Joanna Lumley's Greek Odyssey (2011) s01e02 Episode Script
Episode 2
I've come to the most northwesterly corner of Greece.
The British have been falling under this island's spell for centuries.
This is Corfu.
In this episode I'll be travelling across the northernmost regions of Greece - an area where, more than anywhere else in the country, has remained vastly influenced by the world around it.
It sits at a crossroads.
Over there, across the sea, is Western Europe.
Behind me over here, the mountains of Albania and Eastern Europe rising up out of the ocean.
And over there, right out of sight, far away in the distance, where I'm going is Greece's border with the East and the rest of the continent of Asia.
It's a frontier land where foreign invasion and occupation have left a fascinating legacy.
Greece - a land as diverse and surprising as any I've ever seen.
(WHISTLES) (WHISTLES) (WHISTLES) I've already visited the world of the ancient Greeks where Western civilisation began and places off the tourist trail, where myths and traditions still persist.
Can you imagine that this is the way you get your food which is just by hunting in these hillsides? In this series I hope to understand more of the Greece of today by exploring places and meeting people influenced by this great nation's rich and turbulent past.
The Ionian island of Corfu.
One of Britain's favourite holiday destinations, attracting about half a million of us each year.
But I'm here to discover where our love for this island began, starting my odyssey on Corfu's tranquil northeast coast.
Corfu's position in the Mediterranean means she's been fought over and occupied by many people throughout the ages.
By the Romans, by the Russians, by the Turks, even by the British for a short time.
And she became the most desirable island in the world to have, to hold, to live in, to own, to run, because of her position on the trade routes.
Corfu has been occupied more than ten times.
The British were the last of her rulers more than a century ago.
But the more I explore this coast the more it feels like they never left.
The Brits fell in love with this.
This part of Corfu is actually called Kensington-on-Sea because so many grand and fabulous people have made their homes here.
This house on the waterfront was where the Durrell family lived.
They came to Corfu.
It's where Gerald Durrell fell in love with the creepy crawlies - the insects, the birds, the lizards, the mice, the snakes.
Prince Charles, the Duchess of Cornwall and David Cameron have all holidayed in these mansions.
And as many as one in ten residents are British.
The houses here are terribly expensive.
One went, only two days ago, for 15 million euros.
I have a special invitation to visit one of Corfu's most distinguished residents.
How lovely.
That's the Count and Countess Flamburiari on their private beach.
Count Flamburiari can trace his lineage back to the start of the island's Venetian rule from the 14th century.
Before the British occupation his ancestors helped control this land for 400 years.
Look at that.
That's their fabulous house.
Today he divides his time between London and the island.
Let me help you and welcome you to this Thank you so much.
.
.
lovely little beach.
This sceptred isle.
If you'd come earlier you would be able to swim with our dolphins.
Oh, no.
There were dolphins? Yes.
Occasionally.
This is Milly, my wife.
My suffering wife.
And how long have you lived here? We have built the villa 12 years ago.
Yes.
In London, you don't live in Kensington, do you? Yes, we do.
Perfect.
So this is This is It's from you that we call it Kensington-on-Sea here.
(LAUGHS) Although the count is of Italian descent it's the influence of the 50-year British occupation on the island that has made him one of Corfu's staunchest Anglophiles.
Let's go and have a ginger beer.
A ginger beer? Is that very Greek? It's been left over by the British when Corfu was under the British protectorate and they're producing it since.
I find this quite extraordinary.
Exactly.
It's got even Greek writing on it.
The lemon, the gingerand the ginger beer.
And the fizz of the ginger beer as it opens.
I made ginger beer when I was young and the bottles always exploded.
To your good health.
To your good health.
And, as they say, yassou.
Yassou.
Yassou.
Yassou.
The legacy of the British protectorate over the 50 years.
Where should one start? Where should one finish? It goes on and on.
The brass bands.
Edward Lear.
Gerald Durrell.
Lord Guildford established the first Greek university in Corfu.
How extraordinary.
Another thing which was introduced by the British.
These islands have got a very special feeling.
Is it because they're in the Mediterranean rather than the Aegean? There's something about the Ionian Islands, a kind of independence.
I'll tell you what it is, it's the Western influence.
The rest of Greece had The Turks.
.
.
the Ottoman influence.
Yeah.
They felt that they are apart from the Western civilisation.
That's why you have fantastic composers, fantastic painters, fantastic poets, fantastic writers all influenced from the West.
The count suggests I go to Corfu town which is dominated by the towering 15th century Venetian fortress, one of the reasons Corfu was never occupied by the Ottoman Empire.
Today the town is home to 30,000 people and an astonishing number of house martins and swallows.
Its beautiful architecture and narrows streets have left the centre of the town unspoilt.
I'm drawn to the main square where the locals have gathered for the most traditional of British customs.
Well, this is an odd scene.
We're in Corfu town.
We've got the British palace over there.
And this is the cricket ground and cricket pitch.
We're almost on it.
It's a sylvan scene.
It could be Well, it could be It could be England.
But it's Corfu.
Cricket is one of Corfu's favourite sports.
Teams here play up to 100 games a year on this unique sporting ground.
I've never seen such a small ground.
There are fielders just out amongstin the car park.
There are chaps on bikes who are almost on the boundary.
Cafes have got nets in front of them so you don't get a smashed teacup.
This is jolly strange.
I mean, there are marks for cars right up to the edge here.
They must get smashed sometimes.
Whoo.
(THUD) It's on the road.
It hit the Holidays Corfu car which fielded it nicely, just stopped it.
I thinkI think we'd call that a six, wouldn't we? It's a big day for the combined Corfu team.
Before this series they'd never beaten the fearsome MCC from England.
But today they might be in with a chance.
The visitors seem to be put off by playing in a car park .
.
something that wasn't around when the British navy began playing here.
Local Corfiots Yeah.
.
.
watching the game.
They start slowly learn the rules.
Yeah.
And 1893 we have the first cricket club in Corfu playing cricket against the English.
So that's when the Corfu love of cricket began.
Yes.
Now we have 21 clubs all over Greece.
And this ground here is unique.
Good game, boys.
Good lads.
This is Alastair.
Hi.
We think it's getting a bit close cos they've got 29.
So we've got four more overs to make 24 to win off four overs.
Possible? Yes.
OK.
We can do that.
Confidence.
Well done.
They've got to get two runs off three balls.
This is really taking it to the wire, you know.
(APPLAUSE) Unfortunately, it wasn't the Corfu team's day.
We did our best.
Has your team ever played the MCC in England? No.
