{"id":21950,"date":"2013-03-31T21:31:03","date_gmt":"2013-03-31T19:31:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.ikaria.ch\/?page_id=21950"},"modified":"2024-04-13T16:42:24","modified_gmt":"2024-04-13T14:42:24","slug":"welcome-to-the-island-of-icarus-a-travel-report","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ursula.ikaria.ch\/en\/welcome-to-the-island-of-icarus-a-travel-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to the Island of Icarus – a travel report"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just came back from Ikaria. For a planned work, I wanted to explore previously unknown places and aspects of my favorite island with my husband. Because of the crisis in general, but especially because of the many negative reports about Germany in Greek newspapers, this time before the trip I actually had concerns about whether the relationship between Greeks and Germans was really that toxic and I asked myself, like the encounters with the Icariots would probably go well.<\/p>\n

\"Willkommen
\nTo my delight, everything was as usual! Everyone, without exception, was very friendly, helpful, hospitable, interested, warm, uncomplicated. There were no misunderstandings, not a single strange situation. What surprised us, however, was that almost always – when it was clarified that we were German – the spontaneous exclamation “aah, Angela Merkel!” came up, very often with the addition: “that’s a strict woman,” she once said Even described as a “dangerous” woman. An old man in Manganitis suggested that Angela should come to the village with them! When we asked what she would experience there, he replied: “She should see what it’s like for us I want to talk to her and dance with her and tell her that life isn’t just about work.” We found this idea amusing, but also very touching!<\/p>\n

Very often when we met we heard the philosophical statement: “You are Germans, we are Greeks – but we are the same – because we are human…”. We were of course happy to confirm this every time.<\/p>\n

There is one very important thing that is different in Greece than here: politics\/state and people are separate, the idea that they are one unit has never developed. Everyone fights for themselves first, that is an old cultural heritage. The irresponsible and corrupt politicians have accumulated the huge mountain of debt, the ordinary people have nothing to do with it. Conversely, this typical attitude is the reason why there are hardly any negative feelings or even rejection against individual Germans – the bad statements or caricatures always mean German politics.<\/p>\n

We really enjoyed the authenticity of this diverse island and we want to try to bring a lot of inspiration into our everyday lives. Athens may be “nervous” these days, but there’s no reason not to travel to Ikaria!<\/p>\n

Written by Martha Walter, Munich<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI have been intensively interested in Greece for many years. My special love is rebetiko music, traditional dance, and language. My Greece mosaic also includes folklore, mentality, history and myth. For me, all of these aspects belong together because they help me to better understand a foreign culture. I have traveled to many Greek islands with my family on vacation, but I have a completely different, very close relationship with Ikaria. The strong affection began when I came to the island for the first time in 1997 to attend a two-week Greek course at the Ikarian Center school there. Since then, Ikaria has never let go of me…,,<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Photos by Martha Walter. At the harbor pier in Ag. Kyrikos stands next to the Icarus sculpture: “Welcome to the island of Icarus”<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just came back from Ikaria. For a planned work, I wanted to explore previously unknown places and aspects of my favorite island with my husband. Because of the crisis in general, but especially because of the many negative reports about Germany in Greek newspapers, this time before the trip I actually had concerns about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21950","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ursula.ikaria.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ursula.ikaria.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ursula.ikaria.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ursula.ikaria.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ursula.ikaria.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ursula.ikaria.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21950\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ursula.ikaria.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ursula.ikaria.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}