In fact, so fantastical are some of the claims it makes possible, it is hard for the prospective tourist to choose which magical place to visit. There is the capital of Epirus, for example, offering a "comfortable sojourn, charming natural beauty, unforgettable reminiscences and mental enhancement" in addition to a cave whose wondrousness "can nowhere else be seen, in any part of the world to such an extent, beauty and phantasmagoria." Its appearance indeed is so strange that "visitors are being held spellbound, forget themselves...and drift their imagination towards legendary palaces."

As if that is not excitement enough, you can easily take a day trip to the "fascinating and full of wild magnificence Canyon where the rainbow's colours are competing in a dazzling play" and where "fantastic Nemrods" are promised plenty of game in winter and unequalled hospitality from the villagers.

Another mountain location advertises enigmatically, "pelion beauties, vassilis's designs, He gathered of the mountains the distributed charms, and joined them and shaped you the mountains pride." If that leaves you a bit in the dark about what to expect, you could opt for the novelty of an island with the "houses built one on top of the other, one inside the other?"

And who could resist the promise of merry mix-ups at the Sissy bungalotel in Thermopiles with its hint of fission or merely something innovative in the way of warming the nether regions? There would be no problem about presents for the folks back home; the Toy Rist shop is full of them. And if the kiddies get on your nerves, just pack them off for some Greek Fun at the Childish Joy - that is the slide in the kids' playground. As for helping you unwind and realise the relaxative holiday promised by the brochure, maybe that is what that item called squits on the restaurant menu is designed to do.

Actually, restaurant fare is even more fanciful than the language of the brochure writers. I mean, what more enticing gastronomic prospect could a restaurateur hold out to a chap than Kiss Loren, with Hot Pants perhaps to "open the appetite?" It certainly sounds more alluring than coldfish garlic or the somewhat indigestible small boot stuffed eggplant garnished with boiled mountain that one of my regular haunts persists in keeping as part of its repertoire. As for red millet you could still be feeling a bit peckish after that, and I am not sure what to make of the tentative-sounding spachett with meat say. Perhaps it is just a thoughtful provision for the indecisive. Glougaba salat sounds as if it should go rather well with pork gutlets or even hontok - though it turns out, alas, to be nothing more exciting than cucumber salad and the hontok a humble hot dog.

For a lot of this exotica is a result of the attempt to render the unfamiliar sounds of English as they appear to a Greek ear, in the unfamiliar letters of the English alphabet. This is how a quiche Lorraine, a hot dog and hot punch end up in such strange disguise.