Would you like to do that? Of course.
It's a dream for every Is it? .
.
player here to play in England.
That's a dream.
Does your family play cricket? Yeah.
My dad played for national team.
Did he? My grandfather too.
(GASPS) And now I am playing for the national team.
All family.
Ha-ha.
And I love it.
Maybe Corfiots are proud of their adopted British pastimes because it makes them feel different from the rest of Greece.
And they worship their own special saint as well - St Spyridon.
He's thought to have performed miracles - saving the islanders from a plague and driving off invaders in the 18th century.
Curiously enough, one of their festivals celebrating their saint resulted in the whole island taking up another British tradition.
(DISTANT DRUMMING) Lovely cacophony of sound.
I can hear a band tuning up.
I think it's the right place, chaps in uniforms.
Follow this one in.
Being married to a musician, there's nothing more thrilling than hearing a band tuning up.
Once you get the drums going you can't hear much else.
Bizarrely, Queen Victoria is responsible for this adopted passion.
She refused to allow her navy to play at a St Spyridon festival.
So the locals formed their own marching bands.
Spiros.
President and conductor.
I'm meeting Spiros, the president, and Spiros, the band leader.
St Spyridon is the local saint.
Ah, he's the patron saint of the island.
That's why the majority of Corfiots are called Spiros.
You're both called Spiros.
Yes.
Are there more Spiroses here? Half of them.
Half of them are Spiros? Is there a feminine version of Spiros? Is there a girl's name? BOTH: Spiridoula.
Spiridoula.
Spiridoula.
Spiridoula.
Feminine.
There's a smell of Brasso coming out of this cupboard.
Everything polished.
Looking so shiny.
How exciting.
An entire cupboard filled with these ancient-looking helmets.
Tell me, how old are these helmets? Some of them are more than 100 years.
Are they really? Yeah.
And how many bands are there? Is this the only one? No, no.
In Corfu there are 20 bands.
20?! 20 bands.
2,500 musicians Unbelievable.
.
.
in 120,000 peopleinhabitants.
That's quite extraordinary.
Yeah.
It's an extra tradition.
It's something unbelievable.
Is this a special one? It's the oldest one.
From 1840.
How fantastic.
Yeah.
(LIVELY TUNE) (BELLS CLANG) I think they've had their marching orders and we're about to hear the band in full flight.
I'd better move or pick up an instrument, one or the other.
I'll move.
He is three years old.
He's three years old.
Do you think he would join one of the bands? Yeah.
For sure? For sure.
All Corfiots.
All Corfiots.
(MARCHING BAND MUSIC) In all houses one or two musicians is there definitely.
In all houses? Yes.
We learn English and music.
English and music.
I love that.
I love that.
This is an extraordinary community.
There are people here who are aged between eight and much much older.
They've grouped together in this extraordinary thing of music which pulses through all the Greeks.
(MARCHING BAND MUSIC) It's fitting that the band finishes their march at the British palace where the island's British legacy began all those years ago.
A ferry is taking me across the narrow strip of water to the mainland of Greece to explore this country's northern borders.
I shall travel across a land shaped by generations of invading foreign empires to it's far eastern corner.
Sitting last night in my bath I was thinking, 'What is it that's made Greece so desirable?' Everybody seems to want to have come here, settled here, left their footprints.
And it is literally because of her strategic position.
The trade routes all came through here from east to west.
Partly mainland, partly near Africa, partly on Asia Minor.
Phenomenal.
And, strangely, what is left of Greece to the world, what people think of Greece, is its beauty, what it's given to us in the way of arts and science.
And yet what people came here for was business, was money.
So money fades away and what remains, what keeps people visiting countries, is the beauty.
Unlike Corfu, mainland Greece was controlled between the 15th and 19th centuries by the mighty Ottomans from Turkey.
But one famous British romantic poet helped end their rule.
This is Zitsa, a remote hilltop village in northwest Greece.
It's 1809, it's October and Lord Byron, the poet - mad, bad and dangerous to know - is travelling through this region, this pretty village of Zitsa, with his companion Hobhouse.
It's a tiny little village up in the mountains.
It's not really the place you'd expect to find Lord Byron.
I can't tell you how small Zitsa is.
I mean, on the map Well, you can't see it.
Well, I can obviously butbut you probably can't.
Byron was one of our greatest poets.
And he was also an influential political activist.
This was his first trip to Greece and his experiences here ultimately inspired him to take up arms, with the Greeks, to fight for their independence from the Ottoman Empire.
Makis.
Makis Logiotatidis is a local mountain guide and Byron enthusiast.
It's lovely to be here.
This is my Byron moment.
OK.
He was popular in Greece, wasn't he? He was.
The Greeks are proud that he was helping during the revolution against the Ottoman Empire.
Yes.
Also on a diplomatic level.
I understand that the name Byron has been popular for boys.
Is that right? Yes, many people are called Vyronas.
In Greek, the Greek name is Vyronas.
And where are we? This street This is the main square of Zitsa.
And this street is named also after Lord Byron.
You see Lordou Vyronos.
Lordou Vyronos.
How excellent.
His street.
His street.
We're going to go on horses.
We are.
The horses wait for us up.
A little bit further up.
Should we go and get them? Why not? We're retracing part of Byron's journey.
In 1809 he travelled on horseback from Ioannina to Tepelene in Albania.
Our destination is an old monastery where he spent the night.
So this is the actual route that Byron took.
Yes, we are exactly at the same road that Byron was taking to go to the monastery when he came here.
And he was travelling to Albania.
He was travelling to Albania to meet Ali Pasha which was the ruler of the whole area here of western Greece.
He was a bit of a bad hat, wasn't he? He was.
He was.
How? Put them in a bag and in the water.
He put them in a bag? Yes.
And sewed up the neck or something? Oh, how awful.
With stones.
Tough old days, weren't they? Yes.
On the way, Byron worked on his semi-autobiographical poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
His head was full of poetry.
Yeah.
Full of poetry.
I brought a poem along with me which was about Zitsa.
OK.
Let's see if I can read it.
Here we are.
This is what he said.
Mount Monastic Zitza! From thy shady brow, Thou small, but favoured spot of holy ground! Where'er we gaze around, above, below, What rainbow tints, what magic charms are found.
Rock, river, forest, mountain, all abound, And bluest skies that harmonise the whole: Beneath, the distant torrent's rushing sound Tells where the volumed cataract doth roll Between those hanging rocks, that shock yet please the soul.
During his walk Yeah.
.
.
he found all of those places that you said.
He did.
It's an amazing part of Greece here.
