All language subtitles for Greece With Simon Reeve S01E01

Look at that.

I'm starting my journey in the
Dodecanese islands.

It's a part of Greece that is
visited and loved by millions of

travellers every year.

There are thousands of islands
in Greece,

scattered across the
Eastern Mediterranean.

Sand and sea like this on the island
of Kos

helps to lure around 25 million
foreign holiday-makers to Greece

every year, more than twice the
actual population of the country.

Now, we all know that Greece is in a
bit of a pickle at the moment,

but this is an amazing place.

I have to personally confess to
being a big fan of Greece.

I love the beaches, the people,
the mountains, the ruins,

the food, the way of life.

I love Greece.

As Greece endures an
economic crisis,

tourism is one of the few industries
keeping the country afloat.

Tourism accounts for 20% of the
national economy,

but it's 60% for islands like Kos.

Of course, it's only in the last few
decades that tourism has become such

a phenomenon, and many islands in
the Aegean Sea

used to rely on a very
different trade.

Look at these.

Not artificial. Real sponges.

You see these for sale around the
islands in this area.

The sponge-fishing industry

dominated these islands
for centuries.

Sponge merchants made fortunes.

One even dined at the court of
Queen Victoria.

Agelis? Agelis! Kalimera!

I met up with Agelis Trakelis.

He's one of the last remaining
sponge fishermen.

Sponges can't be fished using rods
or nets.

Agelis has to dive for them.

AGELIS SPEAKS IN GREEK

We're going to go down onto
a shipwreck,

and you can see the top of it
just there.

So, he's going to use this tank of
compressed air

with a hose attached,

a very basic, rudimentary way
of diving.

It's also extremely dangerous.

Hundreds of Greek fishermen have
died diving like this,

from decompression sickness,
or the bends.

Two of Agelis's brothers
fell victim.

By using a compressor,

Agelis can stay underwater for
much longer than if he was using

scuba tanks on his back.

Sponges are actually one of the
simplest animal organisms.

They're vital to the global
marine eco-system,

pumping and filtering sea water
through their pores

and providing a refuge for
other sea-life.

Some live for more than 100 years.

In the past, there were millions

covering the sea-bed in
the Mediterranean,

helping to keep the water healthy.

Oh, he's gone really deep.

Oh, much deeper than I
can free-drive.

With a compressor, Agelis can dive
to 70 or 80 metres.

He's sucking air through a
thin hose,

and at those depths it can tear or
get tangled.

If something goes wrong and he
surfaces too quickly,

he could die from
decompression sickness.

It's dangerous, but the introduction
of compressor diving

in the 1800s enabled Greek divers to
strip the sea of sponges.

Wow.

These are sponges in their
raw state.

Astonishing. Look at them, they
look disgusting.

How do you turn it into a sponge
that people would recognise?

You tread on it?

God.

Over the last couple of decades,

a disease has devastated the
remaining sponge population.

Scientists and fishermen like Agelis

believe that climate change
and pollution

have contributed to the spread of
the disease.

How is the sea different now to when
you first started?

It's very depressing to hear,

and it's happened in such a short
space of time, as well.

Just a generation.

Just a couple of decades.

The Mediterranean's been emptied
of life.

To gather enough sponges to survive,
Agelis now sails hundreds of miles,

staying away from home for months at
a time.

And as the industry has collapsed,

so has the population of many of
these small Greek islands.

One of them is Pserimos,

the tiny place Agelis and his
children call home.

The island's also been hit hard by
Greece's financial crisis.

Even tourism isn't saving them.

If more tourists don't
start visiting,

some fear this current generation of
islanders could be the last.

The next morning, I said farewell to
Agelis and his family.

I'm heading on to another island.

I'm going to take a taxi.

Little Pserimos relies on small
boats to connect it to the rest of

the Aegean.

Pottering between Greek islands
by sea

still feels like an
exotic adventure,

however large the ferry.

I was on my way to Lesvos, one of
the biggest Greek islands.

Like every Greek island,

it's got its own character
and traditions,

along with fantastic beaches and
wonderful tavernas

that pull in the tourists.

But it's also Europe's
eastern border,

and its position puts it on the
front line

of a humanitarian and
political crisis.

Look at that view!

Straight ahead, look at that!

That is Turkey.

Greece has been receiving an influx
of refugees and migrants,

many of them coming from,

or fleeing, the conflict in Syria.

My God.

Look at this.

Thousands of life jackets spoke of
the scale of what was happening.

