Greece with Simon Reeve

Episode 1

Aegean to Athens

59 mins

* Simon starts his tour of Greece on islands in the sparsely populated Aegean sea. Pollution plays a major part in the decline of traditional activities like sponge fishing, decimated by a recent disease, contributing to depopulation, while tourism became the major source of income. Near the Turkish border, is contrasts dramatically with the misery of the growing (illegal) immigrant influx to Europe from the Middle East and even further. Large Crete is deepest rooted in its history, the Minoan being oldest urban civilization, but also grimly arms-friendly with an undying grudge against 'Nazi' Germany since the bloody occupation. The he heads to overcrowded capital Athens, focusing on the contrast since the bank crisis between exploding poverty and remaining the affluence of the guilty, fraudulent elite.