It's all mountains and pure, pure nature.
Oh, the monastery.
We're here.
So this is where Lord Byron slept.
And here is also a sign that says when he was here.
Oh, how wonderful.
From 12 and 13 October 1809.
Back then this was a sanctuary from bandits and thieves .
.
a refuge where Greeks could still practise Christianity despite living under Ottoman Islamic rule.
Unlike Byron, we made it to the monastery in time.
Violent storms are common in these parts.
(THUNDERCLAP) Like the storm that caught Lord Byron and Hobhouse when they rode to Zitsa.
(THUNDER RUMBLES) Perhaps the noble lord - mad, bad and dangerous to know - is still looking over us.
They put him up for the night, I think.
They might put me up for the night.
I mean, do I put over or does it look sort of? It looks a bit cowardly.
(THUNDERCLAP) Byron was impressed with the monastery wines here, saying that they were some of the best in Europe.
(THUNDER RUMBLES) Byron.
This is thrilling.
Even the wine explodes.
Fantastic.
This is brewed here on the premises.
It's red champagne.
No wonder Byron's dead.
(THUNDERCLAP) I just say the name Byron and it goes mad.
Byron never did see the Greeks win their independence.
Although he handed over part of his personal fortune to fund the Greek resistance he died of a fever in 1824 before seeing action.
Because of this he is remembered in Greece to this day as a hero.
The further east I go along Greece's northern borders, the more I leave the Western influences behind.
Greece was part of the vast Turkish Ottoman Empire between the 15th and 19th centuries.
And in the small, rural town of Nigrita there is a unique remnant of this empire's legacy.
Thanks, Vangelis.
Yassas.
Yassas, Spiros.
We're going over to the church.
We're having a blessing before an oil wrestling event.
Although it's the national sport of Turkey, this is one of the few places in Greece where they hold tournaments.
And the whole community worships their fighters like stars.
(TRADITIONAL MUSIC) It's a long way from cricket and brass bands.
The man who's going to explain this extraordinary custom is Spiros Salonikios.
Hello, Joanna.
Spiro, tell me.
Sooil.
Stand back.
It's flicking all over the place.
And the trousers? They look very complicated, very intricate.
The preparation is messy as every inch of the body must be oiled up to make the wrestlers as slippery as possible.
Under Ottoman rule, wrestling was one of the few sports locals were allowed to participate in.
These bouts became bitter fights between sworn enemies.
Today there are still Turkish wrestlers involved.
Gentlemen, I look forward to seeing you fighting.
Shall I go and sit? Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't want to get tied up in this, somehow be mistaken for a oily wrestler.
It could happen.
I'll take a bit of a wide skirting round him.
Yes, yes, yes.
(TRADITIONAL MUSIC) An oil wrestler wins his match by picking up his opponent and carrying him for five paces or throwing him on his back.
(APPLAUSE) Not much of that so far - although they spend a good deal of time working their fingers down one another's shorts.
So Spiros theythey He puts his hand right inside the trousers.
Right inside the trousers.
Apparently this famous move involving the finger grip was honed centuries ago.
It looks like we have a winner.
(APPLAUSE) The Turkish wrestler has defeated all his opponents.
(ALL SPEAK NATIVE LANGUAGE) They're just having a whip-round for the wrestlers.
I think they're probably calling 'for the needy wrestlers' or something.
'Show your gratitude' - that sort of thing.
Joanna.
(INDISTINCT SPEECH) It is extraordinary to think that here, in this little tiny Greek place, this phenomenal Turkish tradition is going on.
One Turk fighting today was very anxious to say he doesn't care who people are.
He doesn't think there should be Greeks and Turks.
He thinks that everybody, under the skin, are brothers.
Everyone.
It's very touching.
This is still a very sort of sensitive area.
Turks, Greeks.
Muslims, Christians.
But, above all, wrestling.
(TRADITIONAL MUSIC) Nearly 2,000 years ago, in the northeast region of Greece, something happened that was to have a profound influence on European history.
Only 20 years after the death of Christ, the apostle St Paul travelled to Philippi to preach the gospel for the very first time on European shores.
He tried to preach Christianity to the people here who'd never heard of it.
One woman was very receptive to the things he said.
Her name was Lydia.
And he baptised her herein this river.
She was not only the first woman to be baptised in Europe, she was the first European to be baptised.
And now, in her honour, they've built a baptistry, a little church here which is only for baptisms.
(SPEAKS GREEK) Nearly all Greeks are Orthodox Christians.
They consider their religion, with its rights and rituals, to be the closest link to the first days of Christianity.
(Before it's immersed in the water, three times, for the baptism, it has oil put over it.
) (PRIEST SPEAKS GREEK) It's incredible to think Christianity spread from here across the whole of Europe and then the rest of the world.
The port city of Kavala, a few miles from Philippi, occupies a strategic position in between Europe and Asia.
A crossroads between West and East.
Here successive invasions have left their mark, bringing with them their religion and culture.
Journalist Isaac Karipidis was born in the region.
Thank you so much.
This is fantastic.
So this is a very, very ancient city, isn't it? Everyone has passed through - Alexander the Great, the ancient Greeks, the Ottomans.
Everyone was here.
So Kavala must feel as though it's an orphan.
It almost has no parents or everybody is its parents.
I think everybody's its parents, yes.
Yes.
And is this now essentially a Christian city? Yes, 100% Christian.
It's very hard to find any Muslims here nowadays in Kavala.
But in the Ottoman days there must have been mosques here.
Completely.
There were many mosques here.
Actually, if you see St Nicholas now.
This one here? Exactly.
That was a mosque.
There are some things that reminds you it's a mosque rather than a church.
Than a Christian church.
Some people they claim that West is finished here and after Kavala start East.
So this was the dividing line.
This town is defined by one event in history.
Following the Balkan wars new boundaries were drawn up in 1923 to form the modern Greece we know today.
The intention was to make Greece and Turkey as much as possible two single religion states.
Kavala was emptied of Muslims and the population replaced with immigrants from Turkey.
So 400,000 Greek Muslims left the region and over one million Turkish Christians took their place.
It's a very, very sad story.
Most of the Christians who came here to live the first five years was extremely hard.
They used the tobacco factories as a as a house A sort of refugee asylum.
Exactly.
And they were sleeping, for a couple of years, one next to another.
It wassomething would change the history of of Greece and Turkey, I believe.
Because people who were who were Muslim but were Greek speaking were suddenly thrown into a land where they had their own religion but couldn't speak the language.
And similarly people who felt themselves to belong to the Black Sea suddenly coming here leaving everything behind.