It was summer and the flow
of refugees

and migrants into Greece was just
starting to soar.

Around 2,000 had been arriving on
Lesvos most nights.

But I'd arrived at a turning point,

as people began crossing in broad
daylight in huge numbers.

Oh, my God.

They're coming now.

They're crossing now!

I've got a slightly sick feeling in
my stomach

because some of these boats do not
make it.

If they don't, there is absolutely
nothing we can do standing here.

In 2015, more than 500
people drowned

trying to cross from Turkey
to Europe.

I would say there's 40 people on
that boat.

There's some women, there's children
as well on board.

Water! Water!

My God, maybe...

...look at this.

You've come from Syria?

Where in Syria? Aleppo, or...?

HE SPEAKS HIS OWN LANGUAGE

How long has it taken you to
come across?

How long to come...?One hour.

One hour across the water.

How much money did it cost?$1,000.

To go from there to here?

Yes. From, from Turkey.

What do you think Europe will
give you?

I am studying pharmacy.

You are studying to be a pharmacist?

I am pharmacist.

What have you brought with you?

What do you have? Your possessions?

You have this.

Everything else has gone?

Everything. Yes, yes.

It was overwhelming.

Good luck.

This crisis was part of the world's
biggest wave of mass migration

since the Second World War.

There's just more and more coming.

This is the edge of Europe and there
are hundreds of people coming.

Assalaamu alaikum.

- Assalaamu alaikum.
- Alleluia.

Water, find more water...

It was particularly upsetting to see
so many young children,

their lives in complete upheaval.

He's very tired.

I bet they are.

I am cameraman.

You're a cameraman?

- Thanks.
- Thanks.

HE SNIFFS

- Good luck to you.
- Thank you.

HE SPEAKS IN HIS OWN LANGUAGE

Thank you.

I have no words, just good luck, OK?

- Thank you.
- Good luck.

- Whatever you do.
- Good luck.

Most of the arrivals I met were
Syrians fleeing conflict,

but there were also many
other nationalities.

One Afghan lad told me how he and
his classmates had left school in

Kabul a month earlier when they
heard how easy it suddenly was to

get into Europe.

When we were in Afghanistan, we were
hearing that...

...the border is free, yeah?

Everybody can go freely to the
European country.

I was stunned.

Thousands of miles away people were
being told that Europe was open.

There is another boat just coming,
just here,

and there is nobody here helping
them, stopping them...

...doing anything.

There is no sign of the authorities,
there is no European force,

there is no Greek border patrol,
there is...

...there are just holiday-makers,

and there are hundreds of people
coming in.

Most arrivals were refugees
from conflict.

Some were economic migrants.

Europeans often focus either on
their right to sanctuary and asylum,

or their impact on us.

Rarely do we debate the consequences
of migration

on societies people have left,

and the old, sick and poor who can
remain behind.

But if we absorb millions of people
from struggling countries,

we may never give those
struggling countries a chance

to stabilise and succeed,

because so often the people who make
it here...

...it's like an obstacle course, it's
the brightest and the best who often

are the ones who make it, the ones
who would be most likely to...

...help build a country...

...are the ones who
quite naturally...

...need, want to leave.

Many of the new arrivals were young
men travelling alone.

Often they come from traditional
conservative communities.

They were heading into a Europe
increasingly adopting values

like gay marriage and
women's rights.

I wondered if they knew what
lay ahead.

The next stage of their journey is
the 40 miles to the port where

ferries go to Athens.

Many refugees walk in
35-degree heat.

I saw a woman struggling with
a child.

I have to stop.

How old is this one?

He's five.

Five years old.

Are you OK?No.

- No.
- I will die.

- Have some water.
- Thank you.

Just breathe slow.

We'll put you in the car.

- Breathe slow.
- Thank you.

SHE GASPS

We're giving a lift to a mum and her
son and daughter.

They don't want their faces shown,
quite understandably.

- Is that from, from Syria?
- Yes.

- Terrazul.
- Terrazul.

Her English-speaking sister was also
in the back.

We caught up with some men from
her family.

We're not sure what's going on.

We think it's possible that one of
the men is saying

that she cannot travel with men.

But the woman's sister explained
what happened.

The men forced the children and
their mother out of the car

and back into the heat and the
long walk

because the mother hadn't sought
their permission to accept my help.

SIMON EXHALES DEEPLY

In that crazy little situation,

you have a sense of cultures...

...colliding, I think,

in a way that frightens some people
and worries them.

