The ancient Greeks believed there were four primary forms of love: family affection (storghì), friendship (filìa), desire (eros) and finally spiritual love (agàpi). Why are so many words used in Greece to say "love"? Probably for the same reason why Eskimos have many words for "white". The more attention and understanding we have of a theme, the richer and more complex our descriptive system is. When the range of terms we have available is wide, our view of the world becomes broader and more kaleidoscopic.
Expanding our view even further we will discover that there are other forms of love closely linked to Greek culture: the passion for what we do (meraki), the desire to achieve something (thélima) and finally a form of love with which we all come into contact as soon as we arrive in Greece, hospitality towards foreigners (xenìa). What if love was a place? Topophilia (another term not surprisingly of Greek origin) is an attachment to a place, its colors and its culture which is so deep and strong that it transforms a special place into an imaginary dimension. The house we lived in as children, the square where we met our first love, the never forgotten destination of a journey. According to the geographer Yi-Fu Tuan, places have their own personality, a temperament, a soul. The Romans called it "Genius Loci", the divine spirit that inhabited a place, influenced its mood, protected and determined the behavior of anyone who passed through it. The same spirit still defines the identity of a place today, shapes its culture, its art and the social relationships of those who live there, leaving a profound imprint on those who visit it.
And if on the one hand tourism today invests more and more in itineraries that offer immersive experiences to enhance the emotions that a place can arouse, sometimes you just need to let go, allow your gaze to wander free and be surprised, enjoy every flavour, color and perfume to fall in love madly with a place. I could bet that many of you know what we are talking about and have made Kefalonia a mental place to return to simply by closing your eyes.