Greece is evolving all the time because the events you're talking about aren't even a hundred years ago.
Exactly.
Exactly.
This catastrophe - not even a hundred years ago.
There is not a single grandfather nowadays or .
.
or so who cannothas a sad story to say.
There's an old man called Minas Zaxariadis who's a survivor of the exchange.
He's in his late '90s now but he was six years old when he came here with his mother from Samsun on the Black Sea in Turkey.
Families on both sides suffered terribly during that period Kyrie.
Yassas.
.
.
leaving them with agonising memories.
Joanna.
Kyrie, you have things here on the sideboard? Are these your family's things? And these photographs.
Who is this? Do you remember your father like this? I didn't know of these terrible happenings.
Xanthi town in the northeast region of Thrace is an area with its own distinct culture.
(TRADITIONAL MUSIC) When the present borders of Greece were created in 1923 whole populations had been forced to move according to their religion.
But a number of Muslims, some 120,000, remained in this region.
Many still live, hidden from the world, near the Bulgarian border.
Anna Stamou, from the Muslim Association of Greece, is taking me to one of these communities.
It seems so remote round here.
Those villages are like lost in the mountains.
Do they choose to remain isolated, do you think? It was their need.
They are people that have their own culture, their own traditions.
They have been Muslims since ever.
This is their homeland.
This was Bulgaria until it was granted to Greece in 1923.
Until the 1990s the Muslim communities here lived in a restricted military zone making it difficult to leave.
They're in an area that has a very sensitive balance here.
Yes.
They were reluctant at first that we visited.
Were they? Yes, because they do not know what to expect.
What, for us to visit today? Yes, with the cameras.
It must be so hard to make a living here.
It's not easy.
Nothing is easy.
Should we get out? We've stopped in Melivia, a village of about a thousand inhabitants.
Salam alaikum.
Salam alaikum.
(SPEAKS NATIVE LANGUAGE) Welcome to our village Melivia.
Thank you.
It's an agricultural area where they grow tobacco.
Yes.
And they have a huge struggle in this area.
How is the tobacco crop this year? (ALL SPEAK NATIVE LANGUAGE) Unfortunately they sell the tobacco in very, very low prices.
In recent years subsidies have been cut for tobacco, reducing its value.
The villagers still rely on the cash crop as their main source of income.
This is a skilled hand rolling up a nice fat one.
Sometimes people roll you up amazingly thin This looks a very generous MAN: Very nice.
Not very beautifully done.
Le voila.
Maybe sort of push that in.
The income that comes from the tobacco is not enough for a family to live.
Because now if a family sells two euros per kilo the tobacco, they cannot support their lives.
Two euros per kilo?! Yes.
They would like to show me their tobacco fields.
The whole family gets involved with the planting as huge harvests are needed to make money.
I think it's the women's job to plant them and the men's job to water them when they've gone in.
So she has this really backbreaking job.
It's interesting.
With a dibber they're making the hole.
In it goes, the root in.
They're watered in.
But they're not pressed in.
Is it? Neh, neh, neh.
Really tough work I should think.
That lovely skill of doing it with almost straight legs.
Look, this is the beautiful tool.
Bent like that.
So not straight on but bent.
And you make a little drawing like that.
In like that? Neh.
Enough? Nice.
This is not quite how it's done.
You don't have your personal servant handing you.
Neh, neh.
No? Oh-kee.
Oh-kee.
Oh, not deep enough.
OK.
Bit more tack to it.
OK.
It'll take a year for me to make enough tobacco to make one cigarette.
But there will be forever in some foreign soil a little cigarette that is forever England.
Although life is hard for the villagers they're proud of their traditions and autonomy.
(CALL TO PRAYER) Children receive two to three hours extra schooling a day to learn the Koran.
(RECITES KORAN) But their culture is changing.
Teenagers now have mobile phones and go to school in multicultural Xanthi.
So show me your phone.
Eh! I'm Camille.
Camille.
And Toli.
Toli.
Nice to meet you.
How wonderful.
Thank you.
These two teenagers represent a new generation - educated in Xanthi and looking for work away from the village.
Would you like to live here always? Not always, to be honest.
Actually it is very boring here because we don't have anything to do.
We don't have cafes or restaurants or cinemas, theatres or bowling centre, something like that.
And for young people it's very difficult, to be honest.
Yes.
So it would be very nice to have cafes, especially internet cafes.
Young people, when you're trying to break into the world and Yes, yes.
.
.
start a life.
We like more the city life.
Yes, of course.
Your parents have lived and worked here.
Yes.
And your grandparents stayed here.
You might leave and work somewhere else.
I would be the first person in my family to work in Xanthi, for example, or Yes.
The first girl, maybe, to work away from home.
Yes, maybe.
Maybe.
Efharisto.
How lovely.
I bought these cups for my mum.
Yeah.
Pretty.
My favourite colour is red, the colour of passion.
Oh, oh.
The village won't keep you.
You'll be away.
Thank you.
One thing I'm learning is that this is a land of constant change.
Nothing stays the same.
Throughout history this far northeast corner has swapped hands and been fought over more than anywhere else I've been in Greece.
Greece's present border claimed some of the land previously owned by the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria Now tens of thousands of troops are stationed up here to protect its frontier and I've got permission to see them in action.
It's taken us four months to arrange this meeting and all military establishments are extremely sensitive but this is more than sensitive.
Everyone thinks it's their land and they shouldn't be there.
There are old resentments.
Old sorrows which never go away.
So up here we've basically got Christian army facing, yet again, the Muslim army on the other side.
All peacefulbut it's very tense.
So much so that to reach the outpost right on the border the army insists I travel in an army truck.
So this is the frontier land, Colonel.
Yes.
Yes.
In command is Colonel Manolakos.
And it's correct to say, Colonel, that we must not film in this area.
It's sensitive to film that way.
Absolutely.
So our cameras are unable to show what I can see - an identical Turkish outpost just a kilometre away.
We are so close to Turkey here that we can almost see what their troops are having for dinner.
Most of these soldiers are just 18, on national service for nine months.
The nation's security rests on their shoulders.
How long do they have to man the pillboxes? I'm sure we can't show them.
So when they're up there they live here, they eat here.
This is home.
(BUGLE CALL) After thousands of years of changing borders it's not surprising that tensions still exist.
For these soldiers it's an uneasy truce.
This is as far east as I can go in Greece.
The footprints here Everywhere around here is history.
Everywhere.
We look out and it looks like just the most peaceful pacific scene you could imagine.
Yet I'm travelling with the soldiers, armed car.
