Dark caves, pine, oak and fig trees as far as the eye could see. Little villages surrounded by ancient olive groves, nestling here and there among the rocks, and pristine village churches, white walled, red roofed, domed and decorated, obviously very much loved.

As the altitude grew higher the land became rougher, the track narrower still, the pine trees starting to take over the landscape, dressing it all in fronds of fresh green. Goats skipped from rock to rock as nimble as birds, their bleating voices adding to the music of the mountains. The air became still, devoid of the mechanical sounds of the twenty first century, making it almost a crime to restart the engine of the little car that had so bravely carried me this far.

People were few and far between, a grizzly old man sat out side the odd rickety old house, while his black scarved wife, equally as grizzly, carried wood or gathered succulent grapes from the trellis outside the back door.

The road was empty, quiet and peaceful, the only other traffic a little old lady riding her donkey home from the village. History was unfolding its picture book before my eyes, but it was a history that was as alive as it was ancient, as tactile as it was dusty.

On and on the little track wound, like a never ending spring, upwards, ever upwards into green pines and azure blue sky. Little clearings started appearing among the gnarled trees, rocky little openings among the pines, populated with  little boxes all in rows, some gaily painted, some plain white, all housing that much loved little insect of Greek folk lore, that industrious little creature Apis mellifera mellifera – the  HONEY BEE, buzzing and thrumming through the clean air, till I felt the whole mountain vibrated with the sound of their whirring silver wings.

I counted fifty hives here, thirty there, another twenty or more further in shadows of the forest. Around the corner another apiary met my eyes, maybe one hundred hives painted bright. Fire lilies grew in profusion, a flower one would have expected the bees to visit avidly, but no the little insects had a better nectar source to visit, a gift to them from the tiny aphids on the black trunks of the mountain pines. Fifty thousand hives on the mountain side I was told – and I believed it.

The peace was suddenly shattered by the angry sound of a truck, trundling its way back down from further up the peak, it slowed down and stopped and three smiling faces greeted me.

“ Kalispera!” “Kalispera!” we called to each other, smiling eyes and hand motions, doing most of the talking. The truck was laden with more hives of bees, neatly stacked on the back of the vehicle, being moved to a better site. With simple Greek hospitality the lady seated between the two darkly handsome men, reached down and passed over a handful of golden honeycomb dripping the wonderful sticky fluid over my hand. A first taste of the Greek mountain pine honey, and sticky fingers to be licked and enjoyed for many minutes.