Ithaca is a non-profit organisation founded in July 2015 with the view to diminishing social exclusion of homeless people and raising awareness for the plight of the homeless. Ithaca operates the first mobile laundry unit for homeless people in Europe.

Ithaca's goal is twofold: to raise homeless’ people hygiene standards and restore their dignity, as well as to create opportunities for them. Ithaca manages to accomplish the latter by employing people from social vulnerable groups on a part-time basis for up to 12 months, contributing in this way to their social integration.

The culture ministry recently announced that a new e-ticketing and access control system has been installed at a few selected archaeological sites and museums in Greece.

The museums selected were part of a pilot program, and include the Acropolis, the archaeological sites of Athens' historic center, Knossos archaeoglical site, the Heraklion Archaeological Museum, and the archaeological area and museum of Ancient Messini.

As part of the new e-ticketing system, which helps handle traffic at peak times, an online service will be available to purchase e-tickets.

Source: Greek Travel Pages

Whether a local or visitor, there are a few places in Athens not to be missed. For instance, the gardens of the Concert Hall offer a beautiful and relaxing experience and a delicious pie shop downtown will top your experience. Learn all about them in our newsletter!

Athens is a city known all over the world for its rich history and culture. So, with millions of visitors every year, it's no wonder why the Acropolis won a major tourism award and how many ancient artifacts are yet to be found, such as a sculpture of a hunting dog dating back to 520 BC. It's a city full of surprises and beauty!

Registrations are now open!

Global sports figure Mike Tindall joins this year’s event!

Costa Navarino presents the 3rd edition of Messinia Pro-Am , 20-23 February 2019. The international golf tournament will welcome a total of 30 teams, while professionals will be competing for a total prize fund of 30,000 euros.

Among this year’s participants, a global sports figure will be joining Messinia Pro-Am: Former international rugby player Mike Tindall that represented England 75 times and 5 times as captain over a 17 year career.

Registrations for the 3rd Messinia Pro-Am are now open at the official tournament website, HERE  and will close on January 18 th 2019.

Those who register until October 20 th 2018 will benefit from an “early bird” discount on their participation packages.

The tournament will take place at the award-winning golf courses of Costa Navarino , which has been selected by the International Association of Golf Tour Operators (IAGTO) as the “European Golf Resort of the Year 2017”. The two signature 18-hole golf courses, The Dunes Course and The Bay Course will once again host professional and amateur golfers, for a four-day event filled with unique experiences both on and off the course.

The 3 rd Messinia Pro-Am is organized in collaboration with the PGAs of Europe and is held under the auspices of PGA of Greece and the Hellenic Golf Federation .

AEGEAN, a member of Star Alliance, is the official airline partner of the event. The
company was awarded for the seventh consecutive year and for the eighth time in nine
years, as "Best Regional Airline in Europe" at the Skytrax World Airline Awards.

Erasmus is the official travel partner coordinating and ensuring the smooth registration
& accommodation process.

For those wishing to stay at The Westin Resort Costa Navarino and enjoy the full
programme of Messinia Pro-Am, special accommodation packages are available HERE!

Watch the Messinia Pro-Am Video HERE!

Hashtag: #messiniaproam

( Photo credit: Vassilis Sfakianopoulos )

It's everywhere, the evil eye. Today, we find it on jewelry, house decor, souvenirs, etc., but what is the history of this iconic cultural symbol? BBC explains...

"In essence, the curse of the evil eye is not a complicated concept; it stems from the belief that someone who achieves great success or recognition also attracts the envy of those around them. That envy in turn manifests itself as a curse that will undo their good fortune. The concept is well captured by Heliodorus of Emesa in the ancient Greek romance Aethiopica, in which he writes, 'When any one looks at what is excellent with an envious eye he fills the surrounding atmosphere with a pernicious quality, and transmits his own envenomed exhalations into whatever is nearest to him.'"

"The belief in this curse spans cultures as well as generations; to date one of the most exhaustive compilations of legends regarding the evil eye is Frederick Thomas Elworthy’s The Evil Eye: The Classic Account of an Ancient Superstition. Elworthy explores instances of the symbol in a number of cultures; from the petrifying gaze of Greek gorgons to Irish folktales of men able to bewitch horses with a single stare, virtually every culture has a legend related to the evil eye."

"Belief in the evil eye has transcended mere superstition, with a number of celebrated thinkers attesting to its veracity. One of the most notable examples was the Greek philosopher Plutarch, who in his Symposiacs suggested a scientific explanation: that the human eye had the power of releasing invisible rays of energy that were in some cases potent enough to kill children or small animals. What’s more, Plutarch claims that certain people possessed an even stronger ability to fascinate, citing groups of people to the south of the Black Sea as being uncannily proficient at bestowing the curse. More often than not, those said to be most adept at delivering the curse are blue-eyed, likely due to the fact that this is a genetic rarity in the Mediterranean area."

