Greece

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Overview | Culture | Sightseeing | History | Expenses | Support | Map

Overview:

Known as the home of Zeus and his fellow Olympians, Greece is situated in southeast Europe on the Mediterranean Sea. It is here where political, philosophical and artistic ideas were born and shaped the whole course of western civilization.

The mainland consists of these regions: Central Greece, Peloponnese, Thessaly (east/central), Epirus (west), Macedonia (north/northwest) and Thrace (northwest). Euboea, the second-largest of the Greek islands, lying to the east of the central region, is also considered to be part of the mainland region. The Peloponnese peninsula is separated from the northern mainland by the Isthmus of Corinth. The northern mainland is dissected by high mountains that extend southwards towards a landscape of fertile plains, pine-forested uplands and craggy, scrub-covered foothills.

The islands account for one-fifth of the land area of the country. The majority are thickly clustered in the Aegean between the Greek and Turkish coasts. The Ionian Islands are the exception; they are scattered along the west coast in the Ionian Sea. The Aegean archipelago includes the Dodecanese, lying off the Turkish coast, of which Rhodes is the best known; the Northeast Aegean group, including Chios, Ikaria, Lemnos, Lesvos and Samos; the Sporades, off the central mainland; and the Cyclades, comprising 39 islands (some of which are uninhabited). Crete, the largest island, is not included in any formal grouping.

Greece generally has mild wet winters and hot dry summers. In summer, dry hot days are often relieved by stiff breezes, especially in the north and coastal areas. Winters are mild in the south but much colder in the north. November to March is the rainy season.

Culture:

There are few places that evoke such a heady sense of cultural romance as Greece. The cradle of Western thought, literature, art, architecture and democracy gave birth to such beauties as Homer's The Iliad, Sophocles' Oedipus the King, the teachings of Plato and Socrates, the Parthenon, the Zorba, and the Olympics.

Visitors to Greece will find the Greeks to be well aware of a strong historical and cultural heritage. Traditions and customs differ throughout Greece, but overall a strong sense of unity prevails. The Greek Orthodox Church has a strong traditional influence on the Greek way of life, especially in more rural areas. The throwing back of the head is a negative gesture. Dress is generally casual. Smoking is prohibited on public transport and in public buildings.

Food and Drink

Restaurant and tavern food tends to be very simple, rarely involving sauces but with full use of local olive oil and charcoal grills. Dishes like dolmades (stuffed vine leaves), moussaka (aubergine casserole with minced lamb, cinnamon, red wine and olive oil), kebabs and avgolemono (chicken broth with rice, eggs, salt and lemon juice) can be found everywhere. Greek menus typically include a selection of meze (appetizers), such as keftedes (hot spicy meatballs) or tzatziki (a dip made from yogurt, olive oil, garlic, shredded cucumber and dill). Salads are excellent and often made with the local feta cheese, tomato, cucumber and fresh olive oil. Other vegetarian specialties include gigantes (large white beans) and kolokithakia (small boiled courgette with oil and lemon). Olives are cheap and plentiful. Deserts, such as baklavas (filo pastry filled with almonds and topped with honey, vanilla and sugar) or loukoumades (honey-drenched pastry puffs) are sweet and filling.

All restaurants have a standard menu which includes the availability and price of each dish. A good proportion of the restaurants will serve international dishes. Hours are normally noon - 3 PM for lunch and 8 PM - midnight for dinner. Waiter service is common.

One of the best-known Greek drinks is retsina wine, made with pine-needle resin. Local spirits include ouzo, an aniseed-based clear spirit to which water is added. reek coffee is served thick and strong, and sugared according to taste. Greek beer is a light Pilsner type.

Nightlife

This is centered in main towns and resorts with concerts and discos. Athens offers many local taverns, particularly in the Plaka area, and ouzeris (typical Greek bars). Regular concerts and evening shows are also held at the Odeion of Herodes in Attica. Nightclubs featuring Greek bouzouki music are extremely popular. There are some casinos in Greece, such as the Mount Parnes Casino in Athens, the Corfu Casino in Corfu and the Casino at the Grand Hotel Astir in Rhodes.

Bar scams continue to be an unfortunate fact of life in Athens, particularly in the Syntagma area. The basic scam is always some variation on the following theme: solo male traveler is lured into bar on some pretext (not always sex); strikes up conversation with friendly locals; charming girls appear and ask for what turn out to be ludicrously overpriced drinks; traveler is eventually handed an enormous bill. Fortunately, this practice appears confined to Athens.

