I had always felt Greece to be a beautiful country...mostly, because I had always loved the tales that I used to read when I was growing up. The Trojan War, in which the young prince Paris had taken the Queen of Sparta as his bride...his gift from the goddess of love for choosing her as the most beautiful of all the goddesses of Mount Olympus, thus earning the wrath of Hera, the queen of the gods and the protector of wedded couples.
Hera sided with the Greek forces, led by King Agamemnon of Mycenae and elder brother of Menelaus, King of Sparta. Among the gods and goddesses of Olympus, Zeus alone chose to stay out of the battle...since it was his job originally to choose the most beautiful of the goddesses. Hera was his wife...Aphrodite, his daughter. He chose his other daughter, Athena, goddess of war, to pick which mortal would be given the honor of deciding which goddess was the most beautiful.
Athena, who always thought the Trojans to be the most valiant of warriors, chose Paris because he was fond of beautiful women and, therefore, had no problem choosing which was the most beautiful. The competing goddesses, however, knew that in order for the mortal to choose properly, he must be "bribed" properly. Hera offered Paris riches beyond compare; Aphrodite offered the most beautiful of mortal women. It didn't matter to Aphrodite whether the woman was married or not. So, Paris chose the goddess of love and beauty...and, in return, was offered the love of Helen (who happened to be Zeus's daughter, for whom he named the country which was to go to war with Troy).
Before going to war with the Trojans, Agamemnon sacrificed his eldest daughter, Iphigenia, upon the altar of Athena. Athena, however, did not like this blood-sacrifice. It didn't matter to her that Agamemnon built one of the most beautiful temples in her honor...the Pallas Athena, or Parthenon (pictured above), one of the most enduring structures of the ancient world still recognizable today.
After the fall of Troy, King Odysseus of Ithaca cursed Athena for the time he lost with his wife and infant son. In her anger, she pleaded with her sister Thetis (whose mortal son, Achilles, had died in the war) to persuade their brother Poseidon to raise the sea and winds and delay the mortal's return home for an equal amount of years that he had been away from his queen, Penelope, and son Telemachus. Only when they decided that Odysseus was punished enough did Poseidon calm the winds and waters and allowed the hero to reach home.
Santorini...the remnants of a long-dead volcano, the caldera of which is seen here beyond the church. In the year 1250 B.C., this volcano became the cause of the well-known plagues of the Old Testament. It was this volcano, when it exploded, which churned up red mud for hundreds of miles in all directions. It, too, was the cause of the parting of the Red Sea, drawing the waters into its empty caldera and creating the dry land which the newly-freed Hebrew slaves used to escape from Egypt. At times, minor quakes can churn up the mud and the center of the lake turns blood red. The church in the picture was also the headquarters of the Resistance during World War II. Unlike many other religious buildings, it has never been conquered.
The beautiful inlet of Parga, created by a ring of mountainous islands...itself the remains of an ancient volcano. It was here that I did my first piece of modeling during a two-country photo shoot for Italian designer Donatella Versace, whose brother Gianni was murdered only a few months earlier...and who had given me my first modeling job when I was 15. On this trip in 1997, I took my girlfriend and, dressed as Paris of Troy, got down on one knee and asked her to marry me. When Jennifer accepted, Donatella Versace was so happy that she went right to work designing a wedding gown for her.
The boat-filled harbor of Mykonos, one of the most well-visited islands of the Cyclades. The building just off-right near the top was the hotel which Jennifer and I stayed at when there. It was this harbor which was the backdrop for the Sophia Loren film "Boy on a Dolphin". The pier (left of the hotel) is where the film's finale took place, where Alan Ladd chased Loren down and kissed her. While we were there, Jennifer and I re-created the scene...with the same results!
While Jennifer and I were staying on Mykonos, we usually had our meals at this beautiful seaside cafe. I loved the sea breeze as it brought the salty smell of the water. Of course, someone could have told me that the salt also deposited itself on our skin and clothing...and, unfortunately, sometimes in our food! But, the scenery was so beautiful that we mostly overlooked it. After breakfast, we would walk, hand in hand, along the beach. After lunch, we would go for a swim in the beautiful clear blue water and swim into the caves and grottos. At night came another walk, readying us for sleep.
One of the most beautiful places at which to relax and just soak up the sun is the beach on the Aegean island of Samos. In Greek mythology, it is said that Samos was the true home of the sea goddess Thetis. It is here where she actually met a mortal named Peleus, an Argonaut who became king shortly after returning from Colchis, where Jason found the Golden Fleece. Peleus went down to this beach and was entranced when he saw the beautiful goddess. It was said that after they married, he went away to war and never returned home. However, Thetis was pregnant with his child and chose to bear their son, Achilles, near the river Styx. It was within this river that she dipped her child and endowed him with invulnerability. Sad to say, during the Trojan War a well-aimed arrow shot by the Trojan prince Paris destroyed that invulnerability when it was shot through the heel that his mother held him by...the only part of his body that did not receive the benefit from the river. After Achilles was killed at Troy, the goddess waited until after his body was cremated to gather the ashes and sprinkle them along the stretch of beach at Samos.
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