..Running away with Pausanias: Testing testing

Monday, 7 September 2015

I have just attempted to link this blog to my facebook page and twitter account. Hmm. Lets see if it worked or not...

A bit more information

Something like 1900 years ago, a man called Pausanias from what is now Turkey travelled around the Roman province of Achaia - the mainland of Greece - and wrote what has been called the world's first guidebook, describing the places he visited. Twenty-six years ago, I set off to travel to Greece, a country I had always wanted to see, with a Eurorail pass and a backpack. I fell hopelessly in love with Hellas and now I'm heading there again; and this time I have a battered second-hand copy of Pausanias' Guide in my bag.
I read it first when I was at school, and I wondered then what it would be like to recreate part of his journey. My old school was very academic, and I was being steered towards a life studying Classics; I realised in time that I had neither the ability nor the temperament for a career as an intellectual, and went my own way instead. And I went to Greece on holiday, as often as I could. But I never expected to have a chance to spend longer there than a week or so at a time. Life was busy, and money and time off were scarce.
But now? I've just been made redundant, so I have time on my hands, and money, at least for now. This spring I was diagnosed with diabetes, and at the end of this year I will be turning fifty. So I'm at something of a crossroads in my life, facing changes in every direction; and chances are I will never get another opportunity to do this.
I am no classicist, but I am a philhellene and an artist, I love to write, and I love travel and the ancient world. I cannot claim to bring any special perspective to the subject, much less to the present state of Hellas, but I hope my descriptions and pictures will at least pay tribute to a country I love, to its beauty and its immensely rich history.
All errors are my own, incidentally, likewise any wildly-inaccurate assumptions, and any miss-spellings or eccentric anglicising of Hellenic words and place-names.

..Running away with Pausanias

Monday, 7 September 2015

Testing testing

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