Crime, especially theft, is low in Greece, but unfortunately it is on the increase. The worst area is around Omonia in central Athens - keep track of your valuables here, especially on the metro and at the Sunday flea market.

Sightseeing:

The Acropolis

Athens exists because of the Acropolis, the Western world's most important ancient monument. Crowned by the Parthenon, it's visible from almost everywhere within the city, with monuments of Pentelic marble gleaming white at midday and taking on a honey hue as the sun sinks.

Athens

Athens, while smoggy and dirty, is an affable city enlivened by outdoor cafes, pedestrian streets, parks, gardens and urban eccentrics. The city may look like a concrete jungle, but beyond this off-putting veneer is a kind of dilapidated charm. Almost every house and apartment has a balcony bulging with geraniums, and many of the city's streets and squares are fringed with orange trees.

Crete

Steeped in Homeric history and culture, scented by wild fennel and basil, Crete welcomes and overwhelms visitors with its wealth of myths, legends and history, a blessed and dramatic landscape, an extraordinary fusion of past and present, and an abundance of choices and experiences.

Delphi

Of all the ancient sites in Greece, Delphi is perhaps the fairest of them all - the one with the most potent 'spirit of place'. Built on the slopes of Mt Parnassos, overlooking the Gulf of Corinth and extending into a valley of cypress and olive trees, this World Heritage-listed site's allure lies both in its stunning setting and its inspiring ruins.

Dodecanese Islands

Whitewashed walls, deep blue sky, olive groves, fig trees, azure Aegean waters. The heavenly Dodecanese Islands have all this and more.

Knossos

Knossos was the capital of Minoan Crete and is now Crete's major tourist attraction. The ruins, home of King Minos' mythical Minotaur, were uncovered in 1900 by British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans.

Meteora

The monasteries of Meteora are one of the most extraordinary sights in mainland Greece. Built into and on top of huge pinnacles of smooth rock, the earliest monasteries were reached by climbing articulated removable ladders. Later, windlasses were used so monks could be hauled up in nets, a method used until the 1920s.

Northeastern Aegean Islands

There are seven major islands in the northeastern group: Samos, Chios, Ikaria, Lesvos, Limnos, Samothraki and Thasos. Huge distances separate them, so island hopping is not as easy as it is within the Cyclades and Dodecanese. Most of these islands are large and have very distinctive characters.

Samos is lush and humid with mountains skirted by pine, sycamore and oak-forested hills. Samothraki has dramatic natural attributes, culminating in the mighty peak of Mt Fengari, which looms over valleys of massive gnarled oak and plane trees, thick forests of olive trees and damp dark glades where waterfalls plunge into deep icy pools.

Peloponnese

Packed into its northeastern corner are the ancient sites of Epidaurus, Corinth and Mycenae. The ghostly Byzantine city of Mystras clambers up the slopes of Mt Taygetos, its winding paths and stairways leading to deserted palaces and fresco-adorned churches.

Further south, you can explore the Mani, a region of bleak mountains and barren landscapes broken only by austere and imposing stone towers, mostly abandoned but still standing sentinel over the region. Other attractions in the region include ancient Olympia and the medieval town of Monemvasia.

Santorini (Theora)

Santorini is regarded by many as the most spectacular of the Greek islands. Thousands come to marvel at its sea-filled caldera, a vestige of what was probably the world's largest volcanic eruption. Its landscapes of blue-domed roofs, dazzling white walls and black-sand beaches contrast the charming with the unearthly.

Saronic Gulf Islands

The five Saronic Gulf islands are the closest of all to Athens, and Salamis is virtually a suburb of the capital. Aegina, Hydra, Spetses and Poros are all varied in architecture and terrain, but they all receive an inordinate number of tourists and are expensive.

Hydra, once the rendezvous of artists, writers and beautiful people, is now overrun with holiday-makers but manages to retain an air of superiority and grandeur. Motor vehicles, including mopeds, are banned from the island: donkeys rule.

Vergina

The ancient site of Vergina comprises Aigai, the first capital of Macedon. The capital was later transferred to Pella, but Aigai continued to be the royal cemetery. Philip II was assassinated here in 336 BC at the wedding of his daughter Cleopatra.

History:

Greece was the birthplace of European civilization. The period from 700 BC saw the rise of the great city states of Athens, Corinth and Sparta, frequently engaged in long struggles for supremacy, and uniting only when faced with the common threat of invasion by the Persian Empire. The zenith was reached in the fifth century BC when Athens became the cultural and artistic center of the Mediterranean, producing magnificent works of architecture, sculpture, drama and literature. Athens lost her empire through a mutually destructive struggle with her arch rival Sparta. The nation was then forcibly united under Alexander the Great.

