The Greek National Tourism Organization (EOT) launched a new advertising campaign, touting Greece’s attractions as a city break destination. Coining the word “Greekend,” the campaign encourages people to “end your week like a Greek.”

In its new spot, EOT promotes Athens and Thessaloniki as ideal destinations for travelers looking for a weekend break, stressing the prevailing good weather conditions and easy flight connections. It showcases the offerings tourists can enjoy in Greece’s big cities including the coffee culture, local cuisine, art galleries, shopping destinations, and entertainment venues.

“The Tourism Ministry and EOT are launching the City Break campaign, inviting visitors to discover the well-known and hidden corner of Greek cities,” said Tourism Minister Vasilis Kikilias.

“Hotels in our cities, particularly Athens and Thessaloniki, have suffered due to the pandemic. This campaign is the first in a series of initiatives we will carry out, inviting visitors to safely enjoy an authentic Greek weekend in our largest cities,” he added.

“The pandemic has negatively impacted urban tourism. In many cases, disproportionately to our other tourist destinations,” said EOT General Secretary Dimitris Fragkakis, adding that “the Greekend campaign seeks to promote a complete tourist product, one that is equal to other established European weekend destinations.”

The new campaign is scheduled to initially run for two months in 10 countries including France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, and Israel.

Originally published on: ekathimerini.com

 

The Greek Tourism Ministry announced that direct flights from Canada to Athens will begin on April 2.

The announcement followed a meeting between Greek Tourism Minister Vassilis Kikilias and Canada’s Ambassador to Greece Mark Allen at the ministry in Athens.

According to the tourism ministry, Canada’s direct flights to the Greek capital will be carried out for the first time until the end of November, as opposed to previous years when they usually stopped in October.

Minister Kikilias welcomed the development, which he said, combined with the recent lifting of the Covid-19 test requirement for fully vaccinated travelers from Canada, is expected to attract more visitors from the Canadian market.

On his part, Ambassador Allen informed the Greek minister of Tourism that Canada was adjusting its Travel Health Notice from a Level 3 to a Level 2, meaning that the government will no longer recommend that Canadians avoid travel for non-essential purposes.

According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, the Government of Canada will begin a phased easing of travel restrictions as of February 28.

Originally published on: news.gtp.gr

Afrogreco Music Entertainment artistically curates a series of live musical performances in the atmospheric foyer of the historic Jenny Karezi Theater.

On the day of “Tsiknopempti” 24 February the talented Jerome Kaluta steps on the stage of the foyer,where with the accompaniment of guitar, piano and percussion he will present a set of favorite Afro-Funk, RnB and Soul covers as well as songs from his album, Afrogreco as well as passages from more traditional ethnic sounds.

Lipsi, a tiny Greek island in the Dodecanese archipelago, ranks as one of the top 10 alternative travel destinations in the world for 2022, according to Girovagate.com, one of Italy’s largest travel blogs. It. also noted Aspronissi, which has one of the most beautiful beaches in all of Greece, as one of its recommendations for tourists to visit when on Lipsi.-

 

 

What you need to know about Lipsi

There is no direct daily ferry or air connection to the island via mainland Greece, so the options to get there would include a ferry trip from other Dodecanese islands. The Greek islands providing connections to this island paradise are Leros. Patmos, Rhodes, Kalymnos, and Kos.

Lipsi is not just one island, but actually a cluster of islets located in southeastern Aegean. The collective name comes from the largest island of all, Lipsi, which is formed by landmasses joined by a narrow isthmus. Low hills and valleys, as well as a rocky coastline and several bays, are part of the landscape of Lipsi.

Cars and roads are not common on the island; therefore most of the action takes place along the pedestrian seafront promenade. A small fishing port and several must-visit tavernas can also be found, as well. In the town, Chorio, one can taste the famous island octopus dishes in one of the many ouzeries or fish restaurants there. At night, these venues turn into meeting places where people can to go for a drink and live music.

Being a small island, it is quite easy to move around by bike or even by foot on Lipsi. Despite its size, however, there are many churches and monasteries on the island. Locals even say that it’s possible that every family on Lipsi could have a chapel of their very own.

Sights on the Greek island of Lipsi

Koimisis tis Theokou, an austere Byzantine church dating back to the 7th or 8th century AD, is home to an icon of the Virgin Mary holding a crucified Jesus. The church is on the bay that dominates the port, surrounded by a lush landscape with natural springs.

The Archaeological Collection of Lipsi, in the main village, showcases clay artifacts and ancient inscriptions from the Classical, Hellenistic and Christian periods.

To read this article in full, please visit: greekreporter.com

Is Athens planned? What is being planned in Athens? What are the priorities? What are the explicit goals? Is there a “vision for Athens” today?

