Ten months before the event with 50% discount!

Professional and amateur running and open water swimmingathletes from all over the world will feel a rush of adrenaline at the top sports tourism event “Santorini Experience”, which will be held for a 5th consecutive year, on 4-6 October 2019.

“Santorini Experience” opens its registration 10 months before its implementation, in order to serve the high demand from abroad, in the best possible way. Specifically, participants will be able to take advantage of the early bird prices, with a 50% discount on their registrations, if they complete them by 31/3/2019.

Those who decide to travel to Santorini to compete, should hurry up in order to take advantage of this offer, as in the second registration period, from 1/4/2019 the discount will be 25% per activity. The third and final registration period will be activated from 1/7/2019until the day of the event, setting the final registration cost per activity.

Register now HERE!

Santorini Experience collaborates in registrations for a second consecutive year with Travelotopos Ltd, the most innovative software solution company in tourism. Since its foundation in 2014, the company has designed and launched in the market four booking systems covering all sectors of tourism with great success and acceptance from the industry. In 2016 it had been awarded as the Best New Solution for Tourism in the Tourism Awards.

“Santorini Experience” participants will get the special designed technical T-shirt of the event signed by its Official Sports Supplier Luanvi, while at the same time they will receive even more gifts and surprises by the official sponsors. Specifically, participation packages in running include bag, t-shirt, medal, entry number and timing chip, while in swimming, bag, t-shirt, swimming cap, medal, tattooed entry number and timing chip.

The event’s entire collection will be available soon at Alafouzos Sport store in Fira, Santorini and online through the official site of Luanvi. Luanvi, the leading company in the
sportswear industry in Spain, with more than 35 years of history and a great number of partnerships with professional teams from all team sports, is also the official sponsor of the Spanish Paralympic team and Spanish Tennis Federation. Luanvi excels in the area of running, providing technical shirts and high quality sportswear to almost 40 big sporting events per year (indicative of this is the company’s exclusive partnership with Valencia Marathon).

The Spanish sportswear manufacturer will cooperate for the second time with Santorini Experience.

Watch the video teaser of Santorini Experience 2019 HERE!

On Saturday October 5 th 2019, runners will have the opportunity to enjoy the three established routes on the Caldera, overlooking the enchanting images of the volcano and the background scenery of Imerovigli, Firostefani and Oia. Specifically, the 5km “Aristides Alafouzos” route is ideal for running and dynamic walking, the 10km is addressed to the most experienced in distances and the 15km route to those who love strength, endurance and adrenaline. All routes start from the desalination plant in Oia, including parts of trail track, and finish in Oia.

On Sunday October 6 th 2019, participants will have the opportunity to swim from the volcano to the old port of Fira, having the imposing view of the island in front of them, in
the 1.5 miles (2.4 km) race. Organization will provide amateur athletes with a high-quality safety lifeguard buoy, giving them extra motive to choose “Santorini Experience”. Swimming route will take place with the upmost safety in the enchanting sea of Santorini (average water temperature of 20-22 degrees Celsius). Once again, experienced lifeguards will contribute in safety measures, providing staff as well as lifeboats. Different categories will be formed depending on the final participation entries, while a separate category for those wearing wetsuits will be added.

For yet another year, Luanvi is the event’s official sports supplier, while Athina Luxury Suites is the official sponsor.

Official Supporters include: Santorini Hoteliers Association, Meltemi Hotels & Resorts, Boatmen Union Santorini and Avance Rent A Car.

The following hospitality sponsors will support the event: Santorini Hoteliers Association, Meltemi Hotels & Resorts, Athina Luxury Suites and Sienna Resort. “Santorini Experience” is a co-organization of Municipality of Santorini, Municipal Sports Cultural Environmental Organization of Santorini (DAPPOS) and Active Media Group.

More info at: www.santorini-experience.com
Official Sports Supplier: Luanvi
Official Sponsor: Athina Luxury Suites
Official Supporters: Santorini Hoteliers Association, Meltemi Hotels & Resorts, Boatmen
Union Santorini, Avance Rent A Car
Hospitality Sponsors: Santorini Hoteliers Association, Meltemi Hotels & Resorts, Athina
Luxury Suites, Sienna Resort

Official Hashtag: #SantoriniExperience

Photo credit: Elias Lefas 

Riff raff and lots of laugh with Aussies, Graussies and anyone who loves Australia

 

Beers, cocktails, shots and the best burgers in town from Bullseye Burgers

 

Kappatos Gallery in collaboration with the non-profit organization Pantheon presents the exhibition titled “Performance Rooms 2019." Now entering its third decade ROOMS is an event which was first organised in 1999. This year, nineteen curators present performers from the visual arts as well as other artistic fields such as theatre, dance, music and multimedia in the rooms of a hotel. Each room will host a live performance for the four-day duration of the exhibition, which will be open to the public for three hours every day starting Thursday 24 January until Sunday 27 January from 19:00-22:00.

