Cemetery Near Pyrgos, Greece

Pyrgos, Greece, is a small city on the West coast of the Peloponnese, the southern part of Greece which looks almost like an island relative to the northern part.  Athens on the East coast of the Greece and Pyrgos is about five hours drive time to the West.  (WIKI:  Pelopennese)

People in the Peloponnese are proud of their identity and they dominate Greek politics.

One of the intriguing things about Greek cemeteries is there are so few.  This is the only one I found in the Pyrgos area but the cemetery is tiny.  America is the only place I have lived which has such an predilection for saving up dead people since Greece doesn't do it as don't England or Scotland.  In the UK they don't save up dead people largely because they ran out of room for them so instead they burn them.  Amazingly enough, there are no reports of anyone going to Hell for that change.

The Greek approach is quite different and that's what interested me about them because the most obvious is the graves aren't really below ground but the real kicker is they don't seem to be for permanent residence.  This approach was so radically different from anywhere I've lived that I had to explore it.

Greek graves don't present faceless rocks but rather give a portrait of the person who died and you don't even have to know this kid to discover his passion and the cause of whatever likely killed him.  You can see the actual burial part of the grave is secured on four corners, presumably so he can be easily exhumed at some future time so the grave can be reused.

Oh, please ... relax.  It's a different custom and they likely find America's way as abhorrent as perhaps you find this.  Burial customs have an odd fascination since the Christian approach suggests all the dead people will rise out of the ground when Christ comes back but what possible reason is there for that when their souls are ostensibly in Heaven.  Some aspects of Christianity only require faith that that aspect requires dementia.

Greeks follow the Greek Orthodox religion, similar to Catholicism, and they do it unanimously.  Atheism doesn't seem too much of a concept since it was assumed people have religion and, assuming that much, the religion must be Greek Orthodox.  There were a number of Jewish people on Zakynthos, a small island on the West coast of the Peloponnese, and the Greeks successfully hid all of them from the NAZIs.  That Greeks so much favor Greek Orthodox doesn't mean it's to the exclusion of anything else.  They're much more, well, Greek than that.  (WIKI:  Chrysostomos of Zakynthos)


My time in Greece was not quite a year but it's a wonderful place with marvelous people and I will think fondly of them forever.  I left because I knew I was starting to get really sick so I headed for Scotland where I thought I might find medical care under the NHS since I knew there was no chance of it in America.  In Edinburgh I found the NHS somewhat helpful but generally the system is being flogged by Tories as they're trying to break it, presumably to be more like America in turning medical care into a profit center.  There's a word for those who profit from blood but it's too much of a divergence from the point to go into it.


There were highway monuments found fairly commonly around Pyrgos and these represent another phenomenon I found intriguing.  They don't simply throw up a cross by the road with a few crumby flowers but rather the monuments are much like personalized shrines for whomever died.  Their spirituality was deeper and more substantive than any I have encountered elsewhere and I was deeply touched by it.  I'm not a religious person but I'm not the cold unfeeling bastard I may seem at times either.

Note:  that's not unanimous about deep spirituality since I know Christians here who are seriously committed to peace and that spirituality I believe immediately, others not too much.

One of the deepest spiritual moments in my life was when I shared Easter in Greece with Harry Loutas and his family at a tiny church near Katakolo.  I have been to various religious services in my life but mostly they felt like they were just hoopla whereas this was deep to the heart and was immensely touching.

Note:  Mystery Lady, I positively ga-ron-tee it would bring happy tears to your eyes to experience it and I hope this conveys a little bit of the respect.


There's something of a photo essay here on Ithaka which features the highway monuments and it's in German, likely not such good German, because sometimes I like to do that.  You can easily fix that 'problem' with Google Translate or just look at the pictures to feel them.  (WIKI:  Griechisch Autobahn Denkmäler)

Note:  I have mostly abandoned German since you can learn a language when you are six or you are sixty but trying to do it when you're sixty is near impossible because our minds aren't really wired the same way anymore.

(Ed:  the old ones are burned out?)

Prob'ly so, matey, mate.  Prob'ly so (larfs).