Recollections of Greece have something of a dreamlike quality. The mind's eye glides across a field of splendid visions: Stately temples crown some soaring acropolis. Another perches high on a rocky headland rising precipitously from a sun-drenched sea. Less spectacularly, a solitary column, rakishly sporting a Doric capital, is framed by a rock-strewn hillside against a slate-blue sky. Such impressions are more than the stuff of dreams. Even the casual visitor comes away from Athens with perceptions of the Parthenon, gleaming softly in the sun atop the ancient citadel that was parent to the modern city. Further afield, no less unforgettable on the cliffs of Cape Sounion, the temple of Poseidon presides majestically above Homer's "wine dark sea."

Removed from our work-a-day milieu, a sensitive traveler soon discovers that these marvels of ancient Hellas evoke a contemplative mood, one so pervasive that everything else about Greece —the people, the everyday goings and comings of travel, even the most prosaic places and sights— all take on a measure of that same dreamlike aura of nostalgia.

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