Europeans, it concerns them, and I
can completely understand why.

Just a few miles down the road was a
popular tourist town.

Well, now, this gets really surreal.

Them coming into Molyvos now.

Castle on top of the hill,

beautiful houses scattered
around it.

Now, you get Syrian refugees
meets Greek...

...holiday village.

The next morning, refugee boats
kept coming.

Lesvos depends on farming
and tourism,

and locals were worried
holiday-makers would stay away.

I went for breakfast...

...and found a local boat moored in
the harbour.

Are you still running boat trips?

Yes, I do.

And are you still going out
regularly during the day?

I'm trying.

- Can I come on board?
- Please.

Stratis Kabanos earns his living

taking tourists on
snorkelling trips.

- Have a seat.
- Thank you.

- Stay in the sun.
- Stay out of the
sun, I think.

You paid for it!

THEY LAUGH

I'm not sure I have, to be honest.

How does this season, this summer
compare to summers over the last

20 years?

I don't have numbers, but it's
definitely down, much down.

I don't know, maybe, 50% down
or something.

To my feeling.50% down?

To my feeling. I'm going to check.

Does that make it one of the worst?
I think so, yes.

How have people here in the
community reacted

and responded to the migrants and
the refugees coming in?

Majority of the people, they see
it negatively.

The majority of Greeks here?

Yes. I mean...

...yes, please, sorry.

Say it in English. Say it...

Say it in English.

This is exactly what I was
describing to you.

That's the feeling of the people,
- is they're worried.
- Mm.

My feeling is, I have to deal with
it, because...

You see people suffering, guys.

What are you doing?

STRATIS EXHALES DEEPLY

I just, I can't do much.

Just yesterday, I saw a boat with
33 people,

I had a couple of ladies from
Holland, we stopped, we helped them.

We cleaned the beach, we gave
directions to the people.

What do you say to people who
would say,

look, by helping them, you are
encouraging more to come?

If you are desperate, you will come.

You will swim, you will walk.

We can't stop them.

That's for sure.

They can't be stopped.

Either we are helping them or not.

They will keep coming.

If I keep running behind you with
a knife,

you will keep running too.

You find a wall, you will try to
climb it. This is how it is.

For me, it's that simple, you know.

- Yeah, fair point.
- Yes.

Unless the crisis in the Middle East
is resolved,

along with poverty, repression,
population pressure

and conflict even further away,

these small islands will remain a
beacon for the desperate.

With 60 million people displaced by
conflict around the world,

more than ever before, it seems
likely the flow of refugees

and migrants trying to get into
Europe isn't going to stop.

Migrants and refugees here want to
get a ferry

from the port down there to take
them on to Athens,

from where they can continue their
journeys on to western and northern

Europe, which is where most of them
seem to want to go to.

I continued my journey south, to the
island of Crete,

the largest Greek island, sitting
halfway between Athens and Africa.

Crete has its own unique history
and geography.

While most tourists stay by
the beaches,

the distinctive character of the
people here

has been forged up in the mountains.

I'm excited about this.

SIMON LAUGHS

It's a flying trike.

Bonkers but brilliant.

- This is Jogas.
- Hello.

AKA Big George.

Working the guns there.

Yeah, sorry, we're just about to
take off. Yeah, that's a parachute.

Wow.

I can't believe I'm going to take
off on the road.

SIMON LAUGHS

Oh, my good God!

600,000 people live on Crete.

The biggest cities are on the coast,

but thousands still live in remote
villages up in the mountains.

These mountains, this
extraordinary landscape,

this has helped to define the people
of Crete.

It's tough to move around in.

Hard to farm.

It's a harsh land.

The mountains, the lonely position
of the island in the Med

and Crete's history have hardened
the locals.

They breed them tough here.

Here's a sweeping statement,

people in the Mediterranean are just
a little bit more passionate

and fiery than most
northern Europeans.

People of Greece are more passionate
and fiery

than most Mediterranean types.

And the people of Crete

are even more passionate and fiery
than most Greeks.

But luckily, the calming
influence of the church

plays an important role in
Cretan life.

BELL RINGS IN BACKGROUND

I was off to meet a local priest.

Father Andreas!

Kalimera.

Kalimera.

Very nice to meet you, sir.

So, this is Father Andreas.

ANDREAS LAUGHS

CHORAL SINGING

Geia sas. Geia sas, geia sas...

- Hello.
- Hello.

As well as being the local priest,

Father Andreas is also a
trained bodyguard

and president of the gun club.

