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Last-minute Christmas trip? How about Nafplio or Monemvasia?

December 20, 2015 / admin / 0 Comments

A Christmas tree and holiday lighting add sparkle to Nafplio’s Syntagma square (Photo from the Ναύπλιο – Nafplio Facebook page.)

Holiday getaway: A friend who lives in the U.K. was just asking if I could suggest someplace in Greece, within a reasonable driving distance of Athens, for him to visit on a last-minute Christmas getaway. Ideally, it would be a charming seaside village or town with cobblestone streets, attractive old buildings, good places to eat, and historic sites nearby.

By coincidence, I had been reading about Christmas festivities in Nafplio and Monemvasia, two historic and scenic towns in the Peloponnese, only a couple of hours earlier. So I suggested both, sending my friend links to websites providing holiday event schedules and general travel information, as well as directions on how to get to each town from Athens. I’m sharing that information here in case any of my readers might be seeking ideas for their own spur of the moment Christmas trips to Greece, too.

A hillside view of Nafplio and the offshore Bourtzi Castle (Photo from the Ναύπλιο – Nafplio Facebook page.)

Nafplio:

Often called one of the most beautiful towns in Greece, Nafplio was the country’s capital city from 1829 until 1834, when the national parliament was established in Athens. Located approximately 150 km from Athens, Nafplio is just a 2-hour drive from there by car, and a 2-hour and 20-minute trip by bus. There are about a dozen buses to Nafplio each day, departing hourly on the half hour from the Kifissos terminal. Detailed travel directions can be found on Visit Nafplio, a non-commercial website packed with helpful information for visitors.

Interestingly, Nafplio is where the Christmas fir tree was introduced to Greece for the first time– by Bavarian King Otto, in 1833.

A few of the many important historic attractions in the vicinity include the amphitheater at Epidavros and the archaeological sites at Mycenae and Tiryns, all of which are included on the UN’s World Heritage List.

Screenshot of a “Magic Christmas in Nafplio” press release I received from the Discover Nafplio information website, advising of special Christmas and New Year’s events taking place in the former capital city of Greece

The Discover Nafplio travel and information website has a Christmas in Nafplio page that offers suggestions for accommodations, dining, drinking and gift shopping, and includes a link to an extensive list of special Christmas events taking place from mid-December until January 6. There’s even a separate restaurant page that displays menus for Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve dinners at two popular Nafplio restaurants — 3Sixty Cafe & Wine Bar on Papanikolaou Street, and Propolis restaurant at Staikopoulou Square, both in the Old Town.

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Given its position on a massive rock island, it’s easy to see why Monemvasia is often called “the Gibraltar of Greece.” (Media image provided courtesy of the Municipality of Monemvasia.)

Monemvasia:

Located in the Laconia region of the Peloponnese, Monemvasia comprises an Old Town — a medieval fortress built on the side of a giant rock island connected to the mainland by a short causeway — and a New Town (Gefyra) just across the channel. The Old Town is a warren of narrow cobblestone lanes and vaulted passageways that lead visitors past churches, mansions, castles, and Byzantine icons. Monemvasia is approximately 335 km from Athens International Airport, and the drive by car can take from 3.5 to 4.5 hours. The Laconia branch of the KTEL transportation company provides daily bus service between Athens and Monemvasia several times per day.

An article on the Municipality of Monemvasia website briefly describes volunteer efforts that have been undertaken “to bring life to the magic of Christmas” in special Christmas villages set up for children and the young at heart in the Old Town and in several other areas. It also provides a schedule of music, entertainment and cultural events being presented until December 31. Unfortunately, the calendar of events is in Greek only, but you can use Google Translate or other programs to read the descriptions.

Extensive information about Monemvasia is available on the municipality’s website as well as the Monemvasia Facebook page, while the Mythical Peloponnese website is an excellent resource, describing the Castle of Monemvasia and many other attractions in the Laconia region. You can also view a dozen superb photos in the article The Hidden Town of Monemvasia, which was published earlier this year on the Amusing Planet website, while the video below might help you decide if Monemvasia is the right kind of place for you.