A sensitive border area.
Isn't the world a strange place?
The British have been falling under this island's spell for centuries.
This is Corfu.
In this episode I'll be travelling across the northernmost regions of Greece - an area where, more than anywhere else in the country, has remained vastly influenced by the world around it.
It sits at a crossroads.
Over there, across the sea, is Western Europe.
Behind me over here, the mountains of Albania and Eastern Europe rising up out of the ocean.
And over there, right out of sight, far away in the distance, where I'm going is Greece's border with the East and the rest of the continent of Asia.
It's a frontier land where foreign invasion and occupation have left a fascinating legacy.
Greece - a land as diverse and surprising as any I've ever seen.
(WHISTLES) (WHISTLES) (WHISTLES) I've already visited the world of the ancient Greeks where Western civilisation began and places off the tourist trail, where myths and traditions still persist.
Can you imagine that this is the way you get your food which is just by hunting in these hillsides? In this series I hope to understand more of the Greece of today by exploring places and meeting people influenced by this great nation's rich and turbulent past.
The Ionian island of Corfu.
One of Britain's favourite holiday destinations, attracting about half a million of us each year.
But I'm here to discover where our love for this island began, starting my odyssey on Corfu's tranquil northeast coast.
Corfu's position in the Mediterranean means she's been fought over and occupied by many people throughout the ages.
By the Romans, by the Russians, by the Turks, even by the British for a short time.
And she became the most desirable island in the world to have, to hold, to live in, to own, to run, because of her position on the trade routes.
Corfu has been occupied more than ten times.
The British were the last of her rulers more than a century ago.
But the more I explore this coast the more it feels like they never left.
The Brits fell in love with this.
This part of Corfu is actually called Kensington-on-Sea because so many grand and fabulous people have made their homes here.
This house on the waterfront was where the Durrell family lived.
They came to Corfu.
It's where Gerald Durrell fell in love with the creepy crawlies - the insects, the birds, the lizards, the mice, the snakes.
Prince Charles, the Duchess of Cornwall and David Cameron have all holidayed in these mansions.
And as many as one in ten residents are British.
The houses here are terribly expensive.
One went, only two days ago, for 15 million euros.
I have a special invitation to visit one of Corfu's most distinguished residents.
How lovely.
That's the Count and Countess Flamburiari on their private beach.
Count Flamburiari can trace his lineage back to the start of the island's Venetian rule from the 14th century.
Before the British occupation his ancestors helped control this land for 400 years.
Look at that.
That's their fabulous house.
Today he divides his time between London and the island.
Let me help you and welcome you to this Thank you so much.
.
.
lovely little beach.
This sceptred isle.
If you'd come earlier you would be able to swim with our dolphins.
Oh, no.
There were dolphins? Yes.
Occasionally.
This is Milly, my wife.
My suffering wife.
And how long have you lived here? We have built the villa 12 years ago.
Yes.
In London, you don't live in Kensington, do you? Yes, we do.
Perfect.
So this is This is It's from you that we call it Kensington-on-Sea here.
(LAUGHS) Although the count is of Italian descent it's the influence of the 50-year British occupation on the island that has made him one of Corfu's staunchest Anglophiles.
Let's go and have a ginger beer.
A ginger beer? Is that very Greek? It's been left over by the British when Corfu was under the British protectorate and they're producing it since.
I find this quite extraordinary.
Exactly.
It's got even Greek writing on it.
The lemon, the gingerand the ginger beer.
And the fizz of the ginger beer as it opens.
I made ginger beer when I was young and the bottles always exploded.
To your good health.
To your good health.
And, as they say, yassou.
Yassou.
Yassou.
Yassou.
The legacy of the British protectorate over the 50 years.
Where should one start? Where should one finish? It goes on and on.
The brass bands.
Edward Lear.
Gerald Durrell.
Lord Guildford established the first Greek university in Corfu.
How extraordinary.
Another thing which was introduced by the British.
These islands have got a very special feeling.
Is it because they're in the Mediterranean rather than the Aegean? There's something about the Ionian Islands, a kind of independence.
I'll tell you what it is, it's the Western influence.
The rest of Greece had The Turks.
.
.
the Ottoman influence.
Yeah.
They felt that they are apart from the Western civilisation.
That's why you have fantastic composers, fantastic painters, fantastic poets, fantastic writers all influenced from the West.
The count suggests I go to Corfu town which is dominated by the towering 15th century Venetian fortress, one of the reasons Corfu was never occupied by the Ottoman Empire.
Today the town is home to 30,000 people and an astonishing number of house martins and swallows.
Its beautiful architecture and narrows streets have left the centre of the town unspoilt.
I'm drawn to the main square where the locals have gathered for the most traditional of British customs.
Well, this is an odd scene.
We're in Corfu town.
We've got the British palace over there.
And this is the cricket ground and cricket pitch.
We're almost on it.
It's a sylvan scene.
It could be Well, it could be It could be England.
But it's Corfu.
Cricket is one of Corfu's favourite sports.
Teams here play up to 100 games a year on this unique sporting ground.
I've never seen such a small ground.
There are fielders just out amongstin the car park.
There are chaps on bikes who are almost on the boundary.
Cafes have got nets in front of them so you don't get a smashed teacup.
This is jolly strange.
I mean, there are marks for cars right up to the edge here.
They must get smashed sometimes.
Whoo.
(THUD) It's on the road.
It hit the Holidays Corfu car which fielded it nicely, just stopped it.
I thinkI think we'd call that a six, wouldn't we? It's a big day for the combined Corfu team.
Before this series they'd never beaten the fearsome MCC from England.
But today they might be in with a chance.
The visitors seem to be put off by playing in a car park .
.
something that wasn't around when the British navy began playing here.
Local Corfiots Yeah.
.
.
watching the game.
They start slowly learn the rules.
Yeah.
And 1893 we have the first cricket club in Corfu playing cricket against the English.
So that's when the Corfu love of cricket began.
Yes.
Now we have 21 clubs all over Greece.
And this ground here is unique.
Good game, boys.
Good lads.
This is Alastair.
Hi.
We think it's getting a bit close cos they've got 29.
So we've got four more overs to make 24 to win off four overs.
Possible? Yes.
OK.
We can do that.
Confidence.
Well done.
They've got to get two runs off three balls.
This is really taking it to the wire, you know.
(APPLAUSE) Unfortunately, it wasn't the Corfu team's day.
We did our best.
Has your team ever played the MCC in England? No.
Would you like to do that? Of course.
It's a dream for every Is it? .
.
player here to play in England.