The exhibition aims to systematically present and record contemporary trends and propositions in the artistic field of performance, both in theory and practice. It also aspires to create an essential and fruitful dialogue between the participants, in continuation of previous Rooms events, which have contributed in promoting a large number of artists and curators.

The exhibition is of a non-profit mentality and will take place at the rooms of the St. George Lycabettus Hotel at Deksameni Square (Kleomenous 2, Kolonaki, Athens).

Participating Artists: Marilena Aligizaki, Katerina Drakopoulou, GAAM (Konstantinos Gkarametsis) and Anna Papathanasiou, Maria Galazoula, Giannis Gardiklis, Vera Iona (Papadopoulou) and Eliza Krikoni, Roula Karaferi, Spyros Kouvaras, Giorgos Nikopoulos, Artemis Orfanidou, Evgenia Papageorgiou, Iro Papakosta, Marios Stamatis, Vasilis Skarmoutsos and Foteini Alexopoulou, Antigoni Theodorou, Thodoris Trampas, Eleni Tsamadia, Evtixia Tzanetoulakou, ZS Ensemble.

Participating Curators: Domna Gounari, Dio Kaggelari, Nasia Kalamaki, Dora Kechagia, Francesco Kiàis, Alkistis-Maria Kontopoulou, Macklin Kowal, Maria Maragou, Valentini Margaritopoulou, Dimitra Marini, Christina Mot, Simoni Niarou, Vasiliki-Maria Plavou, Nikoleta Prepi, Irini Savvani, Marianna Strapatsaki, Lina Tsikouta, Evtixia (Faye) Tzanetoulakou, Antonis Volanakis, Maria Xypolopoulou.

Escape rooms or escape games have rapidly become a huge entertainment trend throughout the world. The first escape game was developed in Kyoto, Japan in 2007. Escape rooms are physical adventure games in which players solve a series of puzzles and riddles using clues, hints, and strategies in order to complete the game’s objective and escape within a specified time limit.

Heading to an escape room is a great way to have fun with your group of friends or family; it's also an excellent way to pump back the motivation into your team. Do something different after work, put your skills to the test, and bond as a team in one of the numerous escape rooms in Athens.

 

Exit Plan Escape Rooms

Exit Plan, one of our favorite escape venues in Athens, is located in Agios Dimitrios right next to the Athens Metro Mall. They offer three different escape rooms, two of which also cater for English speaking players. The 'Dark Side of Elements’ has been ranked #1 escape room in Athens by avid escapers from around Greece. So, gather a group of 2 to 6 players and head to Exit Plan to think, unlock, open, have fun, and escape!

 

To find out more about escape rooms in Athens and their rankings, please visit: The Escapers

 

During the past, few years the number of people in Greece that appreciate and look for smoke-free places is constantly increasing. Since the idea of smoke-free venues (cafes, bars and restaurants) has become pretty much mainstream, a small group of volunteers have created a website that aims to encourage and accelerate this smoke-free trend.



If you want to discover a restaurant or bar in your area where smoking is not allowed indoors, all you need to do is check out their ever-growing list of smoke free venues.

Are you ready to become your most authentically confident, clear, emotionally and mentally strong you? Well then, you are just 12-weeks away from your best year, yet! 

XpatAthens contributor, Eleni Meraki of Guts & Tales, has been cooking up another inspiring platform called Be Your Own Muse that is a 12-week online coaching program designed for women.

Eleni tells us that BYOM is the biggest professional accomplishment of her life so far. She's never felt more proud, strong, committed and excited about anything else before. For Eleni personally, the last 3 years have been quite a ride, from her own career and life change, including her emigration to Greece, it’s been a journey of many changes, many fears, and innumerable obstacles to overcome – continuous falling and getting up again.

We’d like to invite you to join women from all around the planet, to take part in a 12-week program that will truly impact your life. The program will take you through 12 themes that step-by-step will get you to exactly where you need to take you, to being your own muse.

The themes you’ll explore are carefully curated to tackle the issues and questions that many women are faced with today, including:

• Being authentic.
• Managing your thoughts.
• Believing in yourself, no matter what.
• Navigating your feelings and emotions.
• Living a balanced life.
• Maintaining a positive mindset.
• Be present and patient.

The program is very clearly structured and easy-to-follow. You’ll receive one email a day with something to read, watch, listen or do. Each day of the entire program can be done while drinking your morning coffee or on your morning commute - it will take just 5 to 20 minutes of you time per day. The content is a perfect mix of practical tools, theory, inspiration and motivation with a touch of practical coaching, psychology, (neuro) science and philosophy.

