Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown | The Greek Islands | S07 E03 | All Documentary

Anthony Bourdain explores the Greek Cyclades island of Naxos, mixing myth and history with the realities of Greece's financial crisis, fishing decline, tourism, and the refugee crisis.

Key Takeaways

Naxos blends ancient mythology with modern economic hardship and resilient local culture.
Greece's crisis is felt sharply on the mainland, while island tourism offers relative stability.
Traditional fishing livelihoods are declining under overfishing, economic pressure, and EU policy.
Tourism and local agriculture are key pillars sustaining island communities.
Bourdain frames Greece as a place where history, hospitality, and hardship coexist.

What the video covers

Bourdain visits Naxos in the Cyclades, describing its mythological roots as the birthplace/home of Zeus and Dionysus and its place in Greek legend.
Locals discuss island hopping and the mystique of the Cyclades compared with other Greek archipelagos.
The episode is set in late summer 2015, amid Greece's second bailout, mass protests, and fears of exiting the euro.
A fisherman, George, explains the decline of the fishing trade due to dwindling stocks, the financial crisis, and EU-backed buyout schemes that pay older fishermen to stop fishing.
Bourdain dives a 34-year-old shipwreck with a local dive master, touching on rumors and the dive scene around the island.
Tourism is presented as the one sector still growing on Naxos despite national unemployment around 25% and widespread poverty on the mainland.
Discussion of Greek national identity, stereotypes of laziness, and blame for the crisis, including views on politicians and EU pressure.
Bourdain notes the refugee crisis reaching Greek shores while many island visitors remain insulated from it.
The episode touches on the islanders' farming economy, goat and sheep herding, and local food and drink such as ouzo and raki.
Cultural segments feature a festival-like celebration, the enduring influence of Dionysian traditions, and the Stray Dogs women's group reflecting Greek female strength.

Chapters

Why is Naxos significant in the episode?

Naxos is presented as a mythological center, said to be where Zeus lived and where Dionysus celebrated. Bourdain uses it as a base for exploring both ancient legend and modern Greek life.

How does the episode portray the Greek economic crisis?

The episode covers the 2015 bailout, mass protests, fears of leaving the euro, and widespread unemployment. It contrasts the hardship on the mainland with the relative stability of island tourism.

What challenges do Naxos fishermen face?

Fishermen describe diminishing fish stocks, the financial crisis, and falling demand. EU and government buyout programs encourage older fishermen to stop fishing, pushing many into tourism instead.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

my lord [Music] [Music] i took a walk through this beautiful world felt the cool rain on my shoulder [Music] [Applause] [Music] shy [Music] you [Music] [Music] [Music] people who come here stopping at naxos are they island hopping are they coming

Speaker A

is this the destination well i mean island hopping happens a lot during the summer so you know as someone who's arranged to have like a two three week vacation in greece will probably want to visit like at least two or three islands

Speaker A

so how many islands in this island group the cyclades there's about 15 maybe more there's andros tinos mykonos siros paros naxos ampido and germaine and and more right and the rest and the rest yes a lot of history here in the greek

Speaker A

islands on naxos in particular where zeus himself was said to live where his son dionysus frolicked and presumably drank and threw orgies and dropped e and danced all night to the bc version of edm these days you have to go over to

Speaker A

mykonos for that anyway lombroskier runs a bar in athens but comes out here frequently to get away from it all if you were a greek you would definitely dig boarding a boat and leaving for the sidelines you know

Speaker A

there's this air of mysticism about them like an arcane feeling that definitely doesn't exist in the other island archipelagos in greece i guess i like this a big glass of rocky on the rocks and a big glass of

Speaker A

wrecking lyrics that's uh it's a little more than i'd sort of well i'll have a sip hey llamas good morning [Laughter] yeah it kind of puts the day into perspective when you start off with a drink yes i like the wind here actually it's one

Speaker A

of the really cool things about this island is it's that breeze you know the hallways it's like our main pastime talking about the wind wind's coming when's leaving which beach do you go to when the wind is coming from the north south yes