That's a dream.
Does your family play cricket? Yeah.
My dad played for national team.
Did he? My grandfather too.
(GASPS) And now I am playing for the national team.
All family.
Ha-ha.
And I love it.
Maybe Corfiots are proud of their adopted British pastimes because it makes them feel different from the rest of Greece.
And they worship their own special saint as well - St Spyridon.
He's thought to have performed miracles - saving the islanders from a plague and driving off invaders in the 18th century.
Curiously enough, one of their festivals celebrating their saint resulted in the whole island taking up another British tradition.
(DISTANT DRUMMING) Lovely cacophony of sound.
I can hear a band tuning up.
I think it's the right place, chaps in uniforms.
Follow this one in.
Being married to a musician, there's nothing more thrilling than hearing a band tuning up.
Once you get the drums going you can't hear much else.
Bizarrely, Queen Victoria is responsible for this adopted passion.
She refused to allow her navy to play at a St Spyridon festival.
So the locals formed their own marching bands.
Spiros.
President and conductor.
I'm meeting Spiros, the president, and Spiros, the band leader.
St Spyridon is the local saint.
Ah, he's the patron saint of the island.
That's why the majority of Corfiots are called Spiros.
You're both called Spiros.
Yes.
Are there more Spiroses here? Half of them.
Half of them are Spiros? Is there a feminine version of Spiros? Is there a girl's name? BOTH: Spiridoula.
Spiridoula.
Spiridoula.
Spiridoula.
Feminine.
There's a smell of Brasso coming out of this cupboard.
Everything polished.
Looking so shiny.
How exciting.
An entire cupboard filled with these ancient-looking helmets.
Tell me, how old are these helmets? Some of them are more than 100 years.
Are they really? Yeah.
And how many bands are there? Is this the only one? No, no.
In Corfu there are 20 bands.
20?! 20 bands.
2,500 musicians Unbelievable.
.
.
in 120,000 peopleinhabitants.
That's quite extraordinary.
Yeah.
It's an extra tradition.
It's something unbelievable.
Is this a special one? It's the oldest one.
From 1840.
How fantastic.
Yeah.
(LIVELY TUNE) (BELLS CLANG) I think they've had their marching orders and we're about to hear the band in full flight.
I'd better move or pick up an instrument, one or the other.
I'll move.
He is three years old.
He's three years old.
Do you think he would join one of the bands? Yeah.
For sure? For sure.
All Corfiots.
All Corfiots.
(MARCHING BAND MUSIC) In all houses one or two musicians is there definitely.
In all houses? Yes.
We learn English and music.
English and music.
I love that.
I love that.
This is an extraordinary community.
There are people here who are aged between eight and much much older.
They've grouped together in this extraordinary thing of music which pulses through all the Greeks.
(MARCHING BAND MUSIC) It's fitting that the band finishes their march at the British palace where the island's British legacy began all those years ago.
A ferry is taking me across the narrow strip of water to the mainland of Greece to explore this country's northern borders.
I shall travel across a land shaped by generations of invading foreign empires to it's far eastern corner.
Sitting last night in my bath I was thinking, 'What is it that's made Greece so desirable?' Everybody seems to want to have come here, settled here, left their footprints.
And it is literally because of her strategic position.
The trade routes all came through here from east to west.
Partly mainland, partly near Africa, partly on Asia Minor.
Phenomenal.
And, strangely, what is left of Greece to the world, what people think of Greece, is its beauty, what it's given to us in the way of arts and science.
And yet what people came here for was business, was money.
So money fades away and what remains, what keeps people visiting countries, is the beauty.
Unlike Corfu, mainland Greece was controlled between the 15th and 19th centuries by the mighty Ottomans from Turkey.
But one famous British romantic poet helped end their rule.
This is Zitsa, a remote hilltop village in northwest Greece.
It's 1809, it's October and Lord Byron, the poet - mad, bad and dangerous to know - is travelling through this region, this pretty village of Zitsa, with his companion Hobhouse.
It's a tiny little village up in the mountains.
It's not really the place you'd expect to find Lord Byron.
I can't tell you how small Zitsa is.
I mean, on the map Well, you can't see it.
Well, I can obviously butbut you probably can't.
Byron was one of our greatest poets.
And he was also an influential political activist.
This was his first trip to Greece and his experiences here ultimately inspired him to take up arms, with the Greeks, to fight for their independence from the Ottoman Empire.
Makis.
Makis Logiotatidis is a local mountain guide and Byron enthusiast.
It's lovely to be here.
This is my Byron moment.
OK.
He was popular in Greece, wasn't he? He was.
The Greeks are proud that he was helping during the revolution against the Ottoman Empire.
Yes.
Also on a diplomatic level.
I understand that the name Byron has been popular for boys.
Is that right? Yes, many people are called Vyronas.
In Greek, the Greek name is Vyronas.
And where are we? This street This is the main square of Zitsa.
And this street is named also after Lord Byron.
You see Lordou Vyronos.
Lordou Vyronos.
How excellent.
His street.
His street.
We're going to go on horses.
We are.
The horses wait for us up.
A little bit further up.
Should we go and get them? Why not? We're retracing part of Byron's journey.
In 1809 he travelled on horseback from Ioannina to Tepelene in Albania.
Our destination is an old monastery where he spent the night.
So this is the actual route that Byron took.
Yes, we are exactly at the same road that Byron was taking to go to the monastery when he came here.
And he was travelling to Albania.
He was travelling to Albania to meet Ali Pasha which was the ruler of the whole area here of western Greece.
He was a bit of a bad hat, wasn't he? He was.
He was.
How? Put them in a bag and in the water.
He put them in a bag? Yes.
And sewed up the neck or something? Oh, how awful.
With stones.
Tough old days, weren't they? Yes.
On the way, Byron worked on his semi-autobiographical poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
His head was full of poetry.
Yeah.
Full of poetry.
I brought a poem along with me which was about Zitsa.
OK.
Let's see if I can read it.
Here we are.
This is what he said.
Mount Monastic Zitza! From thy shady brow, Thou small, but favoured spot of holy ground! Where'er we gaze around, above, below, What rainbow tints, what magic charms are found.
Rock, river, forest, mountain, all abound, And bluest skies that harmonise the whole: Beneath, the distant torrent's rushing sound Tells where the volumed cataract doth roll Between those hanging rocks, that shock yet please the soul.
During his walk Yeah.
.
.
he found all of those places that you said.
He did.
It's an amazing part of Greece here.
It's all mountains and pure, pure nature.
Oh, the monastery.
We're here.