---

About the creator of the Be Your Own Muse program:

 

Eleni Meraki is a life coach, trainer, hypnotherapist, writer and founder of the storytelling platform Guts & Tales. Learn more about the BYOM team here.

Great news for Greek citizens and expats as the Citizens Service Centers (KEP) are about to fully digitize their services. In 2019, Citizens Service Centres will be able to provide faster and more efficient services that will require the least possible presence to conclude transactions.

 

It is worth noting that in 2017, out of a total of 8,519,381 cases handled by Citizens Service Centres throughout the country, more than half were processed electronically.

 

According to the general secretary of the Public Administration Ministry “the upgrading of KEP infrastructure will allow all citizens to electronically handle public administration issues and issue any required documents quickly, easily and safely without the need for printing or copying.”

 

“The modernization of services and infrastructure will contribute to reducing the time spent in serving the citizens and cutting down on bureaucracy. The centres will operate based on the principle of “only once”, meaning that information and data submitted to public authorities are not required to be submitted again. That is, supporting documents will be submitted only once, and from then on, the Public Administration is obliged to search for them and provide them when requested.”

To read this article in full, please visit: The Greek Observer

A mouthwatering veggie dish, that will amaze you. An extraordinary combination of juicy, salty fried feta covered with crispy, golden-brown sesame seeds with sweet honey sauce! Quick and easy to prepare, this dish will definitely become your favorite appetizer!

 

Fried feta with honey is a delicious meze that has it’s origins in Cretan cuisine, where one can find lots of recipes that combine salty cheese with sweet, or sour-sweet honey sauces.

• 250g feta cheese (9 ounces)
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp of paprika
• 1 tsp of freshly ground pepper
• 70-80g of flour, enough to coat the feta (3 ounces)
• 160g sesame seeds
• Olive oil for frying
• 4 tbsps of honey

To view the full recipe, please visit: My Greek Dish

Photo Credit: My Greek Dish

* Update: January 22, 2019

Stefanos Tsitsipas has reached the Australian Open Semi Finals this morning, after winning the match against Roberto Bautista Agut.

 

Over the years, Tsitsipas has pored over Federer’s highlights on YouTube, both to admire his level and see how the Swiss’ opponents tried to attack him.

 

So, in a way Tsitsipas’ first ATP Head2Head match against Federer, in the fourth round of the Australian Open, was surreal; beating Federer in four sets for the biggest win of his life, a dream come true. “I just managed to close that match and stay strong, beat my idol,” Tsitsipas said. “My idol today became pretty much my rival.”

 

Stefanos' victory over one of the most celebrated tennis players of all time has brought him to the Australian Open quarter finals, where he will play against Roberto Bautista Agut on Tuesday January 22.

 

Roger Federer himself praised the work that Stefanos has put in the past couple of years, pointing out his wins over Novak Djokovic and Kevin Anderson as signs of his progress. “That's what you need to do to get to the next level. He's doing that. It's really nice for him,” Federer said. “I see him definitely being high up in the game for a long time. That was a good night for him tonight.”

 

 

To read more, please visit: ATP Tour

Kappatos gallery presents the second solo exhibition of Yorgos Papafigos. The exhibition’ s subject area is about human relation with new technologies and the World Wide Web and the concomitant influence that they exert on him through references to the video game aesthetics and the Internet culture.

A new series of artworks like moving images focuses on the Digital era and how immateriality affects human’ s perception of the real world through digital content (sound and image), which are generated entirely in the CPU. These digital artworks are a mash-up of disquieting situations, which take place in a fake world. Animated monochromatic bodies without a specific gender identity or ethnicity or imaginary borderless places , which have been affected by ecological devastation. The compositions and environments consist of 3D modeling and 3D scanning data while the physical sculptures are related to the other components allegorically, as they represent hybrid objects.

The exhibition will present a selection of drawings, 3D printed installations and animation.

Yorgos Papafigos was born in Larisa, Greece in 1989. He studied at the School of Fine Art of the Visual and Applied Arts Department of Aristotle University in Thessaloniki

(2015) and MA Royal College of Art - Moving Image(2018). He has presented his work in the solo show Reality of Paradox at Kappatos Gallery, Athens (2015) and in group shows in museums and galleries in Greece and abroad, including Whitechapel gallery open screenings(2018), 25th Drawing Show at Boston centre for the arts(2017), New Digital Art Biennale(2017), CICA Museum, South Korea (2017), The right to be human, Goethe Institute, Thessaloniki (2017).

Opening: Friday January 18 at 20:00 p.m.
Exhibition’s Duration: 18 Jan- 23 Feb
Τue - Fri:12:00-20:00, Sat 12:00-15:00.