Greece emerged as the second-best (Silver) tourist destination in Europe after Italy, during the 25th edition of the annual American Readers’ Choice Awards (RCA 2021).

The RCA award is organised by Worth Publications and the bi-monthly travel magazine “Recommend”.

Greece shared second place with Ireland.

The poll was conducted online between July 8 and August 31.

More than 135,000 readers of the magazine made their choices in various categories, such as best destination, hotels, and resorts, travel agents, cruise companies, car rental companies, airlines companies, etc.

The Readers’ Choice Awards are handed out each year to countries and travel/tourism agencies and companies around the world that have established themselves in terms of excellence while attracting the strong interest of the global tourism industry.

Originally published on: greekcitytimes.com

The cosmopolitan Winter Garden City Lounge is open again to welcome its valued guests in the relaxing and elegant atmosphere of Hotel Grande Bretagne. 

Featuring special events and a refreshed menu curated by the Executive Chef Asterios Koustoudis and his talented team, the Winter Garden graciously invites guests to new experiences in the city’s most ideal gathering space. 

Intimate gatherings with your loved ones over an authentic afternoon tea featuring a new kids version or over the most elegant weekend brunch in town is always a good idea! Spending a relaxing evening listening to classic piano tunes and enjoying the live music nights of opera, jazz and harp inside Winter Garden’s warm embrace is another experience not to be missed.

Traditional Afternoon Tea

The renowned Afternoon Tea of Winter Garden, holding its own part of history in the hotel’s journey through time, welcomes you to a journey of flavors and aromas.  

The Afternoon Tea of Hotel Grande Bretagne, traditionally served, includes a rich variety of accompaniments and tea flavors. Enjoy a selection of tea sandwiches from our bakery with crab, smoked salmon, roast beef and egg salad, freshly baked almond scones with Corinthian raisin,  seasonal jams and clotted cream as well as delectable desserts and cakes prepared by the Hotel Grande Bretagne pâtisserie and the ‘Meilleur Ouvrier de France’ Pastry Chef Arnaud Larher. 

Afternoon Tea for kids

If you are looking for an authentic experience for your children, the Afternoon Tea of Hotel Grande Bretagne is a lovely picture-worthy ritual that will always be cherished.

Introduce your children to the opulent tea experience of the historic hotel and delight their moments with irresistible savories and desserts such as mini sandwiches, cupcakes, marshmallows, macarons and cookies. 

Weekends at Winter Garden 

Hotel Grande Bretagne’s elegant brunch returns and invites you to savor it at the Winter Garden City Lounge. 

From November 6 and every weekend from 11.00 until 14.00, experience moments of relaxation and warm gatherings with your loved ones under the sounds of soft music while enjoying the refreshing menu of sweet and savory delicacies curated by Executive Chef Asterios Koustoudis and his talented team. The familiar taste of the hotel’s warm, handmade butter and chocolate croissants meet the homemade marmalade and the exquisite vanilla cream, which was inspired and created by the pastry team of the historic Hotel Grande Bretagne, and altogether craft the finest harmony once they blend with the indigenous fresh local butter and fir tree honey. One of the highlights of this elegant brunch is the handmade “tsoureki” with mastiha, an exclusive creation of the hotel’s pastry team. A delicacy that will exceptionally accompany the cup of coffee or tea or the glass of fresh juice that our valued -Winter Garden- guest will select.

The savory palette of “Weekends at Winter Garden” is complemented by exquisite appetizer options such as the smoked salmon cannelloni with crab, avocado and green apple and the ‘Jamon Serrano’ salad with forest mushrooms, foie gras and dry sour cherries. The menu finds its best expression when it comes to the perfect serving of organic farm-fresh egg dishes such as: soft-boiled eggs with potato cream, smoked eel and caviar, eggs benedict with lobster, asparagus and hollandaise sauce or the Chef’s dish of the day.

For the sweetest epilogue, the opulent selection of desserts is the one that will perfectly seal your very own “Weekends at Winter Garden” experience.

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Music nights at Winter Garden 

The iconic Winter Garden City Lounge of Hotel Grande Bretagne invites you to the finest music nights with live tunes of jazz, opera and harp. 

Jazzy Wednesdays 

Every Wednesday enjoy live Jazz performances within the warm and inviting ambiance of the Winter Garden and immerse yourself in a timeless atmosphere of vivacious jazz tunes.

Experience captivating performances by a trio combination consisting of piano, double bass and saxophone and let the fusions of various local and international styles of jazz create the perfect musical backdrop for your evening.

Genuinely originated by New Orleans, United States, it now journeys all the way through continents and centuries and allows us to journey ourselves while enjoying the warm embrace of the Winter Garden.

Every Wednesday as of November 10, 2021 | 19.30 – 22.30.

