Original subtitles

FRANCESCO: I've been aboard the Black Swan for more than a month.

Venice seems a long way away.

But it's the most beautiful morning since leaving home.

To Ancient Greeks, any sighting of dolphins on a sea voyage

was taken as a good omen.

So I feel happy.

I'm sailing from Venice to Istanbul,

retracing the travels of my Venetian ancestors.

Now we are about to turn east into the Gulf of Corinth.

This is the magnificent Rio-Antirio bridge

connecting mainland Greece with the Peloponnese.

At 3km long, it is one of the biggest bridges in the world.

HE SHOUTS IN ITALIAN

The wind is marvellous, so we raise the spinnaker to give us extra speed.

OK.

Our mast is 35 metres tall.

We have done the maths, but from where we are standing

it looks a pretty close shave.

With the bridge behind us, we are sailing through waters every Venetian learns about in school.

There is Naupaktos.

Right here, outside the town, in 1571,

the Battle of Lepanto was fought, the largest naval battle in history.

The battle of Lepanto was one of Venice's finest moments.

We took on the huge forces of the Ottoman Empire and we won.

Many thousands died.

But thanks to Venice the ambitions of the Turks to invade Europe

were blown out of the water.

It was one of the most decisive sea battles in history.

It all looks so peaceful and beautiful now that it is difficult

to imagine more than 30,000 soldiers and sailors died in these waters.

I'm heading ashore at Galaxidi

and on towards the most sacred place in the ancient classical world,

Mount Parnassus.

Site of the temple of Apollo, home to the most famous prophetess in history,

the mysterious Delphic Oracle who spoke in riddles that foretold the future.

This is the beginning of the Sacred Way, the path leading to Apollo's temple.

It was along here that pilgrims walked to consult the Oracle.

They wanted her advice about marriage, war, business, everything.

This stone was believed to be the centre of the universe.

People came here from every corner of the known world.

Not just Athens, but the kings of Egypt and Turkey too,

even Alexander the Great.

Nothing happened in the ancient world without the Oracle being consulted first

and everyone had to bring offerings, which were kept in fine treasury temples.

And at the end of the Sacred Way

the pilgrim approached the presence of the Oracle herself.

Of course, like modern psychics, she never gave a simple yes, or no.

It was always some clever riddle.

A king was told that if he attacked his neighbour, he would destroy a mighty empire.

He did, but it was his own.

'Mount Parnassus was also the site of the Pythian games.

'It gives me an idea for a little playing around with the crew of the Black Swan.

'The events of the Pythian games were similar to the Olympics today.

HORN SOUNDS

'There was running.'

Uno...due...tre...

HORN SOUNDS

'Javelin throwing.

'Wrestling.'

Once these games were done in the nude, but forgive us if we don't do that today.

'The long jump.

'As with the modern Olympics,

'winners of the Pythian games did not get money or even a prize.

'They did it for the honour of being the best.'

All over Adelphi are ancient olive groves.

Of course, I love Italian olives,

but it seems only fair to give the Greek olive a chance.

Kalispera.

Kalispera.

Francesco. Stathis.

Nice to meet you and thank you for inviting me here. Nice to meet you.

'Stathis's family have been growing olives here for more than 100 years.'

And so crowded of olive trees here.

Yes. About 800,000 trees.

800,000? Yes, that's right.

And how many kinds of olives do you produce?

In Greece there are thousands of varieties of olives.

This old olive tree - it's really very old -

has two different varieties on it.

One of them is

the typical variety of the place where we are, black olives, naturally black olives.

The other variety

is called kofreiti.

They are very tasteful and gives a very good quality of olive oil.

And can I taste it? It's better to leave it on the tree for the moment!

Now you can taste the olives. Wow!

To see what we are doing.

How many kinds?

There are different types of olives and different varieties.

With which one I start?

I think you can start with the green.

These ones, I start? Yes.

Mmm...really good. These are the black olives from our farm.

Wow.

Marvellous. They taste better if we drink some tsiporo as well.

Oh, that's great.

Chin-chin, then. To your health.

As they used to say in Greek! Not in one, just tasting? No, just tasting.

Wow, what is inside?

Pepper.

Red pepper.

THEY LAUGH

A little strong.

And I would like to give you a little thing from... I hope it doesn't break here...

some oil from the north of Italy, it is from near the Garda lake.

Because I am from the north.

It is very good quality. I hope you will love it.

Cheers.

This is made from grapes.

May I have another one?

THEY LAUGH Yes!

Back on board, I'm heading along the Gulf of Corinth

towards the miraculous Corinth Canal.