Co-organized by the Schwarz Foundation and the Gennadius Library of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

This is the first in a series of events on the city of Athens, featuring Greek and foreign experts. This forum fosters the exchange of views aiming to inform but also reflect on what is currently planned and implemented in Athens. Is there a clear set of priorities and a strategy for the urban form, organization, and program for the city of Athens over the next 10-20 years? Is it related to the most recent Athens Regulatory Plan, and is the plan itself being refined by individual studies, in line with all emerging data? Finally, to ask a question that has already been raised multiple times: is there a coherent concept, a “vision for Athens” as an urban and economic entity/capital of the South-Eastern Mediterranean?

Today, Athens features limited green spaces and low building density. The city is characterized by urban sprawl, while the Regulatory Plan and the most authoritative theoretical approaches for European cities adopt the idea of the compact city. The use of private cars is high and the development of the subway network is still limited. The 2004 Olympic Games upgraded the urban environment, especially the transport network. However, the decade-long economic crisis starting in 2010 has restrained economic growth and exacerbated problems of urban development and social cohesion. Other issues, such as the redevelopment of Athens’ downtown, the renewal of building stock, the management and new uses of the city’s seafront area, and the creation of the “new city” of Elliniko and its relationship with the existing urban system, can be crucial to the future of the urban complex.

Athens Meetings 2022 take place during a period of significant changes and transformations and seek to encourage public discourse and debate about the management of the complex challenges of the city of Athens. The ultimate goal cannot be anything other than the improvement of the quality of daily life and the well-being of the residents through a healthy, creative and sustainable urban environment.

 

The frenzy surrounding the metaverse may make the term seem like the latest trendy tech buzzword. But the term actually goes far back into theories of how reality will be affected by the internet.

Ever since science fiction writer Neal Stephenson coined the term ‘metaverse’ in 1992, experts have predicted the game-changing shifts virtual reality will bring to the world, especially how we work.

As Facebook rebrands to Meta, various other companies are rushing into the sphere, where music, art, and clothing take on a second–profitable–life.

Various high fashion brands, music artists, and cryptocurrencies have used the metaverse as a dynamic new platform for exchange, new markets and business models have emerged in response to the metaverse’s synthesis of intellectual property, digital currency, and virtual worlds.

Companies and celebrities flock to the metaverse

Hotel heiress and reality television star Paris Hilton is one of many celebrities forging their own path in the metaverse. The star launched her own metaverse business on Roblox in December 2021.

Hilton is parlaying her success as a celebrity DJ and party host, a role that regularly fetches her $1 million dollars a night at clubs in China, Dubai, and Ibiza. Now the 40-year-old star is channeling all of those locales — especially Ibiza — into her own virtual island on the online game platform Roblox.

But when you enter and participate in the metaverse, you bring your personal data with you. Experts predict that more data than ever before will be available through users’ activity in the metaverse, and if they are gaging with Meta’s Horizon project, they will be in a ‘walled garden’: all of the data they generate in the metaverse will be owned by Meta, who will have the right to profit off of it as well.

Other forms of the metaverse will be decentralized, giving users the option to protect their data and privacy. This revolution in data harvesting will likely upend all aspects of contemporary work, even for companies who have not yet dived into the metaverse.

To read this article in full, please visit: greekreporter.com

In a recent article, the Times of London has reiterated its support for the Greek request for the reunification of the Parthenon sculptures.

The timing of the article coincides with the recent announcement that a UK-based research institute could reproduce the Marbles to the nearest millimeter using 3D printing technology, so the British Museum can exhibit the copies.

The proposal was recently put forward by Oxford University’s Institute of Digital Archeology, which has developed a robot “with a human touch,” as the newspaper describes, with the ability to create faithful copies of archeological monuments.

Speaking to the Times, Roger Michel, founder and executive director of the institute, said that if the British Museum did not give permission for the Greek sculptures to be photographed, “guerrilla” tactics could be used, potentially enlisting “an army of patriotic Greeks with 3D cameras to take the images.”

Mr. Michel explained that once the three-dimensional scans are taken, the institute can create a highly detailed 3D model of the sculptures. This is then uploaded into a carving robot, with the ability to reproduce the sculptures in stone to the nearest millimeter. “It looks like something out of the first Terminator movie, but the delicacy of the carving is just extraordinary. It’s as good as anything a human sculptor can do,” says Michel.

The Times article states that the British Museum should “embrace” this latest technological opportunity.

“The marbles should be returned to Greece, where they can be exhibited at the magnificent Acropolis Museum in Athens. The British Museum should agree to exhibit the 3D copies. In return, Greece could pledge not to allow more copies to be made. In this way, the Greeks can regain their cultural heritage and the British Museum can maintain its status as the most important historical collection in the world,” the Times article concludes.

Originally published on: greece-is.com