So this is where Lord Byron slept.
And here is also a sign that says when he was here.
Oh, how wonderful.
From 12 and 13 October 1809.
Back then this was a sanctuary from bandits and thieves .
.
a refuge where Greeks could still practise Christianity despite living under Ottoman Islamic rule.
Unlike Byron, we made it to the monastery in time.
Violent storms are common in these parts.
(THUNDERCLAP) Like the storm that caught Lord Byron and Hobhouse when they rode to Zitsa.
(THUNDER RUMBLES) Perhaps the noble lord - mad, bad and dangerous to know - is still looking over us.
They put him up for the night, I think.
They might put me up for the night.
I mean, do I put over or does it look sort of? It looks a bit cowardly.
(THUNDERCLAP) Byron was impressed with the monastery wines here, saying that they were some of the best in Europe.
(THUNDER RUMBLES) Byron.
This is thrilling.
Even the wine explodes.
Fantastic.
This is brewed here on the premises.
It's red champagne.
No wonder Byron's dead.
(THUNDERCLAP) I just say the name Byron and it goes mad.
Byron never did see the Greeks win their independence.
Although he handed over part of his personal fortune to fund the Greek resistance he died of a fever in 1824 before seeing action.
Because of this he is remembered in Greece to this day as a hero.
The further east I go along Greece's northern borders, the more I leave the Western influences behind.
Greece was part of the vast Turkish Ottoman Empire between the 15th and 19th centuries.
And in the small, rural town of Nigrita there is a unique remnant of this empire's legacy.
Thanks, Vangelis.
Yassas.
Yassas, Spiros.
We're going over to the church.
We're having a blessing before an oil wrestling event.
Although it's the national sport of Turkey, this is one of the few places in Greece where they hold tournaments.
And the whole community worships their fighters like stars.
(TRADITIONAL MUSIC) It's a long way from cricket and brass bands.
The man who's going to explain this extraordinary custom is Spiros Salonikios.
Hello, Joanna.
Spiro, tell me.
Sooil.
Stand back.
It's flicking all over the place.
And the trousers? They look very complicated, very intricate.
The preparation is messy as every inch of the body must be oiled up to make the wrestlers as slippery as possible.
Under Ottoman rule, wrestling was one of the few sports locals were allowed to participate in.
These bouts became bitter fights between sworn enemies.
Today there are still Turkish wrestlers involved.
Gentlemen, I look forward to seeing you fighting.
Shall I go and sit? Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't want to get tied up in this, somehow be mistaken for a oily wrestler.
It could happen.
I'll take a bit of a wide skirting round him.
Yes, yes, yes.
(TRADITIONAL MUSIC) An oil wrestler wins his match by picking up his opponent and carrying him for five paces or throwing him on his back.
(APPLAUSE) Not much of that so far - although they spend a good deal of time working their fingers down one another's shorts.
So Spiros theythey He puts his hand right inside the trousers.
Right inside the trousers.
Apparently this famous move involving the finger grip was honed centuries ago.
It looks like we have a winner.
(APPLAUSE) The Turkish wrestler has defeated all his opponents.
(ALL SPEAK NATIVE LANGUAGE) They're just having a whip-round for the wrestlers.
I think they're probably calling 'for the needy wrestlers' or something.
'Show your gratitude' - that sort of thing.
Joanna.
(INDISTINCT SPEECH) It is extraordinary to think that here, in this little tiny Greek place, this phenomenal Turkish tradition is going on.
One Turk fighting today was very anxious to say he doesn't care who people are.
He doesn't think there should be Greeks and Turks.
He thinks that everybody, under the skin, are brothers.
Everyone.
It's very touching.
This is still a very sort of sensitive area.
Turks, Greeks.
Muslims, Christians.
But, above all, wrestling.
(TRADITIONAL MUSIC) Nearly 2,000 years ago, in the northeast region of Greece, something happened that was to have a profound influence on European history.
Only 20 years after the death of Christ, the apostle St Paul travelled to Philippi to preach the gospel for the very first time on European shores.
He tried to preach Christianity to the people here who'd never heard of it.
One woman was very receptive to the things he said.
Her name was Lydia.
And he baptised her herein this river.
She was not only the first woman to be baptised in Europe, she was the first European to be baptised.
And now, in her honour, they've built a baptistry, a little church here which is only for baptisms.
(SPEAKS GREEK) Nearly all Greeks are Orthodox Christians.
They consider their religion, with its rights and rituals, to be the closest link to the first days of Christianity.
(Before it's immersed in the water, three times, for the baptism, it has oil put over it.
) (PRIEST SPEAKS GREEK) It's incredible to think Christianity spread from here across the whole of Europe and then the rest of the world.
The port city of Kavala, a few miles from Philippi, occupies a strategic position in between Europe and Asia.
A crossroads between West and East.
Here successive invasions have left their mark, bringing with them their religion and culture.
Journalist Isaac Karipidis was born in the region.
Thank you so much.
This is fantastic.
So this is a very, very ancient city, isn't it? Everyone has passed through - Alexander the Great, the ancient Greeks, the Ottomans.
Everyone was here.
So Kavala must feel as though it's an orphan.
It almost has no parents or everybody is its parents.
I think everybody's its parents, yes.
Yes.
And is this now essentially a Christian city? Yes, 100% Christian.
It's very hard to find any Muslims here nowadays in Kavala.
But in the Ottoman days there must have been mosques here.
Completely.
There were many mosques here.
Actually, if you see St Nicholas now.
This one here? Exactly.
That was a mosque.
There are some things that reminds you it's a mosque rather than a church.
Than a Christian church.
Some people they claim that West is finished here and after Kavala start East.
So this was the dividing line.
This town is defined by one event in history.
Following the Balkan wars new boundaries were drawn up in 1923 to form the modern Greece we know today.
The intention was to make Greece and Turkey as much as possible two single religion states.
Kavala was emptied of Muslims and the population replaced with immigrants from Turkey.
So 400,000 Greek Muslims left the region and over one million Turkish Christians took their place.
It's a very, very sad story.
Most of the Christians who came here to live the first five years was extremely hard.
They used the tobacco factories as a as a house A sort of refugee asylum.
Exactly.
And they were sleeping, for a couple of years, one next to another.
It wassomething would change the history of of Greece and Turkey, I believe.
Because people who were who were Muslim but were Greek speaking were suddenly thrown into a land where they had their own religion but couldn't speak the language.
And similarly people who felt themselves to belong to the Black Sea suddenly coming here leaving everything behind.
Greece is evolving all the time because the events you're talking about aren't even a hundred years ago.