He was keen to show off his skills
on the club's urban warfare course.

GUNSHOTS AND CHORAL SINGING

So, Father, can we ask...?

You're a priest with a gun.

How normal is that in Crete?

How normal is in that in Greece?

I mean, you don't carry one, do you?

You don't normally carry a weapon
with you

when you're ministering to
your flock?

To really understand why guns mean
so much to Cretans,

you have to look back to history.

For centuries, Crete's position in
the Med

made it strategically vital.

It's been attacked and
invaded endlessly

by the Romans, Arabs, Vandals,
Slavs, the Ottomans.

But it's the Germans during the
Second World War

that locals really remember.

When they invaded in 1941,

Cretans attacked them with old
rifles and clubs.

The first time the Germans
encountered serious

civilian resistance.

Father Andreas took me to his
village, Anogia,

a base of the resistance movement.

From here, fighters attacked
Nazi troops

and helped British agents kidnap a
Nazi general,

acts for which the Germans took
brutal revenge.

So, it's got an order from the
German general commander of the

garrison of Crete, "We order the
complete destruction of Anogia

"and the execution of every male
person of Anogia

"who would happen to be within the
village and around it

"within a distance of 1km."

Villagers were killed and every
house in the village was burnt down

or blown up.

Goodness me.

That's your family name, is it?

Yes, and another. Oh...

More than ten members of Father
Andreas' own family

were killed during the occupation.

The German occupation of Greece
was savage.

Up to 300,000 Greeks died of
starvation alone during the war.

What would happen if a person came
here and defaced the flag?

So, they wouldn't leave the
village alive?

What happened here during the war

still affects the way many Greeks
feel about Germany.

Father Andreas took me to meet some
younger men from the area.

These shepherds spend much of the
year up here in the mountains.

Shepherds' huts like this were used
as hideouts

by resistance fighters during the
Nazi occupation.

Do you think it is, it is the land

that has made Cretans tough,

or is it events that have
happened here?

The people of Crete fought
heroically in the war.

Even after the Germans
massacred locals,

the Cretans carried on fighting.

It's not surprising that Crete

and the whole of Greece is dominated
by its past.

I headed to one of the
most extraordinary

archaeological sites in the country.

The Palace of Knossos was the centre
of the Minoan civilisation,

which was at its peak around 4,000
years ago.

Back then, around 100,000 people
lived here.

It was Europe's first city.

Much of what was built here
was constructed

1,000 years before the heyday of
classical Greece.

Many scholars think this was the
first great European civilisation.

Knossos and countless other
wonders across the country

are why Greece is considered the
bedrock of Western civilisation.

And it was very that sense of
history that meant Europe

was desperate to incorporate Greece
into the eurozone, the euro project.

Even the euro symbol was based on a
Greek letter,

and that was to give a sense that
this was the inevitable

consequence of the evolution of
European civilisation.

So Europe wanted Greece inside the
euro project.

The trouble was, many now think

Greece wasn't economically or
politically ready.

When Greece gained entry to the
single currency in 2001,

its economy was still
relatively undeveloped.

Greece didn't actually meet the
requirements for membership of the

euro, but Europe turned a blind eye.

I headed to Athens, Greece's
capital, to see the consequences.

Once inside the euro,

Greece was able to borrow money at
very low rates

from bankers who were only too keen
to peddle huge loans.

The ancient city of Athens had huge
sums spent on it as the country

went on an astonishing spree of
borrowing and spending.

Successive governments spent as much
money as they could get hold of.

Hospitals, roads and airports were
all upgraded,

and the Athens subway got a
costly makeover.

So, this is the very clean, very
cool Athens subway system,

built for the 2004 Olympics at
enormous cost,

you will not be surprised to know.

Very well air-conditioned
down here.

It's like a fridge compared to the
furnace outside.

It's got one very
peculiar characteristic

that you notice immediately as a
traveller from abroad,

which is that it's basically run on
a sort of honesty system.

There are no turnstiles here.

You get your ticket over there and
then you validate it,

but strangely, not everybody seems
to get a ticket.

Many massive projects like this cost
a fortune, were run badly and racked

up huge losses.

Between 2000 and 2010, government
spending rocketed.

The public sector wage bill doubled.

Almost everyone wanted a piece of
the pie.

Politicians and the media completely
failed to alert the public

to what was going on as the country
went a bit bonkers.

One of the biggest drains on the
public purse

became the ludicrously generous
pension system.