Opera Nights at Winter Garden 

The elegant ambience of the Winter Garden City Lounge embraces the fine sounds of Opera and welcomes some of its most renowned repertoires. 

Gracefully aligned with the fine essence of the historic Hotel Grande Bretagne and the enchanting environment of the hotel’s city lounge, the “Opera Nights at the Winter Garden” debut with a duet of a soprano and a tenor.

Renowned arias and sophisticated sounds surround the stylish and opulent setting of the Winter Garden and set the background of this unique experience.

Every Thursday as of November 11, 2021 | 19.30 – 22.30.

Harp Tunes at Winter Garden 

Indulge in a music journey through the centuries. Captivating melodies will unveil the beauty and romance and take you to mythical times through the airy, crystalline, almost divine sounds of the harp accompanied by piano.

Enjoy an exceptional musical experience in the warm atmosphere of Winter Garden.

Every Friday as of November 12, 2021 | 19.30 – 22.30.

Greek food is renowned all over the world! Everyone knows Moussaka, gyro, and tzatziki, however, people are not that well acquainted with Greek desserts. 

Greeks love pastry and their long culinary tradition stretches back to the ancient world. In fact, ancient Greeks used cakes and sweets in religious festivals and as offerings. Today's Greek desserts share a lot of similarities with Middle Eastern and Turkish pastry dishes and borrow heavily from Italy and North Africa too. The result is a lot of honey, a touch of cinnamon, and plenty of nuts - otherwise known as the holy trinity of Greek ingredients. Here are some of our favorite traditional Greek desserts that taste exceptional at this time of the year!

Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis launched on Friday, November 5, the GR-eco project on the island of Halki, scheduled to turn the island green.

The project, which will include other islands in the future, aims at providing residents with lower electricity bills, reducing environmental pollution, and upgrading energy and telecommunications infrastructure.

Halki is a little island in the Dodecanese archipelago, located just 6 km west of Rhodes. Still untouched by mass tourism, Halki is the perfect destination either for relaxing vacations away from the bright lights or for a quick getaway from Rhodes island.

The benefit of the project for Halki is estimated to be a total of 180,000-250,000 euros per year, while the “green” energy from the solar energy power plants replaces the electricity production from oil resources from the Rhodes units, resulting in the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions by 1,800 tons per year, the Greek government says.

Halki and the Dodecanese Islands will become sites of dynamic investments in green and cyclical economies, Mitsotakis said, which means cheap electricity and new jobs for the residents.

Residents will work with municipalities to produce the energy they consume, practically nulling the cost of the energy, he explained. “This model of energy democracy can and must become an example for every island, reducing costs on residential bills,” ushering in the era of prosumers, or producers/consumers who take advantage of natural energy sources without additional expense, Mitsotakis noted.

The crisis can become an opportunity under these circumstances, while Greece’s strategic location makes it a hub of energy transfer. “This is the meaning of the recent agreement with Egypt – such agreements turn into shields defending our borders as well,” the premier underlined, urging additional islands and their councils to join the GR-eco islands model.

Earlier in the week, during a speech at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change COP26, he noted that “our pioneering strategy, GR-eco, will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 10 million tons, gradually turning our islands into 100% green and sustainable, autonomous destinations.”

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

The Acropolis Museum welcomes visitors during the winter period (1 November 2021 – 31 March 2022) with a reduced admission fee (5 euro) and two new gallery talks.

Experience a different Saturday morning! Visit the Acropolis Museum and discover with the archaeologists the hidden stories of 20+1 masterpieces, which themselves chose for you. Myths and fables, folklores and traditions, historical milestones and human stories transform into art and weave a vivid experience during an outstanding walk in the Museum’s galleries.

Day: Every Saturday

English: 10:30 a.m.

Greek: 12:30 p.m.

Duration: 90 minutes

Participation: For registration, please refer to the Information Desk at the Museum

entrance on the same day. First-in first-served. Limited to 30 visitors per session.

Health protection measures: It is necessary to wear a mask (not provided by the

Museum) and to use the whisper guide system headsets (provided by the Museum).

Cost: A general admission fee (5€) to the Museum is required.

Strange creatures at the Acropolis Museum
What is truly the Hippalektryon? A rooster or a horse? A real mystery! And what about Centaur, Typhon, Triton and so many others? Visit the Museum with your children (up to 12 years old) and discover them together. Creatures of the earth, the sea and the air, creations of the imagination of ancient people that invite us in a game of exploration, observation and knowledge. Children will be given materials to take home and create their own strange creatures. If they choose to do so, they can photograph their artworks and upload them on acropolismuseum kids!

Day: Every Sunday

Hours: 10:30 a.m. & 12:30 p.m.