Speaker A

most islands want to claim that actually like odysseus ulysses was from there right homer was from the united stand you know a bit of fame from the mythology to their islands i can tell you this ulysses was kind of a dick

Speaker A

and he left his wife alone for how long and how far was he from home he wasn't that far he wasn't that far i mean he was just [ __ ] around in the islands you know he couldn't go home and you

Speaker A

know throw the wife a quick one you know before and then he gets pissed because she's gotta look elsewhere he came up with this unbelievable story yeah i don't know they were these chicks they were singing and they they lured

Speaker A

the ship into the rocks they weren't hot though they were really ugly i think you summed them up perfectly there you go the iliad i see a lot of empty villas like a lot of half-finished construction yeah they

Speaker A

all stopped like a few years ago right money just ran out right then i don't want to talk about the financial crisis it's bumming me out it's harsh in my total buzz [Laughter] the pressures of the outside world i i

Speaker A

don't want to think about it i'm going to greek island here it's a beautiful day i'm planning on passing out on the beach shortly you know maybe some watercolors do a little cooking more napping eating napping contemplate mysteries of the

Speaker A

universe or nap all of those are honorable options i mean that's a vacation to me is staying put and doing nothing [Music] i wanted to get away from it all coast gently gently into another season of television no sharp edges

Speaker A

easy late summer of 2015 in the cyclones and it feels a million miles from the greece you see in the clear headlines has asked its people whether they accept stringent reforms as part of the country's second bailout 40

Speaker A

000 greeks have hit the streets the country could find itself kicked out of the euro athens could be just words away from financial disaster that greece they say is teetering on the edge of an economic apocalypse broke in peril of being foreclosed on by

Speaker A

the disdainful european powers on top of that there's the refugee crisis greece probably the least prepared least equipped to take in thousands of refugees from syria afghanistan and elsewhere is being flooded with desperate women children men they wash up on their shores alive

Speaker A

and dead and yet here on naxos one of thousands of greek islands you could for now if you chose to remain blissfully ignorant of what's happening elsewhere pretend that everywhere is just like here beautiful sleepy delicious food everything

Speaker A

is just fine [Music] [Music] john steinbeck said any man who pits his intelligence against a fish and loses has it coming but the greek fishing trade didn't stand a chance when hit with the one-two punch first of diminishing fish stocks then

Speaker A

the financial crisis and slacking demand [Music] is life good on maxos compared to the mainland really yeah i mean well if you come from this island with a fresh air the sea right now this gentleman is a fisherman george is

Speaker A

a fisherman his name is fearless george fearless yes [Music] so as i understand it in many if not all the greek islands the government or the eu is offering buyouts to fishermen they're basically saying we'll pay you to not fish

Speaker A

[Music] trying to get the older domestic fishermen out of the way basically in order to the little guys yeah the little guys basically the little guys in order to get more commercial fishing being imported into the land quite a few have uh sold out their

Speaker A

businesses their boats and moved into like tourism up here i mean as far as the the economic crisis i mean you've got the whole eu crunching down on poor greece greeks are being depicted as basically lazy addicted to social welfare what

Speaker A

happened i'm pretty sure he means the politicians and the people and the people are paying for the complete wrongdoings of the politicians we had a good spell living living on other people's money for about 40 years was was good fun

Speaker A

[Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] m is [Music] so [Music] the wreck was a cargo ship and crashed on the river maras in 1982 so it's 34 years inside the water diving in the cyclones is some of the best in the med and i was told that this

Speaker A

wreck was filled with stolen doubloons and nazi morphine panos by dive master has certainly never heard these rumors no treasure down there nothing sinister or until maybe there was inside on the in the engine room i never get there so i don't know

Speaker A

what is inside the rumor is that they crushed it on purpose in order to take the insurance and so nobody was injured everybody was safely transported to the port of ayana [Music] that's a rumor of course [Music] how many times have you been down on

Speaker A

that wreck hundreds of hundreds of times it never gets old you still have fun yeah every time it's special the greek islands when compared to the rest of the country are doing pretty well tourism on noxus in fact is on an uptick

