Many American parents – and grandparents – can tell you that their children and grandchildren are utterly absorbed in the world of Ancient Greek mythology because of the Percy Jackson book series, but author Reif Larsen said his two boys used it to make magic of the family’s visit to Greece.

Writing in The New York Times, Larsen said that before taking the trip, during long car rides, his sons loved listening to the National Geographic podcast Greeking Out, which involves an omniscient, snake-loving Oracle of Wi-Fi.

It was like baseball and Mickey Mantle to boys in the 1950s, but now the heroes were the Greek gods and protagonists and victims of ancient mythology – remember Clash of the Titans, the 1981 movie and its remake?

Larsen wrote that thanks to his boys he now knows that, “the blind seer Tiresias was turned into a woman by Hera for seven years?” And he’s not alone, with more American kids turned on to Ancient Greece and its myths.

So he wanted to show them the real thing. Larsen wrote ‘The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet’, which follows the adventures of a 12-year-old mapmaker from a Montana ranch who hitchhikes on a freight train to Washington, DC to accept an award.

Larsen noted that, “Greek mythology has had a renaissance of sorts among young people,” thanks to Percy Jackson books, although a 2010 movie got reviews calling it mediocre and it largely failed to take off and gain an audience.

What a difference 14 years makes, because young readers today are rediscovering the hero and enthralled by the adventures, a kind of Hardy Boys for the new millennium but with an ancient Greek twist.

He wrote that his 10-year-old, Holt, is a little suspicious of the phenomenon, questioning it because he’s fact-oriented, just a bit at odds with the idea of gods and villains, although his favorite is Athena, goddess of war, wisdom, and weaving.

Larsen said he was interested in bringing his family to Greece and got the chance when the Greek parents of one of Holt’s classmates invited them to visit their family home on Crete in 2023.

He learned some ancient – and modern – truths about Greeks too: they are friendly, love food and will shovel it to you until you can’t take another bite and will be offended if you don’t finish everything that’s on the plate.

NO DELUSIONS

“When it comes to hospitality, the Greeks do not mess around – for them it is like an Olympic sport. If you go to a Greek’s house they will feed you food until you explode, and if you do not explode, they will feel like a failure,” he said.

He was a little wary, remembering that before the 2004 Athens Olympics he’d heard the city was hot, dirty, busy, difficult to get around, and not friendly toward children but it has undergone a kind of transformation – although it’s still hot, dirty, and busy.

They visited before the blistering 2023 summer heat wave and were immediately entranced by Athens’ wonders – from buying cherries in Monastiraki Square to listening to street musicians and exploring the labyrinth of Plaka.

“We cooled off in the playgrounds and water features on the giant sloping roof of the new National Library and Opera House, designed by the architect Renzo Piano,” but said the real wonder was the Acropolis, the symbol of Ancient Greece.

To make sure they wouldn’t miss anything, he hired a guide named Antigoni from the tour company Greeking.me – a lot of Greeking going on – who was tolerant of their children and after hearing Holt’s wisdom was ready to hire him too.

They loved the Acropolis Museum, a modern take on Greece, that opened in 2009 and designed to house the stolen Parthenon Marbles kept in the British Museum for 200 years and no sign of ever returning.

There they spent almost three hours going floor by floor, “lingering on all the hundreds of carvings that once lined the Parthenon. The kids were transfixed. Antigoni explained that architectural refinements gave optical illusions to make the temple appear more perfect than it was.”

One of the highlights for the children was “a giant Lego recreation of the Acropolis, in which various historical periods, from antiquity until the present, were represented in one diorama, as though time had collapsed into a single moment.”

The real Acropolis, now so popular that it’s limited to 20,000 visitors a day unless you can afford 5,000 euros ($5,468) each for private tours before and after opening and closing hours, met all expectations and he said “the gates alone are worth the price of admission.”

He wrote that even in its constant state of being rebuilt that, “the Parthenon vibrates with idealism, all of those optical tricks and refinements acting as a perfect homage to that powerful, fragile concept called democracy, born on these very slopes.”

RAKI AND DACOS

So enthralled was Holt that when his dad asked him what he was thinking as he stood there looking at the wonder that the boy replied, ”nothing,” his eyes wide. “This may have been the highest praise coming from him,” Larsen said.

Then the boy – like ‘Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief’ – formed an invisible lightning staff and threw it into a crowd of tourists…none of whom were hurt.

They also learned that eating dinner around 6 or 7 PM found them with mostly empty tables, although tourists are known to sit down at that time, but certainly not Greeks who don’t come out to eat – outdoors preferably – until 10 or so.

“We did not have a bad meal the entire trip,” he said, the parents finding the Cretan treat Dacos – twice-baked barley rusks soaked in water and then topped with diced tomatoes and creamy feta – irresistible.

The boys, however, may like Ancient Greece, and modern Greece now too – but not Greek food, so they just settled for repeated pasta dishes although son Max tried snails, mussels, and anchovies. What would Percy Jackson think? Pass the olives, please.

Then they went to Crete, home of the ancient Minoan civilization that flourished 5,000 years ago while the rest of Europe was mired in barbarism, and with their Greek friends hiked gorges and built sandcastles on beaches.

They saw the Ottoman baths of Chania, Venetian arsenals, and an Egyptian lighthouse, Ancient Greece having been conquered a number of times – including 400 years under the Turks – but never giving up its language or Greekness.

“We drank raki, the local liquor, and devoured seafood, like razor-thin sea bass carpaccio, and early harvest, locally made olive oil,” he said, olives harvested since the times of Pericles and before, no myth there.

They saw the Palace of Knossos, the seat of the Minoan Empire, and where the Minotaur guarded the labyrinthine. They had another tour guide, Akrivi Hatzigeorgiou, with the KidsLoveGreece.com tour company who combined the past with the present, letting the kids use iPads with augmented reality apps that let them see ruins as they once were.

“The labyrinth is in our heads,” she said to the bewildered children. “The Minotaur is inside of us. We cannot beat the Minotaur, we must forgive the Minotaur.” Max nodded, as though he had known this all along, said Larsen.

On one of their last nights before leaving modern Greece – and ancient Greece in the children’s minds – they went to dinner. At 11 PM. The kids weren’t tired, the taverna was filled with locals, and some more Dacos were ordered.

“A round of raki came. The children seemed to sense this would all become history soon. It was fine – after a week in Crete, you too will forgive the Minotaur,” he said – although Percy Jackson might remind kids who that was too.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/15/travel/family-travel-athens-crete.html