Millions of Greeks got caught up in
this system, in this madness,

because hundreds of professions

managed to get themselves classified
as arduous,

including hairdressers, musicians,

waiters, even TV presenters.

And that classification meant they
could retire

much earlier than normal and with
most of their final salary.

It's a fantastic idea, but how the
hell do you pay for it?

Sadly, they couldn't.

People didn't pay their taxes,
especially the wealthy,

and there was rampant corruption.

The Greek financial crisis really
got going in 2009

when the government finally admitted
its vast debt

was hundreds of billions of euros,
much more than anyone realised.

The Greek government needed
a bail-out,

and in return, European creditors
demanded swingeing austerity.

Pensions and benefits for the
poorest were cut.

Riots and strikes followed.

Unemployment in Greece has soared
to 25%.

Among the young, it's even higher.

Goodness me, look at this place!

A fifth of the population now live
below the poverty line.

I headed to the outskirts of Athens
to a community of homes

made largely from
shipping containers.

Many residents here rely on
donations of bread to survive.

How would you describe the health of
this community at the moment?

IN GREEK:

Irini and Petros live in a converted
shipping container

with their children.

And this is the home?

So, you've got the shipping
container there

and then you've built out from it?

IN GREEK:

But this is where you're sleeping
in here? Can we have a look?

The entire family sleep in this
tiny home.

So you can see you've got beds here,
a couple of beds here.

Are people sleeping here?

IN GREEK:

Obviously, on planet Earth,
I have seen worse,

but not, frankly, in Europe.

IN GREEK:

It's the poor and the weak who are
suffering most in this crisis.

The rich elites are insulated in
wealthy suburbs.

Meanwhile, the city of Athens has
seen its budget slashed by 40% in

five years and some of its essential
services are starting to crumble.

I went to visit a local landmark, a
symbol of the rotten state of

the Greek establishment, a hill
that's been steadily growing.

I can't quite believe this,

but I'm starting to think we might
be driving up a mountain of waste.

Oh, my God!

6,000 tonnes of rubbish arrive here
every day.

So, this is one of the largest
landfill sites in the world.

Shambolic political leadership is a
major reason

Greece has one of the lowest
recycling rates in Europe.

The Greeks send 80% of their waste
to landfill, double the EU average.

The most extraordinary thing happens
here when a lorry goes past.

Just look, watch the earth
underneath it.

Look at that!

The ground is bouncing, because the
ground isn't earth.

It's compacted rubbish,

it's thousands of plastic bottles
under there.

This site's an
environmental disaster

that should have been closed
long ago.

Greece has a national
rubbish problem,

with scores of huge illegal dumps.

The government isn't forcing Greeks
to recycle,

so, this mountain of rubbish just
keeps getting bigger and bigger

and bigger.

The scale of this place
is extraordinary.

It covers square miles, and it is
said to be half a kilometre deep.

Imagine that!

This is not a country in Sub-Saharan
Africa or Southeast Asia.

This is Europe, 2015.

As the Greek establishment fails to
resolve the country's problems

and austerity measures bite deep,
people are getting angry.

I headed to an area of Athens
called Exarcheia,

the heart of the city's
protest movement.

I met up with an activist
called Antonis.

If you think of the way democracy
has, you know, been involved

and what has become of it in terms
of nonsense and parliaments,

people with no respect to their
voters and so on, it's very easy

to understand that there are some
hundreds of people deciding

for millions.

So people say, no, we need to decide
for ourselves!

The anger many people feel with the
status quo has led to a growth in

support for the anarchist movement,
which is centred in Exarcheia.

Riots and clashes with police have
become common here.

Exarcheia's central square is a
kind of spiritual home

for anarchists, and this area's
played a huge role

in bringing change to Greece in
the past.

Would you say, actually, some of the
most important events

in modern Greek history happened
around here, then?

It's a place that combines all that
political thought

with all that history,

and it's very difficult for someone
to see...

IN GREEK:

Can we ask what he's upset about?

Because of the camera.

We should, we should, we should, we
should, we should...

- ...we should leave now.
- OK.OK?

A few rich people control almost all
of Greece's media,

ensuring even a foreign TV crew
are hated by many here.

We've basically just been run out of
Exarcheia by a couple of...

...teenage scumbags, frankly,

threatening to, threatening to kill
our cameraman.

Is there a significant part of young
people in Greece who are heading

in that direction, who are so angry,
they're just raging against it?

Of course it is, of course it is,
of course it is.

