I have little time for honeypots - the tourist type, that is - the places which millions of people feel they have to visit and, by doing so, often ruin. Sometimes it's possible to go to these sad sites at a time when they're at peace - this is Olympia sufficiently early in the morning for most tourists not to have arrived. When people are climbing all over it, it's impossible to sense the soul of a place and to attempt to visualise how it must have been for the people who lived in it thousands of years ago.
This is another of the sites which we managed to find at peace during our visit to Greece in 2007 - again, simply by arriving very early and enjoying it in the cool of a new morning. It's the tomb of Clytemnestra at Mycenae, a place which left me in a state of awe.
This, by contrast, is the Parthenon in Athens. We were on an organised trip and the guide had failed to turn up in good time, so we waited in the increasingly broiling heat until my self-control was at its limit - which didn't take long - at which point I departed and found....
....a little taverna whose proprietor spoiled me with his interest and impeccable courtesy, giving me the best table in the place and finishing our relationship with a shot of ouzo.
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