Greece's villages are among the most picturesque in the world—simple yet grand, historic yet intimate. Captured in nearly 300 color photos, here are views of a monastery perched on a mountaintop in Meteora, a kitten crossing a deserted Arkadian street, a view of the Messenian Gulf through a ruined Koroni fortress, a secret garden in an Epiros town, the white domes and boxlike structures of Mykonos, and a sphinx sculpture by the luminous blue Aegean Sea. In short texts, Mark Ottaway relates the fascinating histories of these locales, and discusses how their varied cultures are nonetheless distinctly Greek.