As we meander north we encounter key moments in over three thousand years of history. Every Greek is familiar with them. Some are celebrated, like the War of Independence from the Ottomans. Others are just as powerful but unspoken, like the Civil War of 1946-49.

We come across the different peoples that created today’s Greece. Greeks are brought up to believe they are descendants of the Ancient Greeks and speak their language. A hundred years ago the first language of half the population was not Greek. It was any one of Albanian, Aromanian, Macedonian, Pomak, Tsakonian, Romaniote, Ladino, Romani, Turkish, Italian and half a dozen Anatolian dialects with all their racial and cultural baggage.

Greeks believe they are custodians of the one true religion, Orthodox Christianity. Having travelled through time and space, I leave Harley at the frontier of Athos and plunge into a spiritual dimension. Wonder-working icons and relics are channels to the divine. Everyday miracles are part of nature. The marvellous deeds of saints are facts not metaphors. Their reality permeates Greek culture and sense of self.