Because when you have all these
pillars of the establishment

being torn away and being rotten,

whatever relates to the
establishment is automatically a

target to attack.

- The enemy?
- Of course.

That evening, I headed with Antonis
to a different part of the city

where a protest march had
been planned.

Yeah, we need to be careful with the
camera now, guys.

And are we OK here or shall we stop?

- We should stop now.
- OK.

The protest had already
turned violent.

We're holding the camera down
because there are, God knows who,

demonstrators with petrol bombs and
a lot of young masked men.

The protesters headed up the street,
starting fires.

Athens had seen a lot of this.

Normal life is going on around us
and there's, you know,

even a bar on my left.

The cafes are open here.

So, now we're going to have
a confrontation.

They're ready to do stuff.

Here we go!

Petrol bombs are being thrown.

EXPLOSION

CHANTING

Watch this side.

Those police are going in for an
attack now.

Police running in, bottles
being thrown.

PROTESTOR:Zito!

This is the sort of story of Athens
at the moment, isn't it?

I mean, there is a lot of chaos

and lawlessness, in the
conventional sense.

People are raging from all sides
against everything, it appears.

The youth unemployment rate in
Greece is more than 50%.

It's not hard to see why so many
young Greeks are lashing out.

Many of the young are
very politicised.

They are very angry and particularly
angry at the older generation here

who they think have screwed
up Greece.

SIRENS BLARE

If any one group's mostly to blame
for Greece's situation,

I'd pin it on the wealthy elite
who helped themselves to vast

portions from the Greek gravy train.

The crisis has hardly touched
the rich.

The gap between wealthy and poor
here has actually widened recently.

Greece now has the highest income
inequality in Europe.

God, this is a nice-looking area.

Lovely houses.

Good smattering of pretty
expensive vehicles.

A very nice place.

To get a sense of how much the elite
have taken this country for a ride,

I wanted to take a look in their
back gardens,

but they don't make it easy.

This is discreet wealth.

Lots of fencing and quite
high bushes

slightly obscuring the view in.

It's difficult to get a sense of
what lies behind,

but we have a way.

Since the crisis began,

the wealthy have been a bit more
reluctant to show off their cash.

So, we're just going past a
place here

that's got CCTV cameras outside and
a security booth.

I'm just seeing, I want to go
somewhere in the middle.

OK, OK.Somewhere on the left.

So, we go left here, then?

Yeah, left here.

Hopefully, we won't get spotted.

I think we're good here.

We're going to try and have a look
at this area from up high...

...over the fences.

I'd enlisted the help of a drone
pilot called Tassos.

This is already giving us

a quite extraordinary view of
the neighbourhood.

The houses are massive!

Flipping 'eck!

Of course, there's no suggestion
anyone here has done anything wrong.

Look at the size of that
swimming pool!

So, just in that frame,

I can see one, two, three, four
swimming pools.

Now, that is interesting because
there is a tax

or effectively a tax on swimming
pools in Greece,

and one of the revelations that came
out during and after the financial

crisis was that only 300 households
in this area, in Kifissia,

had admitted, declared,

that they had a swimming pool and
paid the proper fee.

And when investigators
started looking,

they started to realise there were
considerably more.

MUSIC: Summer Holiday
by Cliff Richard and The Shadows

♪ We're all going on a
summer holiday

♪ No more working for a week
or two... ♪

Look at this! One, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten,

11, 12, 13, 14, 15!

More are coming in.

Looks like every house here has got
a pool.

The estimate now is that there are
20,000 in this area.

So, just a few hundred households
of those tens of thousands

were paying the appropriate tax to
the state.

When the economic crisis hit the
country, the response of many rich

Greeks wasn't exactly patriotic.

They shifted billions out of
the country,

buying property in London or
stuffing it into tax havens.

The reaction of many of the elite
who live in this sort of area

wasn't, "All right, fair cop, we
haven't paid the tax, we will now."

No! What they did was go and
cover them

with artificial turf or plywood to
disguise them.

The financial crisis here exposed
the many failings of the state.

It's clear to me Greece needs
profound political and social change

to recover and thrive.

And now, the traditional
ruling parties here,

which mismanaged the country and the
economy so badly for so long,

have been thrown out of power.

Greece is trying to move on.

I've come to the end of the first
leg of my journey around Greece.

It's been a real surprise for me.

The place is more beautiful and the
people are more passionate

and angry than I realised.

I'm really looking forward to the
next leg of my journey,

which is going to take me to the
rugged, mountainous north.