Would you like the thrill of being the first to find an important artifact from a lost ancient city (formerly lost anyway)?  Enough to pay €550 per week for room and board for the privilege of providing labor at a dig site?

The Helike Project in the Peloponnese is seeking volunteers for the 2012 season of July and August. Details on their site.  This city was lost in an earthquake in 373/372 B.C. and just found again in 2000.

I wrote previously about a similar arrangement on Crete and I would love to organize an archeology holiday on Paros and Antiparos.  Comments welcome.

This week the village lost one of its attractive fishing boats.  We were not there to see it but Oona Giesen of Aliki Yoga Studio posted a lot of photos on Facebook.  I think you can access them through her page at Oona Giesen 

Evidently this is an example of European Union bureaucrats’ solution to Aegean over fishing.  They buy out the fishing rights of the older, smaller boats so that only the newer, bigger “factory” boats are left.  They are much easier to control and tax, of course.

I just wrote an article about this same thing happening with local pig festivals on my Czech Mates blog:  Losing the Charm of Pig Slaughter 

We have seen many changes in Aliki and Paros since we first arrived in the year 2000. Some are natural progress, a few have been improvements, many have been misguided expenditures of public money; not everyone can agree on which have been which.  I thing everyone agrees that a loss of quaintness is occurring; yet those who visit the island for the first time in 2012 will still find it quaint and attractive and will want to return.  What do you think?

In the past we boasted that Paros was blessed with very few package tours and large hotels.  Rather it was the island of preference for independent island hoppers.  We looked down on the likes of Rhodes and Corfu and their mass tourism.

Then last year overall visits to Greece were up while visits to Paros were down; the result, we understand, of tour companies lowering their prices for packages.  Rhodes and Corfu were doing O.K.; Paros was hurting income-wise.

Now I was quite interested to see the following on the Corfu Selections web site:

“. . . supports and promotes small family-run businesses, putting them in touch with independent travellers who would like "A taste of Corfu" sometimes otherwise undiscovered in a market where larger hotels and all-inclusive packages have become the main focus of Corfu tour operators.”

These are my kind of people even if they are competing for the same clientele.  I have heard good things about the green (as in the abundant vegetation not the the environmental buzz word) island of Corfu and would like to visit.  Using this site I will undoubtedly have a better experience than staying at an all-inclusive resort hotel.

Cheers