At the foot of Mount Parnassus, the old quarter of Harmena in Amfissa still smells faintly of leather and oak. Water runs through stone channels once vital to a thriving trade, and though the hammers have fallen silent in most workshops, one still echoes with the rhythm of human hands. A Family that Endures As I ate lunch at an outdoor restaurant in Harmena, I looked forward to meeting Spyros Merinopoulos , who, together with his father, runs the town’s sole remaining tannery

The Acropolis view — the skyline no law dares to block. A Civilization That Never Really Fell A large component of my journey through Greece was visiting the ruins of ancient civilization. Spanning from the early Aegean period (around 3000–1000 BCE) through the Hellenistic Period (323–30 BCE), Greek culture gradually spread across the Mediterranean and Near East. Its peak came during the Classical Period—the 5th and 4th centuries BCE—before political control passed to Rome. Y

Our van driver carefully wended his way through the narrow back alleys of Amfissa, Greece. We were searching for the workshop of Christos P. Papadimos, known as the last traditional bell maker in Greece. I expected to meet a wizened old man with white hair and a mild stoop. Instead, we were greeted by a lively man in his thirties, surrounded by his three young daughters. Christos shows us a cow bell It was hard to believe when Christos told us he’d been making bells for twent