Speaker A

i don't know what your family told you and you said you know i'm going to go to knox and i'm going to run a dive center i know my parents would have said you should do something sensible with a

Speaker A

future like banking [Laughter] as it turns out this was a sensible career choice i guess so cheers to that around 25 of the nation are unemployed now they say that about 40 percent are living close to the poverty line that's

Speaker A

apparently the mainland and yet tourism is stable and maybe even growing tourism is getting bigger even though it's uh completely opposite with the crisis so people are basically saying oh you know financial crisis beautiful islands beautiful country yes now's the

Speaker A

time to go because we can get it for cheap tourism is the only thing i believed it saved greece apart from this every every other thing collapsed it's really beautiful [Music] yay [Music] [Music] i [Music] [Music] medea antigone helen of troy aphrodite

Speaker A

demeter greek women have always been known for their beauty their fierceness their strength their willingness to fight for what they believe in and these ladies who call themselves the stray [ __ ] [Applause] these women are very much part of that

Speaker A

tradition [Music] when i mentioned that i was drinking uzo before i kind of the stray [ __ ] who are the stray [ __ ] us what what it's a theatrical musical group with political wow with political issues

Speaker A

and it speaks a lot about what we live today in greece in athens i've seen you described as anarchist ah no i don't like stereotypes i don't like characteristics yes of course i like very much the anarchist philosophy of course it speaks about

Speaker A

solidarity and the common good because all over greece now is very hard during the 90s it was all this wealth and prosperity and we were all okay with this but now it's time to talk about politics and make

Speaker A

political statements a lot of the world greece is being depicted as greeks got used to uh not having to pay taxes the stereotype is this is a great is it true or not that's a very nice strategy to create a

Speaker A

stereotype of the people you want to exploit and say they're lazy they're terrible it's propaganda we can let's put them from the moment we built our state we built it on loans the great powers england france russia helped us

Speaker A

to build our state so we own from this moment the truth is that never this nation take care of the citizens they didn't give back anything nothing to the people so why to pay your taxes there's this trust

Speaker A

a basic distrust that people are going to spend the money well it's not like a mentality thing that comes from our genes from ourselves we are not like the lazy people so what happens should greece be in the eu

Speaker A

here for the people in greece it is a feeling that oh if we go out of the european union we are lost we are as people may be ready to risk to go to another direction because this direction doesn't

Speaker A

work for us nobody's suggesting we return to an agrarian wonderland we're all gonna farm together and live in a commune right why not you like this idea yeah why not some of us will some of us if i put a yogurt in the refrigerator

Speaker A

and i put my name on it tony and somebody takes a bite out of it i've got a problem really yeah this is why i don't live in a commune because someone will take and hate my yogurt yeah but if you didn't have the

Speaker A

yogurt you would like to eat from someone else and i will [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] hey [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] yes an idyllic mountain village aperontos the sort of place where you can still

Speaker A

walk into a town square and find yourself caught up in a celebration this one celebrates greco-american actor john stamos's return to full house [Music] then get ready for wine rocky and being hand fed by strangers [Music] i think there was sending off of a

Speaker A

villager to go to the army basically a good reason for everyone to you know let some steam out [Music] and the famous potatoes of course and they're famous but this is called the rostov which is a traditional nacho

Speaker A

style pork wine tomato sauce pepper and garlic [Applause] [Music] so you make wine i make one yes i make a good wine born here no i'm not born here i came in access when i was 23 years old

Speaker A

from i oven athens very different uh life here i believe here you live every moment of your life yeah you feel really the freedom [Laughter] [Applause] this village what do people here do for a living farm tourism yeah i guess a combination i noticed a

Speaker A

lot of churches little chapels there are shitloads and it's basically the continuation of the original temples ah did they temples of apollo or not even zeus or latino or something they switched over they switched over to churches hey you guys thought pagan

Speaker A

idolatry was fun check it out christianity it's much more fun it will slide right in there you won't even notice seamlessly yes important island in mythology though it is the only society it is god of wine women in song basically and madness and