After defeating the sagging military might of Persia in a number of major battles, the expansion of the empire spread Greek influence through the East as far as India and through Egypt. The empire fragmented after Alexander's death in 323 BC, and the fall of Greek hegemony was completed when the country came under the sway of Rome. Under the Roman emperor Constantine, the empire gained a new capital in Constantinople, and Greece came under the control of the Eastern Empire when the empire divided. The Byzantines were, however, unable effectively to defend the whole of their empire from invaders, and only occasionally did Greece enjoy the security of effective imperial rule. The major beneficiaries of this were the Venetians, who increased their influence in Greece and other parts of the empire.

Byzantium finally fell to the Turks in 1453, although the process of conquest was already well underway by the end of the 14th century. For the next 350 years, Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire. Many attempts were made to shake off the yoke of the Ottomans, such as the rising of 1770, which was supported by Catherine the Great. After a bitter War of Independence from 1821, a free state was declared in 1829.

During WWI, Greek troops fought on the Allied side and occupied Thrace. After the war, Prime Minister Venizelos sent forces to 'liberate' the Turkish territory of Smyrna (present-day Izmir), which had a large Greek population. The army was repulsed by Ataturk's troops and many Greek residents were slaughtered. This led to a brutal population exchange between the two countries in 1923, the resultant population increase (1,300,000 Christian refugees) straining Greece's already weak economy. Shanty towns spilled from urban centers, unions were formed among the urban refugee population and by 1936 the Communist Party had widespread popular support.

Despite Allied help, Greece fell to Germany in 1941, leading to carnage and mass starvation. Resistance movements sprang up and polarized into royalist and communist factions, and a bloody civil war resulted, lasting until 1949, when the royalists claimed victory. During the civil war, United States, inspired by the Truman Doctrine, gave large sums of money to the anticommunist government and implemented the Certificate of Political Reliability, which remained valid until 1962. This document declared that the wearer did not hold left-wing sympathies; without it Greeks could not vote and found it almost impossible to get work.

Until 1967, Greece was a monarchy but the country then endured the rule of the Colonels. After their fall in 1974, elections gave the New Democracy Party (ND) a majority. A subsequent referendum rejected the idea of a return to monarchical rule. However, since 1981, with the exception of a single spell from 1990 to 1993 when ND regained power, Greece has been governed by the centre-left Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK). From 1981 until his death in 1996, the dominant figure both in PASOK and in Greek politics was Andreas Papandreou, a charismatic and highly effective politician who maintained, for the most part, a firm grip over his party. In his later years, both he and the party were tainted by repeated allegations of corruption.

Kostas Simitis was appointed prime minister in early 1996 when it became clear that Papandreou's time was drawing nigh - Greece's elder statesman died mid-1996. Simitis was narrowly re-elected in April 2000, with a victory margin of one percentage point. Greece adopted the euro currency in 2002. Kostas Karamanlis now leads the government. In 2004 the country hosted the Olympic Games.

Expenses:

Greece is no longer dirt cheap. A rock-bottom daily budget would be 40 Euro a day. You'd be hitching, staying in youth hostels or camping, staying away from bars, and only occasionally eating in restaurants or taking ferries. Allow at least 80 Euro per day if you want your own room, plan to eat out regularly and intend to see all the sights. You can save as much as 30% if you travel outside high season (mid-June till end of August).

The Euro is now the official currency of the 12-member European Union, including Greece. The first Euro coins and notes were introduced in January of 2002.

Foreign currency can be exchanged at all banks, savings banks and bureaux de change. Exchange rates can fluctuate from one bank to another. American Express, Diners Club, MasterCard, Visa and other major credit cards are widely accepted (although not always in gas stations). There are no restrictions on the import or export of either local or foreign currency.

In restaurants the service charge is included in the bill but it is the custom to leave a small amount; rounding up the bill is usually sufficient. Likewise for taxis - a small gratuity is appreciated. Other standard tipping practices are between 12-15%.

Typical Costs

• Liter of gasoline: 0.85 euros
• Bottle of beer: 2 euros
• Movie ticket: 7 euros
• T-shirts: 12 euros
• Liter of water or milk: 1 euro
• Cab fare: min. 2 euros
• Coffee: 3 euros

Support During Your Placement:

We will be available to give you any support, advice, or guidance you may need with any issues. There will always be an emergency number for you to contact. Our aim is to ensure that you have a happy and successful experience during your stay in Greece.