Santorini ranked as the best island in Europe and second best in the world in the TripAdvisor 2016 Travelers’ Choice awards for Islands, announced recently this year.

“Even if you’ve never been to this Cyclades island in the Aegean Sea, you’d still recognize it immediately – candy-colored houses carved into cliffs, sapphire waters, gleaming white buildings topped with half-spheres the color of a stormy sky”, TripAdvisor says about Santorini, while giving special mention to Imerovigli village and adding that Oia is world famous for its sunsets.

1. Santorini, Cyclades

2. Majorca, Balearic Islands

3. Madeira, Madeira Islands

4. Crete, Greece

5. Tenerife, Canary Islands

6. Rhodes, Dodecanese

7. Gran Canaria, Canary Islands

8. Corsica, France

9. Jersey, Channel Islands

10. Island of Capri, Province of Naples

1. Santorini, Cyclades

2. Crete, Greece

3. Rhodes, Dodecaneses

4. Mykonos, Cyclades

5. Zakynthos, Ionian Islands

6. Corfu, Ionian Islands

7. Kefallonia, Ionian Islands

8. Naxos, Cyclades

9. Skiathos, Sporades

10. Milos, Cyclades

To read this article in full, please visit: Greek Travel Pages

Image Credit: Santorini Walking Tours

The season of Autumn is the perfect time of year to visit vineyards in Greece and taste the unique and flavourful wine selections. Why Athens takes us around Athens and Attica to some of the best wineries in the area!

“Many may not know that Athens is surrounded by small historical vineyards that are dotted around the city’s landscape, which you can see from an aeroplane as close to the airport itself. Dionysus god of wine and fertility was worshipped and celebrated in ancient times and is said to have given the knowledge of viticulture to Icarius of Athens, more than 3,000 years ago. The Attica region has been cultivated ever since and flourished during Byzantine times and through the reign of the Ottomans.”

“Today, Attica is the largest wine region in Greece with 16,000 acres of vineyards. Many of the wineries can be reached within a 30 minute drive from the centre of Athens.”

“Two years ago, Wines of Athens was established in an effort for wineries in the region to collectively promote the vineyards and merits of wines in Attica. A dynamic and diverse team of wineries make up the initiative, including Papagiannakos, Mylonas, Anastasia Frangos, Markou Vineyards and Kokotou Estate. They all produce top quality savatiano wines along with other varieties.”

To read this article in full, please visit: Why Athens

Wanderlust Greece is back for Season 2 and this time they are getting up close and personal with their home city. After uncovering the best of the Peloponnese, it’s all about Athens on the Digital Travel Show that broadcasts live on Discover Greece’s social media channels.

The guest presenter will spend six weeks living and breathing everything that’s great about Athens, tapping right into the city’s incredible urban vibe.

Discover the people, the neighbourhoods, the architecture that make Athens one of the most exciting city break destinations in the world. Athens is a great mix of modern cultural highlights and ancient classics.

For more information, please visit: Wanderlust Greece

Share the WANDERLUST by using the #WanderlustGr hashtag on your Instagram, Twitter and Facebook posts from Greece, and join the travel show on the Discover Greece Social Media feed.

It was recently announced that Athens, Greece is a finalist amongst 12 cities for the 2018 European Capital of Innovation Award. The award is an annual prize awarded to the European city that is best able to demonstrate innovation that improves the lives of its citizens.

Cities that are able to contribute to open dynamic innovation ecosystems, involve citizens in governance and decision-making, and use innovation to improve the resiliency and sustainability of their cities are given consideration for the award. The city that is named the European Innovation Capital of the Year will receive 1 million euros, while the five runner-up cities will receive 100,000 euros.

The Mayor of Athens, Giorgos Kaminis, explained that Athens being nominated for this award began with a variety of innovation programs in Athens, such as renovating old abandoned buildings and opening them to local communities.

The other cities in running with Athens are Aarhus, Antwerp, Bristol, Gothenburg, Hamburg, Leuven, Lisbon, Madrid, Toulouse, Umeå, and Vienna.

To read this article in full, please visit: Greek Travel Pages

When you set off to discover Athens, you will be surprised by the amount of amazing vantage points the city has to offer. Due to its unique geography, Athens offers a number of places to visit and take-in the extraordinary views over the city and all the way to the sea! Get ready to feel on the top of the world at one of our favorite viewpoints in Athens.

 

The Acropolis

The Acropolis, Athens’ eternal landmark, offers some of the most extraordinary views in the city. Standing proudly on a high hill, the Acropolis is the most visited landmark in Athens-not only for its historical importance but also for the bird’s eye views to the city below. The Acropolis may be a rather predictable choice, however, it is the most stunning location in Athens if not in the whole of Greece.

 

Mount Lycabettus

Lycabettus is the highest peak in Athens and an iconic landmark of the city. At 300 meters above sea level it offers unsurpassed views of the city; on a clear day, you can see the island of Aegina shimmering in the horizon. The top of the hill can be reached by foot, but the easiest way to get there is via the cable car that runs every half hour from the station on Aristippou street. Mount Lycabettus is home to the picturesque chapel of St. George, a restaurant, and an open air theater. The views from the hill are particularly amazing at night time!

