Chapter travelling

“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page,” the Japanese philosopher Saint Augustine once said.

Yes, the world is indeed a book. A multi-page book with 5 major sections, the continents, which are divided into about 230 subsections, the countries, which in turn are divided into dozens of other subsections, the cities, villages and islands of each country. Each section, each subsection and each subgroup contains something different. It includes people, different cultures, different religions, different customs, different lifestyles, different cuisines, different skin colours, different languages. However, they have something in common. All the individuals in these groups are citizens of the world, citizens of this book we call “Earth” and only if we travel will we have managed to read a significant part of it.

Reading was interrupted by covid-19, that probably doesn’t like books at all. For a year and a half, people stopped travelling. Empty airplane seats, dusty ship cabins, bus engines turned off. Great sights of the world stood empty, with no sign of visitors around them. Sad and lamentable images, images that fortunately we have not seen lately.
People grabbed their dusty books off the shelves and started reading again. They opened their books, set aside their bookmarks and started turning the pages again.

In Greece, many people prefer to read about their own country, but this does not mean that no one reads about others. Each option has its positives. There is nothing negative about this book. “Earth” and the journey through it is probably the only book that everyone has a positive impression of.

On the one hand, there is the category of people who choose to read the chapters of the book that refer to Greece. They prefer travelling to the Greek islands, which are famous for their deep blue waters, their natural landscapes, their special local food and even their nightlife, with Ios, Paros and Mykonos being typical examples. There are also many churches and monasteries to pray in, taverns and restaurants to enjoy many different flavours and so much more to discover.

In the same subsection, apart from summer lovers, there are also winter holiday lovers. These people choose to go on vacation – on one of the many long weekends of the Greek calendar – to a winter destination. Arachova, Pelion and Metsovo are the ideal destinations for someone desiring to escape from the fast pace of city life. In these areas, locals’ warmth combined with the sounds of the natural landscape create the images of a book, whose pages make the readers feel as if they are there.

On the other hand, there are also those who choose to flip through the book to read about other countries, other people’s stories, and the way of life outside Greece. These people are not content with the natural beauty of Greece, its deep blue waters and skies, they want to travel elsewhere, to meet people of different religions and beliefs. They prefer to read about Italy and Roman times, France and the French Revolution, Germany and the Second World War, the Balkans with their special flavours, China and its history, Africa and its rivers, lakes and forests, the United Arab Emirates and its opulence, Bali, the Maldives and the Seychelles with their crystal clear waters and beaches.

The book called “Earth” is undoubtedly one of the greatest educational books and whoever hasn’t read it already or hasn’t started reading it, they should do so now. Because only then will they learn how the people of this world have lived, how they live and how they will live. Only then will they learn about the past, present and future of this beautiful journey called life.

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