Language: Greek

Duration: 60 minutes

Participation: For registration, please refer to the Information Desk at the Museum

entrance on the same day. First-in first-served. Limited to 30 visitors per session.

Health protection measures: It is necessary to wear a mask (not provided by the

Museum) and to use the whisper guide system headsets (provided by the Museum).

Cost: Participation for children is free. A general admission fee (5€) is required for  parents/escorts.

Greece has launched the Covid Free Gr Wallet, a new app allowing citizens to easily save Greek and European Covid-19 certificates on their mobile phones and tablet devices.

Already available on App Store and Google Play, the app aims to facilitate the storage of digital health certificates for vaccination, recovery, and testing as well as simplify verification procedures.

Storage is possible both for the EU Digital Covid Certificate and national certificates and for as many people the user wants – for example, the whole family.

The app is similar to other digital tools already used by citizens to store and verify documents including air boarding passes and event tickets.

Users can save their documents on the Covid Free Gr Wallet simply by scanning their QR code or by uploading them in a pdf format.

The new app is also available through GOV's website.

Originally published on: news.gtp.gr

Pangrati is the quintessential middle-class neighborhood with a definite artsy aura. The home address of musicians, writers, directors, academics, and journalists, past residents include composer Manos Hatzidakis and poet George Seferis. This makes for a lively café culture radiating from two hubs, Platia Proskopon and Platia Varnava. Shops, restaurants, small bars, and green spaces—plus a couple of galleries, an art-house cinema, and a theatre—reflect the locals’ cosmopolitan outlook. Opened in October 2019, the Goulandris Museum of Contemporary Art boosted the area’s profile among visitors, already drawn by the Kallimarmaro stadium and Athens First Cemetery. The artsy ambiance is now complete with the reopening of the city’s flagship art repository, the National Gallery in early 2021. The unique vibe undulates between edginess and convention. This is one of the city’s most desirable neighborhoods, and finding an apartment in the Pangrati or Mets areas has always been hard, as people move in but rarely move out. Though technically right in the city centre, the mood here is decidedly detached from it: Pangrati isn’t where change is sparked, but where it settles in.

Panathenaic Stadium


Credit: Thomas Gravanis

When Pierre de Coubertin’s vision of reviving the Olympic Games became reality in 1896, the stadium where they would be held was not a random choice. Beneath the marble stands of the 204-meter long oval stadium were the ruins of a 4th century BC arena used for the Panathenaic Games, one of the four major athletic competitions of antiquity, and later by Roman gladiators. A private benefactor, Georgios Averoff, paid to have the stadium beautifully refitted with gleaming white stone from the same Pendeli quarry used millennia earlier to build the Acropolis, thus earning the venue its Greek name - Kallimarmaron, or beautiful marble. If climbing some 50 rows to reach the top of the world’s only all-marble stadium is daunting, walk up Eratosthenous and turn onto Archimidous Street to the rear entrance. This leads to a track around the stadium’s upper rim, a popular training run for local joggers. Follow the path through the Ardittos woods for one of the best views over the centre of Athens and the Acropolis.

Plateia Proskopon 


Credit: Thomas Gravanis

Platia Varnava is Pangrati’s hip answer to Platia Proskopon’s entrenched cool. Unlike typical Athens squares, the action isn’t in the middle but on its periphery and the streets around it, stretching as far as the smaller Platia Plastira. The neighborhood’s humbler origins survive in the men chatting idly outside the old-fashioned barber’s just meters from one of the city’s first Michelin-starred restaurants. The cafes and meze bars extend down Empedokleous, a shaded semi-pedestrian street with palm fronds poking over the mulberry trees. Pensioners picking over produce at the Friday farmer's market, which switches seasonally to different sides of the square, mingle easily with tattooed youths sipping freddos from mason jars.

Athens First Cemetery


Credit: Thomas Gravanis

Death and burial have been constant themes in Greek civilization since antiquity. And it’s quite likely that the kitsch plastic wreaths sold at the stands along Anapafseos Street - literally, eternal rest - outside the First Cemetery gates had their counterparts then, too. But this gaudiness does not prepare you for the splendor of the grandiose memorials inside. The 170,00-square-metre necropolis is officially a national museum, as key figures of modern Greek history are buried in many of the 10,000-odd plots. Former prime ministers, film stars, even the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann lay buried beneath some remarkable sculpture. Not all memorials are eponymous. A simple bronze statue of a woman clutching a baby to her emaciated body is dedicated to all survivors of the Nazi occupation. Another stand-out among the marble rococo is the grave of poet Costas Varnalis: an avant-garde bronze marked simply: “Peace, the kingdom of human friendship.”

To read this article in full and discover Pangrati's most popular locales, please visit: thisisathens.org

Greece is among the Top 5 destinations of choice for Europeans hoping to take a holiday by March, according to the latest survey released this week by the European Travel Commission (ETC).

