are all by yourself in a dead place and jump to the conclusions "oh Greeks don't go to restaurants" and not to "Oh Greeks go to restaurants three hours later" lol Of course with the bombing of the economy it is going to become a reality regardless of the hour - Greeks will simply not be going to restaurants anymore...
This about the gated, all inclusive resort vacation some tourists especially from the US take is also very true. I remember writing about this here in the past. An American woman, a low profile youtuber to my understanding, made a video about her vacation in Greece. She had come with her baby who was under 2 years old (kinda too young for a transatlantic journey, no? I mean the parents will just have to take care of the baby instead of enjoying their time and exploring). I kid you not, the entire 20 minute video was her inside the hotel. She was narrating how she spent her time; "we had breakfast, we went to the gym of the hotel, we had lunch in the restaurant of the hotel, we got some rest in our room" and then the background of her "first time in Greece" video was a white wall throughout. I am not sure she even went to the hotel pool. Don't ask me about the beach, of course she did not go to the beach at all! But then she kinda went the extra mile and she got the baby in the stroller and she did a walk in exactly one block out of the hotel and then returned. (By the way she was located in one of these small coastal towns that are totally unremarkable and are just passing points for beach goers, neither a city, nor a quaint village / town, you know the ones I mean.) And that was her vacation, which was apparently worthy of a vlog and of taking a transatlantic flight and spending I don't know how much money.
That woman will go back home and be like "Yeah Greece was nothing much" lol. I am sorry but who exactly profits from this vacation? Neither Greeks do, nor that woman and everyone who travels like her do. She should have stayed at home, prioritise some good rest and easily hit the gym and dine out around her neighborhood. Only the hotel profited from this vacation. And if you consider that hotels keep springing like mushrooms, making the urban landscape lose its lived-in and authentic character as well as disturbing the protected and sensitive environmental areas they are often illegaly built in, I don't CARE for the profit of the hotel owner. (Okay that hotel was in a little plain town, so it's fair game for this owner and it's not their fault this tourist was so terrible at travelling but you know such tourists also flood by the thousands the illegal and problematic hotels as well, that's why I am saying this.)
PS. Yeah I had seen an article unironically saying: “The Minoans: The first advanced civilisation of Western Europe”. My head almost exploded. They grow so desperate (why though?), they will eventually start saying Byzantium is western too, which all this time was supposed to be their cultural archenemy (btw I did see one comment saying Byzantium was “very bonded” with West Europe in the comment section of that video). These are some crazy times we’re living in…
