Philippi, overlooking the coastal plain and the bay at Kavala, was founded in 356 BC by the energetic Macedonian dynast Philip II, father of Alexander the Great. He fortified the Thasian settlement called Crenides to control neighboring gold mines. He derived a fortune from the gold mines...
Cloaked by beautiful Mediterranean forest, the steep slopes of Mount Athos are punctuated by twenty imposing monasteries and their subsidiary establishments. Covering an area of just over 33000 hectares, the property includes the entire narrow rocky strip of the easternmost “finger” of...
We drove from Volos (🛣️ 10 EUR / Class 3) through Larisa, where we bought some food at Lidl, to the extraordinary rock formations of the Meteora. The rock masses were formed some 60 million years ago, their distinctive and varied shapes sculpted over time by earthquakes, rain, and wind...
We drove from the south of Peloponnese (🛣️ – 4,80 EUR, ⛽ – diesel 1,939 EUR / l) to reach where the Olympic Games took place every four years from 776 BC, until their abolition by Emperor Theodosius I in 393 AD. The ruined ancient sanctuary of Olympia has been inhabited since...
Former Byzantine capital and fortified city Mystras is spread over a steep mountainside of Mt. Taygetos and surrounded by verdant olive and orange trees. It is the single most compelling set of medieval ruins in Greece (entrance 12 EUR). Treading the cobblestones, worn smooth by centuries...
In a small valley in the Peloponnesus, the shrine of Asklepios, the god of medicine, developed out of a much earlier cult of Apollo (Maleatas), during the 6th century BC at the latest, as the official cult of the city-state of Epidaurus. Its principal monuments, particularly the temple of...
We took a highway to Peloponnese (🛣 15,65 EUR) to reach a hilltop backed by powerful mountains, where stand the somber and mighty ruins of Ancient Mycenae, home of Agamemnon, the legendary king who commanded the Greeks during the Trojan War. For four centuries in the second millennium BC...
We decided to spend five days in the city, from where many of Classical civilization’s intellectual and artistic ideas originated. It is generally considered to be the birthplace of Western civilization. When approached from the Middle East, Athens, with its tall buildings and trendy...
The monastery of Moni Hosios Loukas, a UNESCO World Heritage site (entrance 4 EUR), is situated at a scenic site on the slopes of Mount Helicon. It overlooks a remote valley 23 kilometers southeast of Arahova. Dedicated to a 10th-century hermit Luke of Steiris canonized for his healing...
We spent one day in the ancient sanctuary of Delphi. For the Greeks, Delphi marked the very center of the world, a sacred space where human beings could communicate directly with the gods. Blending harmoniously with the superb landscape and charged with sacred meaning, Delphi in the 6th...