Greece

Hellas

Ελλάς

Greece at a glance

• Slightly larger than Portugal
• 8x smaller than Ontario
• ~11 million people

Greek flag

Things you probably know

Things you may not know

• 40% of the population lives in Athens
• More than 2000 islands (~170 inhabited)
• 3rd largest olive oil exporter (after Spain and Italy).
• Largest merchant navy in the world
• 4th in the world in number of ships (after China, Japan, and Germany)
• ~20M foreign tourists visited Greece (almost 2x its population) in 2019.

Usually your first stop is

Athens

Thessaloniki

Mykonos

And then you probably go here

"You've got to be squidding! Outraged tourists hit with a $935 bill in Mykonos"

Santorini

...or here

But there is so much more...

Cyclades

"Island hopping"

• 1-3 hours per trip
• 5-30 euros (8-45 CAD)

Naxos (largest in Cyclades)

Apollo Temple's entrance

Πορτάρα (Portara) = great gate

Ikaria (the hippie, chill island)

Πανηγύρι (Panigiri) = folk festival

One of the five "Blue Zones"

(areas of exceptional life expectancy)

Milos: the island for couples (and pirates)

Venus de Milo (Louvre, Paris)

Ionian islands

Lefkada (for turquoise waters)

Porto katsiki beach

Egremni (cliffs) beach.

Mind the 350+ stairs!

Zakynthos, "the Flower of the Levant"

Navagio (shipwreck) cove. Featured in the hit Korean drama Descendants of the Sun.

The big ones

Crete: food, nature, and vendettas

Dakos (cretan salad)

Lesbos: home of Sappho and ouzo

Varvagianni ouzo factory

Cobblestone streets of Molyvos village

Pictures from my 2018 trip

Rhodes

Palace of the grand master of the knights of Rhodes, aka Castello (castle)

Colossus of Rhodes

Same size as the statue of liberty!

And the outsiders

Samothraki: the alternative choice

The Sanctuary of the Great Gods, in Palaiopolis (old city).

Fonias (killer) gorge

Kalymnos: heaven for climbers

And it's not just islands

My home in the north

Preveza

Epirus (=Continent)

Very close to Actium

Marcus Antonius + Cleopatra VS Augustus Octavian

31 BC

An island on land

One of the longest sandy beaches in Europe (25km)

Acheron (river of woe)

Zagori: for mountain and pie lovers

Voidomatis river

Vikos gorge

Beef pie

Chicken
Spinach pie

Cheese pie

*pie

Meteora ("elevated")

Orthodox monasteries

Meteora net lift

It's a Linkin Park album too!

There is much much more!