Exactly.
Exactly.
This catastrophe - not even a hundred years ago.
There is not a single grandfather nowadays or .
.
or so who cannothas a sad story to say.
There's an old man called Minas Zaxariadis who's a survivor of the exchange.
He's in his late '90s now but he was six years old when he came here with his mother from Samsun on the Black Sea in Turkey.
Families on both sides suffered terribly during that period Kyrie.
Yassas.
.
.
leaving them with agonising memories.
Joanna.
Kyrie, you have things here on the sideboard? Are these your family's things? And these photographs.
Who is this? Do you remember your father like this? I didn't know of these terrible happenings.
Xanthi town in the northeast region of Thrace is an area with its own distinct culture.
(TRADITIONAL MUSIC) When the present borders of Greece were created in 1923 whole populations had been forced to move according to their religion.
But a number of Muslims, some 120,000, remained in this region.
Many still live, hidden from the world, near the Bulgarian border.
Anna Stamou, from the Muslim Association of Greece, is taking me to one of these communities.
It seems so remote round here.
Those villages are like lost in the mountains.
Do they choose to remain isolated, do you think? It was their need.
They are people that have their own culture, their own traditions.
They have been Muslims since ever.
This is their homeland.
This was Bulgaria until it was granted to Greece in 1923.
Until the 1990s the Muslim communities here lived in a restricted military zone making it difficult to leave.
They're in an area that has a very sensitive balance here.
Yes.
They were reluctant at first that we visited.
Were they? Yes, because they do not know what to expect.
What, for us to visit today? Yes, with the cameras.
It must be so hard to make a living here.
It's not easy.
Nothing is easy.
Should we get out? We've stopped in Melivia, a village of about a thousand inhabitants.
Salam alaikum.
Salam alaikum.
(SPEAKS NATIVE LANGUAGE) Welcome to our village Melivia.
Thank you.
It's an agricultural area where they grow tobacco.
Yes.
And they have a huge struggle in this area.
How is the tobacco crop this year? (ALL SPEAK NATIVE LANGUAGE) Unfortunately they sell the tobacco in very, very low prices.
In recent years subsidies have been cut for tobacco, reducing its value.
The villagers still rely on the cash crop as their main source of income.
This is a skilled hand rolling up a nice fat one.
Sometimes people roll you up amazingly thin This looks a very generous MAN: Very nice.
Not very beautifully done.
Le voila.
Maybe sort of push that in.
The income that comes from the tobacco is not enough for a family to live.
Because now if a family sells two euros per kilo the tobacco, they cannot support their lives.
Two euros per kilo?! Yes.
They would like to show me their tobacco fields.
The whole family gets involved with the planting as huge harvests are needed to make money.
I think it's the women's job to plant them and the men's job to water them when they've gone in.
So she has this really backbreaking job.
It's interesting.
With a dibber they're making the hole.
In it goes, the root in.
They're watered in.
But they're not pressed in.
Is it? Neh, neh, neh.
Really tough work I should think.
That lovely skill of doing it with almost straight legs.
Look, this is the beautiful tool.
Bent like that.
So not straight on but bent.
And you make a little drawing like that.
In like that? Neh.
Enough? Nice.
This is not quite how it's done.
You don't have your personal servant handing you.
Neh, neh.
No? Oh-kee.
Oh-kee.
Oh, not deep enough.
OK.
Bit more tack to it.
OK.
It'll take a year for me to make enough tobacco to make one cigarette.
But there will be forever in some foreign soil a little cigarette that is forever England.
Although life is hard for the villagers they're proud of their traditions and autonomy.
(CALL TO PRAYER) Children receive two to three hours extra schooling a day to learn the Koran.
(RECITES KORAN) But their culture is changing.
Teenagers now have mobile phones and go to school in multicultural Xanthi.
So show me your phone.
Eh! I'm Camille.
Camille.
And Toli.
Toli.
Nice to meet you.
How wonderful.
Thank you.
These two teenagers represent a new generation - educated in Xanthi and looking for work away from the village.
Would you like to live here always? Not always, to be honest.
Actually it is very boring here because we don't have anything to do.
We don't have cafes or restaurants or cinemas, theatres or bowling centre, something like that.
And for young people it's very difficult, to be honest.
Yes.
So it would be very nice to have cafes, especially internet cafes.
Young people, when you're trying to break into the world and Yes, yes.
.
.
start a life.
We like more the city life.
Yes, of course.
Your parents have lived and worked here.
Yes.
And your grandparents stayed here.
You might leave and work somewhere else.
I would be the first person in my family to work in Xanthi, for example, or Yes.
The first girl, maybe, to work away from home.
Yes, maybe.
Maybe.
Efharisto.
How lovely.
I bought these cups for my mum.
Yeah.
Pretty.
My favourite colour is red, the colour of passion.
Oh, oh.
The village won't keep you.
You'll be away.
Thank you.
One thing I'm learning is that this is a land of constant change.
Nothing stays the same.
Throughout history this far northeast corner has swapped hands and been fought over more than anywhere else I've been in Greece.
Greece's present border claimed some of the land previously owned by the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria Now tens of thousands of troops are stationed up here to protect its frontier and I've got permission to see them in action.
It's taken us four months to arrange this meeting and all military establishments are extremely sensitive but this is more than sensitive.
Everyone thinks it's their land and they shouldn't be there.
There are old resentments.
Old sorrows which never go away.
So up here we've basically got Christian army facing, yet again, the Muslim army on the other side.
All peacefulbut it's very tense.
So much so that to reach the outpost right on the border the army insists I travel in an army truck.
So this is the frontier land, Colonel.
Yes.
Yes.
In command is Colonel Manolakos.
And it's correct to say, Colonel, that we must not film in this area.
It's sensitive to film that way.
Absolutely.
So our cameras are unable to show what I can see - an identical Turkish outpost just a kilometre away.
We are so close to Turkey here that we can almost see what their troops are having for dinner.
Most of these soldiers are just 18, on national service for nine months.
The nation's security rests on their shoulders.
How long do they have to man the pillboxes? I'm sure we can't show them.
So when they're up there they live here, they eat here.
This is home.
(BUGLE CALL) After thousands of years of changing borders it's not surprising that tensions still exist.
For these soldiers it's an uneasy truce.
This is as far east as I can go in Greece.
The footprints here Everywhere around here is history.
Everywhere.
We look out and it looks like just the most peaceful pacific scene you could imagine.
Yet I'm travelling with the soldiers, armed car.
A sensitive border area.
Isn't the world a strange place?