Speaker A

madness one of the things i like about greek mythology is that the gods were all deeply flawed i mean they had some serious problems they were always you know sleeping with humans they were jealous they get angry they weren't pure they

Speaker A

weren't perfect they weren't divine they were they're humans yeah not every now and then the honest would appear in like everyone said okay let's all have a great time why not [Music] yes [Music] me [Music] foreign [Music] [Music]

Speaker A

go [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] so [Music] food porn is so easy at this point it's like shooting fish in a barrel i mean you want this right of course you do but you can't have it [Music] a family farm this one dates back to the

Speaker A

venetians mom dad daughter maria her husband janis who happens to be the aegean regional governor let the food begin stuffed pepper the famous potatoes [Music] so i mean the rest of the country is not doing so well but apparently here it's

Speaker A

pretty good yes what's different about access it's um self-esteem self-esteem for example nexus you can find 130 000 goats and lambs and also half of the population cultivating the land so they are farmers so it's not just a tourist economy you produce stuff

Speaker A

here you grow things [Music] this is [Music] yes [Music] let me ask a difficult question i'm not going to ask you this question because you have to be diplomatic about difficult questions like this i'm going to guess your father doesn't so who

Speaker A

caused the greek financial crisis what happened here after he's not optimistic he says what does it mean to be greedy what are the characteristics that all greeks either do or should aspire to this means greek greek remains here you are bound to the

Speaker A

land the land of your ancestors the farm itself how long has it been in the family this i was bought by my the grandfather of my father in 1901 [Music] foreign for us in the family it's a very special

Speaker A

place and especially for me and i believe for my father it has a special vibe there is a good energy in this land [Music] um so [Music] [Applause] [Music] be [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] please translate so i went to the beach

Speaker A

today i'm laying there having a good time suddenly like 200 nudists show up late afternoon i find myself on a fishing boat ruminating on matters of great importance so here's my question it's a philosophical question greece is the home of philosophy as we know it

Speaker A

why are the first people to take off their clothes the last people you want to see naked after [Music] of course and george's son nico that's so good it's amazing this is like as traditional as you get all these dishes are either

Speaker A

used as an appetizer before the main dish which is the soup or as breakfast breakfast they have this for breakfast maybe maybe a couple of beers and then they go to sleep again for um for a few hours how are you talking

Speaker A

athens mostly mostly to athens nicole what kind of fish is this olive oil and lemon man this is some professional quality the broth is fantastic um [Music] [Music] you like this dad doing it and he likes to do it himself

Speaker A

[Music] [Laughter] yeah there's a windows away he says [Music] okay he said uh when they were like at the right age you guessing something like 14 maybe and he took them to the brothels and he took them to the [ __ ] and he told them

Speaker A

you know you realize that they you know they're all out to get your money so you know get them a few drinks have a good time go completely nuts while you're young and everything so you know you're going to be

Speaker A

a bit laid back on the whole woman issue when the time you're 50. okay all right glad i asked all right not really so this is usual oh sweet i'll have some of that [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music]

Speaker A

my rented villa is pleasant enough but to be perfectly honest lonely [Music] is it worse to be someplace awful when you're by yourself or someplace really nice that you can't share with anyone [Music] hello and it is very typical greek sunset

Speaker A

the famous greek sciences the boats the islands the bowl wow that looks good looks very good oh man that is really good the good food makes you happy very happy yeah opens your heart there are a lot of countries where

Speaker A

they're really really poor but they're super serious about food like where look here guys don't go very far right people who are not greek come to the greek islands for the first time come to noxus what should you do here you should

Speaker A

drink rocky for sure do it get drunk with yourself get drunk it's not enough to just drink it no yeah don't tell me what you ate tell me who you ate with [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] hey let's go

Speaker A

[Music] you

Topics:Anthony BourdainParts UnknownNaxosGreek IslandsCycladesGreek financial crisisGreek fishing industryGreek mythologytourismrefugee crisis

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