The ETC’s latest survey conducted in September: “Monitoring Sentiment for Domestic and Intra-European Travel – Wave 9”, reveals that a total of 6.8 percent of Europeans polled said they wanted to take a trip to Greece by the end of March.

Greece (7 percent) is ranked fourth as a top bucket list destination after Spain (9 percent), Italy (9 percent), and France (8 percent).

Completing the Top 10 are Germany, Croatia, Portugal, Turkey, Austria, and the UK.

Poland, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, and Italy are the main European markets that will generate travel flows through to March, the report found. In these countries, more than 68 percent of respondents said they intended to make at least one trip by that time.

More specifically, two in three Europeans plan to travel in the next six months thanks in large part to the confidence restored over the summer revealing a positive tourism outlook for the coming months.

The report’s analysts also found that for the first time since October 2020, Europeans’ travel plans are evenly spread over the next six months with 26 percent choosing to travel in October and November, 28 percent between December 2021 and January 2022, and 25 percent in February-March 2022.

According to ETC, the findings indicate that Europeans are no longer in a “waiting mode” and feel more confident to embark on “spontaneous” trips.

Preference for domestic trips dropped by 18 percent over the past 12 months with Mediterranean destinations ranking highest on travelers’ destination wish lists. Potential travelers are interested in city breaks (18 percent) up by 43 percent since the summer and beach vacations.

The report also found increased popularity in shorter trips of up to three nights (30 percent of city break travelers). At the same time, the percentage of travelers intending to spend up to 500 euros on their trip grew by 20 percent.

To read this article in full, please visit: news.gtp.gr

Panagia Kapnikarea is an 11th-century church, dedicated to Panagia (the virgin Mary) and is situated in the middle of the busy Ermou shopping strip, between Syntagma and Monastiraki Square.

Thousands upon thousands of people walk by the church each day, which was built on the ruins of an ancient temple, and according to historians, it was connected either to the goddess Athena or to Demeter.

The church is dedicated to Panagia and has a unique name “Kapnikarea” which may refer to the Byzantine tax “kapnikon” or some say it derives from the word “kapnismeni” which in Greek means “smoked”, due to the marks of fire that are seen on the building.

The architectural design of Kapnikarea is also special; it is a multifaceted edifice, that is constituted by three different parts; the main church at the southern part, which is dedicated to Panagia and may have been the catholicon of a monastery; the chapel dedicated to Agia Varvara at the northern part; and the exonarthex at the western side.

Most of the icons inside the church are painted by the artist Fotis Kontoglou and his pupils, a school of hagiography strongly influenced by Byzantine tradition. In 1942 Kontoglou painted Theotokos Platytera at the arch of the church, which was his first monumental work. The decoration was completed in 1955 with the help of his students.

The paintings on the walls of the vaulted narthex and the exo-narthex, which show western influences, are the work of an unknown artist and date from approximately 1900 and the stunning mosaic outside the church of Panagia holding Jesus was created by Elli Voila in 1936.

The church is filled with a rich history and during the Greek Independence War, it was damaged, like most other monuments in Athens. In 1834, the year of the construction of Ermou Street, authorities had planned to demolish the church. This was during the reign of King Otto, as it was not included in the urban designs of his architect, Leo von Klenze but it was saved after the intervention of the King of Bavaria, Ludwig.

Today, the church belongs to the University of Athens and continues to stand out as a unique part of the city’s history, attracting thousands of locals and tourists who walk inside each day to light a candle, say a prayer and look around this sacred site. 

Originally published on: greekcitytimes.com

The Athens English Comedy Club is back!

Is the Athens comedy scene “all Greek” to you? Are you on the lookout for English language events which do not require you to read surtitles? Do you want to try your hand at stand up in English? We are here for YOU!
 

Founded in 2019, the Athens English Comedy Club is the first, and only, purely English comedy club in Greece, presenting local and international comedians, right in the heart of Athens. 

1 super clean microphone, 10 comedians, 5' each!

MC: Dimitris Dimopoulos

It'll be a mix of everything! Experienced comedians trying out new material, new comedians trying out new material, experienced comedians sharpening old material, new comedians sharpening old material - but how, they're new! Who knows, it'll be fun!

Keen to get involved and join us on stage? Follow us on Instagram and Facebook to stay up-to-date with open mic registrations!

Come and laugh! Nay! Come and chortle. Or better yet, guffaw!

We also offer 3 free tickets per show to persons with disabilities or unemployed persons (phone reservation required, and the relevant card/proof will be checked at the box office).

The theatre is wheelchair accessible.

Upon entry you will need to provide a vaccination certificate OR negative rapid test from within 48 hours prior to the show, OR a valid proof of recovery/antigen test.