Should we visit Athens? Part 3 Seeking Culture

Introduction

We wish to focus more on the “culture” of the cities and countries which we visit. Hence, we need to identify the themes which contribute to the concept of culture. This sharpened focus on culture coincides with a desire to change the structure of our travel books.

We want to increase the emphasis on themes supported by my photographs, our day-to-day accounts, and planning and research. This will impact on visits: the research, planning, activities, and dare I say it – my photographs (now there’s a challenge).

Are these two initiatives, a focus on culture and an emphasis on themes, mutually exclusive?

No.

I believe that a country’s culture can be defined by studying a group of themes. For example: food, clothing, climate, geography, architecture, history, and social activities etc. First, we need to identify the themes which define a culture, and then, align them with our interests.

After all, this is meant to be a holiday!

So, what themes will adequately define a culture?

Culture

Just a cursory glance at the references below confirms the view that many themes define culture. I am particularly drawn to the framework of Greeka because it adopts a contemporary approach, and tourists can identify with the themes as part of their visit. One of the problems is that there are too many themes and any short visit (say 7-10 days) will not be enough time to be observe and study all 16 themes.

Initially, the 16 themes identified by Greeka are:

This list becomes more manageable by combining similar elements:

1.  Food and Wine, Recipes, Café and Kafenion
2.  Architecture, Museums, and Churches
3.  Traditions and Customs
4.  Geography and Products
5.  History, Religion, and Language
6.  Music, Nightlife, Festivals, and Cultural events

The intent here is to focus on a manageable list of cultural themes. Each person will have a different list and different combinations. I think a broader list of five to six themes is manageable.

Overlaying our interests and adding and subtracting a few themes, the “culture” list might look like:

1. Food and Wine, Cooking and Recipes, Cafés, Markets
2. Architecture (including Churches)
3. Traditions and Customs (Religion, Markets, Ports, Sea, Village, Concerts)
4. Geography (Athens, Meteora, islands) and Products (What’s grown; What’s manufactured)
5. History (Athens and Acropolis; Meteora; Delphi, Museums)

As you can see I’ve cut the original list quite a bit. However, this is just the first attempt.

Other issues

Any visit to Greece/Athens cannot ignore the elephant in the room: Greece and the European Union. How can this be addressed? This is an important issue to consider.

Our interest in history relates to the 20th century. Some tension arises because any visit to Athens naturally focuses on a rich history that dates back centuries.

Conclusion

This post has seemingly diverted from our essential question of whether to visit Athens. However, I needed to raise our current thinking about culture and the thematic focus of our travel books. I trust it has strengthened the ongoing analysis.

We want to raise culture in our consciousness when we visit new cities and countries; and using these five cultural themes as listed above could be a useful way to raise our awareness and understanding of culture.

The list of five broad cultural themes is not inconsistent with the framework developed in Part 1 nor the tours identified in Part 2. However, the results of these three posts need to be consolidated.

I’ll address this task in my next post.

References

• Greeka
• Everyculture
• Wikipedia

Return to more travel planning articles

Return to all of our travel articles