This was published 13 years ago
One man's epic journey
Nigel McGilchrist talks to Max Davidson about his 20-part series of guidebooks on the islands of the Aegean.
The monastery of Panaghia Chozoviotissa on Amorgos, one of Nigel McGilchrist's favourite islands.Credit: AFP
Every publisher's nightmare? Or every reader's dream? When the publisher Blue Guides asked Nigel McGilchrist, an art historian, to write a guide to the Greek islands, it never expected a manuscript that ran to nearly 600,000 words, three times the agreed length. McGilchrist's enthusiasm for his subject, which he researched for the best part of six years, was like a runaway horse.
The 53-year-old scholar lives in solitary splendour in Italy, in a farmhouse near Orvieto. In the great tradition of eccentric English expats, he keeps donkeys, produces his own olive oil and aspires to the philosophical mellowness of the Roman poet Horace. But the opportunity to write about his beloved Greece - he studied classics at Oxford - was too good to miss.
''I was commissioned to write the book at the start of 2003 and delivered the manuscript in late 2008,'' he says. ''For a time, the project took over my whole life. But I was relishing the challenge.''
At the height of his research, he was visiting the Aegean all year round. He traipsed from archaeological site to archaeological site. He could hardly find a secluded beach or friendly taverna without making a note of it. He studied classical texts and chatted to locals. Even the wildlife received his scholarly attention. He became a one-man encyclopaedia, a modern Baedeker.
The publishers, aghast at his prolixity, set to work with a red pen and condensed his epic manuscript to a manageable length. But, for McGilchrist, the resulting book was such a shrivelled travesty of his original that he decided to buy back the rights and go it alone, publishing his manuscript under a separate imprint.
McGilchrist'sGreek Islands runs to 20 volumes. For lovers of the Aegean, it is as close to being the definitive guidebook to the region.
There is no volume on Crete because there is already a Blue Guide to Crete; and Corfu and the Ionian Islands, to the east of mainland Greece, will have to wait for another day. But the islands of the Aegean - 70-odd in all, some barely inhabited, others popular tourist destinations - are charted in loving detail. From Kos to Rhodes, from Chios to Lesbos, from the Northern Dodecanese to the Lesser Cyclades, McGilchrist does not miss a trick.
The practicalities are all here: how to get to each island, where to stay, where to eat. But it is the other things - the richly textured descriptions of the landscape and the main archaeological sites, littered with learned footnotes - that make the series so rewarding.
History, architecture and geography form a seamless whole. The island of Patmos is best known for the 11th-century Monastery of St John the Divine, which McGilchrist describes in lapidary detail. But readers are also taken on a long trek to a remote beach on the north of the island.
''The islands are so different in character that there was a constant sense of adventure,'' he says. ''Some, like poor Mykonos, have their own airports and attract tourists in the tens of thousands. But others are totally unspoilt, with primitive roads and very few inhabitants. On one island in the Sporades I had to swim a quarter of a mile to get to an archaeological site I was keen to see.''
Although McGilchrist naturally hopes his guides will help spark a renewed interest in the Greek islands, he has no illusions about the harmful effects of mass tourism on islands such as Mykonos and Rhodes. ''One beneficial effect of the downturn in the Greek economy will be that it will put a halt to some of the more unsympathetic developments. On some of the islands, there have been a rash of twee imitations of Cycladic architecture, which is a pity,'' he says.
If touristy Mykonos gets the thumbs down, Tilos in the Southern Dodecanese gets an enthusiastic thumbs up. ''It has only a few hundred inhabitants but it has been blessed with a mayor with a passionate commitment to environmental conservation. He has banned all hunting on the island, which has led to a big increase in the numbers of rare raptors, like falcons and eagles. It is a great place for birdwatching.''
As the tireless McGilchrist roamed from island to island, he kept finding vestiges of Homeric heroes, such as the Greek archer Philoctetes, who was marooned on a small island for 10 years. ''There is a reef, just east of Lemnos, which fits the bill perfectly.''
With the odd exception, such as Rhodes, the islands of the Aegean do not have the quality of archaeological sites to rival the Acropolis in Athens or, for that matter, Ephesus in Turkey. But it is the lesser sites, with their clues to the long-dead past, that fascinate McGilchrist. ''On Milos, there is evidence of an Aegean-wide trade in obsidian - a super-hard volcanic glass - dating back to 9000BC. That is 8000 years before sailing boats were invented. The traders must just have paddled from island to island.''
What advice does McGilchrist have for those who are exploring the islands for the first time? ''It is best to go in late spring or early autumn, if possible,'' he says. ''There are too many tourists in high summer, when the Aegean is inundated with cruise ships. Some of the islands can also be stiflingly hot.
''Try to sample a range of islands, large and small, rather than staying put in one place. As a base for exploring the Aegean, Samos is probably as good as anywhere, simply because of its superb ferry connections. You are within striking distance of Chios, Lesbos, Lipsi, Patmos, Kalymnos, Ikaria, Fourni …''
And his personal favourite? ''I am tempted to say Amorgos, which is quite delightful, but it would have to be Astypalaia, in the Southern Dodecanese,'' McGilchrist says. ''It is not at all well known but no other island in the Aegean feels so exhilaratingly spacious. Because of its remote location, Astypalaia attracts an extraordinary number of migrating birds, heading to and from North Africa. But it also boasts orchards, waterfalls, a beautiful hilltop citadel, some fabulous early Christian mosaics and a lovely cluster of traditional Cycladic houses.''
McGilchrist's Greek Islands is published by Genius Loci Publications in 20 volumes. Single volumes cost £9.99 ($15.80); a boxed set is £150; see mcgilchristsgreek islands.com.
- Telegraph, London
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