Μονεμβασιά, Monemvasia is a 2.5 film by TeaTimeCreations

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Santorini sets its sights on year-round tourism

December 19, 2015 / admin / 1 Comment

Click on the arrow to view Santorini The One, the lead video in a series of clips produced earlier this year to promote Santorini tourism. The island now hopes to become a popular travel destination all year long.

Four seasons of splendour: If all goes according to plans currently under development, winter won’t be “off season” on Santorini anymore. That’s because the island has set its sights on becoming a year-round travel destination, beginning in 2016.

And it’s already off to a good start — around 100 hotels will be open on the island this winter, as will a number of restaurants and shops.

Santorini’s plans fit nicely with the Greek government’s own announced goal of extending the country’s tourism season to 12 months a year and upgrade the quality of Greece’s tourism product. (On many islands, the season presently lasts only from late April until the end of October, with most tourist-related businesses closed the other months.)

More than sun and sea

Although many travellers associate Santorini and other Greek islands with summer sunshine, beaches, warm weather and water sports, the mayor of Thira Municipality, Anastasios Nikolaos Zorzos, says Santorini has many more features and attractions to offer tourists regardless of time of year.

“Santorini’s tourism model is not based on ‘sun and sea’ but on ancient treasures, geology, traditional architecture and gastronomy — features that are guaranteed to attract visitors throughout the year,” Mayor Zorzos said, according to a December 1 news report on the Greek Travel Pages (GTP) website.

The GTP report said the tourism development plan, branded as “Santorini: Year-Round Destination,” is a collaborative effort between the municipal government and island businesses. The program will promote alternative forms of tourism and will seek to establish “new products and activities” to draw visitors during what are now off-season periods.

Online ad campaign underway

To promote the initiative, GTP says, Santorini has kicked off a 3-week online advertising campaign on European versions of some of the world’s top travel websites, including TripAdvisor, Airbnb, Expedia and Lonely Planet. Special banner and videos ads also will appear on various sections of the National Geographic website accessible to web users in the program’s target markets — the U.K., the Netherlands, Germany, France, Austria, Belgium, Italy and Scandinavia.

Seeing Santorini’s stunning scenery, architecture and archaeological sites without the crowds and heat of summer appeals to me, and people I’ve spoken to who have been to Santorini in late fall and late winter have told me they found the island just as spectacular if not more enjoyable at those times.

The large number of hotels remaining open this winter will be comforting news to people worried they will have trouble finding accommodations if they decide to pay Santorini a visit sometime between now and the spring. Last year, I saw online travel forum posts in which people who could only take winter holidays said they were considering last-minute trips to Santorini, but feared they would have few if any choices of hotels. They certainly won’t have such cause for concern this winter.

Winter restaurant and wine bar listing

For visitors wondering where they will be able to dine if they do take a winter trip to the island, Santorini photographer Anna Sulte has posted on her website a list of more than a dozen restaurants and wine bars that will be open. The list includes establishments in Fira, Firostefani, Imerovigli, Oia, Exo Gonia, Megalochori, Akrotiri beach and Ag. Georgios Perivolos.

Another good reason to go to Santorini in the winter — bargains on air transportation, which can be hugely expensive during the regular travel season. A few days ago, a friend in Athens told me she saw flights from Athens to Santorini available this month for as low as €9.99. If I had been able to travel now, I would have purchased plane tickets to Santorini in a snap!

Santorini photographer Anna Sulte posted this photo of Fira on her Anna’s Photo Facebook page on January 20 2015, with the caption: “This is how green it is right now.” It drew a response from one viewer who wrote: “Looks like there is just no time of year when it isn’t breathtakingly beautiful!” Indeed!

The enchanting beauty of Athens

December 18, 2015 / admin / 1 Comment

Athens is a gorgeous 5-minute promotional video produced by Visit Greece, the website of the Greek National Tourism Organisation. With its fabulous high-definition and time-lapse photography showcasing top attractions and historic monuments in Greece’s capital city and points beyond, such as spectacular Cape Sounion and beautiful beaches on the Athens Riviera, it’s one of the best Athens videos I’ve ever seen. Click the arrow on the image above to start the film and take “an enchanting trip around the beauties of Athens.”