This brilliant piece of engineering sliced through the peninsula,

connecting mainland Greece with the Peloponnese.

It was the mad Roman emperor Nero who first tried to build a canal here.

He made the first dig with a silver shovel, then left 6,000 slaves to do the rest.

At the time, the whole idea was insane.

And it was never finished.

The canal we see today dates from the 1880s,

by which time the world had gunpowder to make the job easier.

Ciao!

In a stroke, it cut the sea journey from the west to Athens

by almost 400 kilometres.

From the canal, it's just a short stretch to Athens,

capital of the ancient world.

Athens has been lived in for over 7,000 years.

Today it is home to one third of Greece's population.

It is a vast, sprawling and hectic metropolis.

But Athenians say it is just the largest village in the country.

Athens has tried to keep up with the times with a new metro system.

But when they were building it

workmen kept uncovering ancient artefacts.

And the modern stations ended up like museums after all.

The Acropolis is probably

the greatest single symbol of civilisation in the world.

The temples and monuments date from the fifth century before Christ.

Thousands of tourists pay tribute to the ideas of art and democracy enshrined here.

The centrepiece is the Parthenon,

a temple devoted to Athena, goddess of the city.

Now work is in full swing

to repair this great monument to something of its former glory.

It looks as though it has been a ruin for many centuries

but in fact it's survived intact almost perfect

for more than 1,000 years.

They say that time has not been kind to the Parthenon, but it's not true.

Time was very kind.

It's we Venetians and British who were not.

In the 17th century, we Venetians attacked Athens

as part of the Ottoman Empire.

The Turks sent their women and children to the Parthenon for safety.

They thought no-one would dare attack such a sacred building,

but they were wrong.

We fired more than 700 cannon balls.

You can still see the damage.

Worse still, the Turks stored their gunpowder here.

Our firepower ignited the gunpowder, killing 300 women and children.

It that wasn't bad enough, in 1801 your Lord Elgin

took much of the sculpture from the Parthenon to keep it safe.

Most of it went to his house, although today it's in the British Museum.

Sadly I think neither we Venetians nor you British can rest easy in our minds when we visit here.

In 1829, the Greek government founded Athens Museo Archeologico to make its artistic treasures safe.

It holds a key to Western art.

This museo archeologico is far more than a collection of old rubble.

Every picture and statue in the West today can find its origin here,

because art as we know it was invented by the Athenians.

At first, Greek art was similar to that of other ancient civilisations.

This death mask is 3,500 years old.

It is made of pure gold.

It's wonderful and primitive.

As late as the 6th century BC, Athens was still producing

the kind of sculpture that could be seen all over the Mediterranean.

Austere, expressionless,

divine figures, devoid of movement.

But then something remarkable happened.

Art came alive.

Sculptors became obsessed with the real human body

and its capabilities.

They tried to capture the movement and strength of a body in its prime.

It's no accident that revolutione, how you say, revolution in art,

came at the same time as democracy.

Before then, art had always been about gods and kings.

Now it had a new subject. Us.

I have one last thing to do in Athens.

You might even call it a date.

Here, in a quiet and secret corner of this beautiful garden,

I'm going to meet a woman with the most romantic Greek voice in all the world.

Kalispera.

Welcome to Athens National Garden.

It's marvellous, thanks so much. Thank you, it's a pleasure for me.

Nana Mouskouri.

In the 1960s and 1970s, she was a superstar.

To me, she still is.

What inspired you to become a singer?

Both my parents, without knowing. My mother used to sing a lot

whenever she was sad or happy and so I was doing the same thing.

I realised that I could... express myself this way.

And also my father, who would have liked to have a boy,

because in Greece it's very important to have a son.

And I was the second girl, I had another sister again,

so he was very sorry, but...

and sometimes he could be angry with me

and if I sang then he would stop and say, "OK, sing a little bit more."

# It's the heart afraid of breaking

# That never learns to dance

# It's the dream afraid of waking... #

Everybody sings in Greece.

Singing is our expression.

So having this chance to have all this music inside of me...

..and then to go to England, to go to Europe,

I just had the responsibility to represent my culture around the world

and this makes me very, very happy

because all I did is say who I was.

It's something that I think I will be always proud for.

That's marvellous.

# Becomes

# The rose. #

I would like to give you a little present from Venice, some biscuits that come from Venice.

Oh, thank you so much, you brought it all over from there?

Yes, from there.

Oh, thank you. Thank you very, very much.

And I'm just saying... # Goodbye till then

# Goodbye till then. # Soon!

Thank you.

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