French ambassador in Athens shares his secret passion

Back when he was in middle school in the early 1970s, his Ancient Greek teacher would often speak passionately about her experiences of traveling in Greece. When French Ambassador to Greece Christophe Chantepy took over his duties in the Greek capital, he referred to that memory.

"She would tell us about the olive trees waving like the sea beneath Delphi, the majesty of the Parthenon, the perfect marriage of land and sea. Mainly, she would tell us about Greek hospitality and the Greek spirit. My first trip, as soon as I got some money together, was to Greece. I was 20 years old, a student at university. And here I encountered everything that teacher had told us about," he said six months ago, when he was first posted to Athens.

It was a sweet spring morning and we sipped coffee (French, of course) in one of the salons on the ground floor of the Merlin de Douai Mansion,...