 

Philopappou Hill

Named after the monument of Philoppapos that was discovered in the area, this hill captures Greek history, ancient and modern in a single image. Walking up the marble paved path and you will pass the tiny church of St. Dimitrios Loumbardiaris and The Shrine of the Muses which is cut into the rock just below the hill’s summit. From the top of the you’ll be able to take some amazing pictures of the Parthenon, the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, the Acropolis Museum, and the Athens Observatory. The hill is surrounded by a beautiful park and is a favorite kite drifting spot on the Greek Kathara Deytera - Clean Monday holiday.

 

Other excellent places to savor awe-inspiring views of central Athens are: Strefi Hill near Exarhia, the Athens National Observatory on Nymphon Hill, and Areopagus Hill near the Acropolis. If you have some extra time on your hands we highly recommend taking the short trip to the floodlit Temple of Poseidon in Sounion to watch the sun set into the Saronic Gulf and the moon rising up over the sea!

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The Athens & Epidaurus Festival 2019 ticket pre-sale has begun. Tickets are available for purchase at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus, Peiraios 260, and other venues hosting this year’s Festival productions. Tickets can also be purchased by telephone, online, and at Public.gr stores.

Call Center: 210 8938112 Monday to Sunday 09:00-21:00

Aeschylus' ancient Greek play "The Persians," is the first ancient Greek drama production to be live-streamed to a global audience. The performance will be presented in remembrance of the 25th centennial of the Battle of Salamis. "The Persians" dramatizes the naval battle of Salamis–one of the most critical battles in human history and is Aeschylus' most pacifist play.

The play will be streamed live on July 25 at 21.00 Athens time (GMT +2), in partnership with Google Greece, and will be available worldwide–except Greece–exclusively through YouTube. The screening is free of charge; however, donations are welcome. Proceeds and donations will go to the National Theatre and the Greek actors who have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The play will be perfomed in Greek with English subtitles and will be available through livefromepidaurus.gr, the National Theatre of Greece, the Athens & Epidaurus Festival, the Ministry of Culture and Sports, and the National Theatre of Greece's YouTube channel.


This content has been prepared by Codico Lab with information from amna.gr

Greek Health Minister Thanos Plevris announced that face masks will no longer be required for indoor spaces between June 1 – September 15.

Under the revised guidelines, as of June 1, masks will no longer be mandatory in indoor areas including at supermarkets, restaurants, shops, malls, hair salons, etc.

The minister added that masks will also not be necessary for means of transport with numbered seats including airplanes, intercity trains, and KTEL buses. The lifting of the measure also concerns employees in all the aforementioned areas.

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Click here to learn more about how to protect yourself, symptoms, and where to seek medical treatment. 
Click here to read about how to get vaccinated for COVID-19 in Greece.

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Where mask-wearing will remain mandatory

Mask-wearing will remain mandatory in hospitals, senior care homes, and when using public means of transport (buses, trolleys, electric railway, metro, and tram).

The health minister added that the country’s Covid-19 committee of experts will decide in the following days if mask-wearing will remain mandatory in schools, universities and when traveling on ferries to the islands. 

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

The last remaining unpublished novel of Nikos Kazantzakis, the universally-celebrated author of “Zorba the Greek,” is out on October 26, 2022, sixty-five years post-mortem and seventy-five years since it was penned.

The novel, titled “Aniforos” (“Uphill”, in free translation), hit the bookstores in Greece by publishing house Dioptra, following a comprehensive publishing rights deal with Kazantzakis’s descendant, Niki Stavrou, who is the copyright owner of the author’s works and director of Kazantzakis Publications.

The manuscript had been kept at the Kazantzakis museum, in the author’s home village of Mirtia, just outside Heraklion, Crete, since its rediscovery.

Nine-time Nobel nominee

Nikos Kazantzakis is the most translated Greek contemporary author, and he is widely considered a giant of modern Greek literature.

A novelist, poet, playwright, journalist, philosopher, and politician, Kazantzakis was born and raised on Crete but traveled around the world and lived in several European cities, leading a truly cosmopolitan life.

His work includes novels, short stories, plays, travel logs, memoirs, and philosophical essays, written between 1906 and his death in 1957.

Kazantzakis was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times, for a total of 14 different nominations. In the year of his passing, the Cretan author famously lost the prestigious prize to Albert Camus by one vote.

Kazantzakis’s last unpublished novel

“Aniforos” was his last novel, written right after his world-famous masterpiece “Zorba the Greek” (1946). He wrote it around the time that he departed for the UK on what was meant to be his last journey.

Brimming with autobiographical references, as the author reflects on the sad experience of World War II, which he endured firsthand, “Aniforos” is separated into three parts: Crete, England, and Loneliness.

Dioptra said in an earlier note that this work was Kazantzakis’s answer to the criticism he had received that the pain and destruction suffered by Greece during the German occupation was missing from “Zorba the Greek.”

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