To read this article in full, please visit: BBC

Symbolizing love and liberty, the most popular opera in the French repertoire is being brought back to the Odeon of Herodes Atticus Theater by the GNO, directed by the famous British director, Steven Langridge, currently Artistic Director of the Gothenburg Opera.

Langridge’s Carmen was first staged at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus Theater in 2016 and is a contemporary, pointed, timely version set in a Europe of closed borders and poverty. Working with Giorgos Souglidis who designed the impressive sets and costumes, Giuseppe di Iorio who created the otherworldly lighting and Thomas Bergman who devised the ethereal video projections, Langridge has created a modern but also timeless setting for Carmen’s tale; “a tale about borders and poverty, freedom and slavery. A tale about today,” as the director himself put it.

One of the most iconic operas around, Carmen continues to provoke even today, just like when it first saw the light of day 142 years ago. An unconventional storyline, expressed through the then equally unconventional, but now extremely popular, music of Georges Bizet. The heroine of the piece defends her freedom and right to choose her lovers, not for them to choose her. She is a threat to male-dominated, patrrchal societies. Her choices threaten their very foundations. The only solution: get rid of her. The love-struck, ‘betrayed’ Don José takes on the task.

In French with English and Greek surtitles.

Within the framework of the Athens Festival!

The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens opens its "home" to the general public and invites you to get to know the Propylaea, one of the most iconic places of remembrance of the Greek capital. Part of Athenian Trilogy, the most well-known and important Neoclassical buildings’ cluster in the city centre,the building of Propylaea founded in 1839, in drawings of the Danish architect Hans Christian Hansen.

Its halls constituted spaces for education, association, and protest. In its premises you can find the Greek Parliament, the National Library, numerous museums and workshops. In the interior and its precinct you can visit a series of ceremonial events (statues and column erections, anniversaries celebrations, etc.), while in the city geography, it constituted the eminent place of action, demonstrations and mergers.

The building decoration, with more characteristic mural in the interior façade of Propylaea, is one of the most important iconographic programs of the Greek 19th century. The architecture and painting served a narrative framework that closely connected the historical periods of Greek national history, while the sculpture program focused on recent history: Statues of important persons of Modern Greek history and columns of fallen in wars, works of Greek sculptures.

The tours include acquaintance with the Athenian trilogy and the visit to the Propylaea building. The tour duration is about 60' and will be made by Art historians of the Department of History and Archaeology , Michalis Giochalas and Pavlos Gkoygiannos, under the scientific supervision of the Associate professor of history of art in the Department of History and Archaeology of the University of Athens Dimitris Pavlopoulos.

For the tours there is a symbolic price of €2 for adults and €1 for minors and special categories (includes special information brochure).

For reservations visit the Guided Tour Calender HERE!

 

The relation of ancient Greeks with technology was studied systematically only in the last decades, and it proved that besides achievements in art, philosophy and literature, ancient Greeks were exceptional in technology, as well.

The exhibition’s main thematic axe develops around “human activities”, focusing on man as body and intellect, as creator and user, as thinker, religious and social being, as measure of all things -as criterion and means of comparison.

The exhibition’s objects are life-size or scale models, reconstructed after the descriptions by ancient Greek authors and Arab translations; with the exception of architecture, ancient Greek technology constructions or tools could not be preserved for posterity as they were made of perishable or recyclable materials.

It should be underlined that many -if not all- of the technical achievements of ancient Greeks remained intact to our time, at least at their basic concept.

The Ancient Greek Technology exhibition is an effort to record, study and present the huge treasure of technical knowledge, which has been accumulated through centuries of continuous prosperity and development, in ancient Greece.

It concerns knowledge, which totally changed man’s life in all fields: from food production and consumption, clothing and conditions of living, to science and culture. Sometimes, it concerns knowledge which is now remembered by very few people as originating from that historic period (such as the automata, the steam-generator, etc.).

This Technology, so decisive for the ensuing progress of the world, is presented within the Ancient Greek Technology Exhibition. It is an interesting attempt, since Technology is part of the foundations of all aspects of civilization. Art, techniques, legends, political theories, fundamental philosophical queries and countless other aspects of the human spirit.

Days & Hours:

11 European partners with the same goal: to support up-and-coming media artists in order to create new works.

The OCC continues to support artistic practices positioned between art, science and technology through its participation, along with ten other partners, in The European Media Art Platform - EMAP which provides up-and-coming media artists working in the visual arts, design, film, music and sound with the chance to participate in residencies and to create new works to be presented at festivals and other events in partner-countries.

The platform's members are: Werkleitz Centre for Media Art (Germany), Onassis Cultural Centre (Greece), Ars Electronica Center (Austria), Bandits Mages (France), Foundation for Art & Creative Technology / FACT (UK), IMPAKT (Netherlands), Kontejner (Croatia), LaBoral Centro de Arte y Creación Indstrial (Spain), M-Cult (Finland), RIXC (Lithuania), WRO Center for Media Art Foundation (Poland)