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A visual feast of Crete

December 18, 2015 / admin / 0 Comments

Here’s a video that will whet your appetite for a trip to Crete! Produced by the checkinCreta travel website, Crete — feel the island is a nearly 4-minute-long film featuring mouth-watering views of honey, cheese and wine production, a γιαγιά (Greek grandmother) preparing home-made pies, an olive harvest, and tantalizing Cretan beach, coast and landscape scenery. καλή όρεξη!

Impressions of Batsi

December 18, 2015 / admin / 0 Comments

Batsi is a scenic seaside village on the northwest coast of Andros

Village views: When I told several regular travellers to Greece that we were planning a trip to Andros, they gave me two conflicting points of view about Batsi, a seaside village and beach resort on the island’s southern coast, about 6 km from Gavrio port. Half of my acquaintances recommended we stay in Batsi, which they had personally stayed in and enjoyed. The other half warned me to avoid it altogether, and to stay only in or near Chora (Andros Town) instead. “Batsi has no soul,” said one. “It’s just a purpose-built resort with no character. It doesn’t feel very Greek there,” said another.

With my friends’ opinions about Batsi poles apart, I did more research and ultimately concluded that it was in fact where we should stay after spending three nights in Chora. But instead of choosing accommodations in the built-up area of Batsi, I booked us into a hotel at a scenic beach less than a 20-minute walk away. (I will be writing about the Aneroussa Beach Hotel in an upcoming post).

Approaching the harbour and the waterfront commercial strip of Batsi during the walk into town from our hotel

I felt apprehensive the first time we walked into Batsi, hoping we wouldn’t be disappointed. Happily, we weren’t — either then or on any of the other two times a day we visited the village. It’s pleasant, it does feel Greek, and it doesn’t have the artificial look and atmosphere of a resort specifically built for tourists (it’s not a place for shopaholics, though — they won’t find streets lined with trendy fashion boutiques or retail stores). We liked it — in all types of weather, no less. There was a mix of conditions during our May 28 – 31 visit — sunshine, clouds, strong winds and even a light rainfall — and we thought Batsi looked nice in all elements.

Click on the arrow in the middle of the image to see video views of Batsi from three different places along the bay. A strong wind was blowing stormclouds over the area when I took the videos, and within a hour there was a short but light shower. Rain or shine, we thought Batsi looked beautiful.

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Milos recasts its magical spell

December 17, 2015 / admin / 0 Comments

With dozens of unique beaches, like the cliff-enclosed Tsigrado cove …

… an astounding array of natural scenery and rugged terrain, such as the Mars-like landscape at Cape Vani …

… picturesque seaside fishing villages, like Mandrakia …

… spectacular coastal scenery, like the breathtaking cliffs and offshore rock formations at Kleftiko …

… colourful mining sites, like the Ageria open pit operation …

… and superb Greek cuisine served at restaurants like O Xamos!, it’s easy to understand why travel blogger Dace was drawn to Milos two years in a row. (All of the photos in this post are by Dace and originally appeared on her website, Dace Travels. They are reposted here with her kind permission).

Well worth repeating: My regular readers know how much I enjoy Milos — I’ve published numerous posts about the island in the last several years, along with dozens of photographs we shot during two separate visits. I’m always keen to hear and read what other travellers think of it, in particular to see if they had similarly delightful experiences (the feedback has been overwhelmingly laudatory, I’m happy to report). I also like to hear people’s impressions of places they managed to see in parts of Milos we haven’t yet explored ourselves since it gives us ideas about new places to check out next time we go back.

So when I discovered a Milos trip report link in a post on the TripAdvisor Milos forum, I was excited to read what the writer had to say, and to view her holiday photos. Clicking on the link actually was a double treat because it took me to not one but two separate trip reports for Milos, posted by Latvian writer Dace on her personal blog, Dace Travels.

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I was very pleased to find that both reports were packed with gorgeous photos and enticing descriptions of numerous Milos destinations that we haven’t yet seen (in large part because we haven’t rented a vehicle on either of our trips to the island, so we’ve been limited to what we could access by bus, taxi or walking, and couldn’t reach many of the remote areas that Dace drove to in her 4×4.)

In her first post, Greece: The beauty of Milos, Dace explains that she chose Milos after reading about it on a “hidden gem” list for Greece.

“What a great choice it was!,” she wrote. “The island has 70 different beaches, it’s not overcrowded by tourists; the western part is more wild while the eastern part is more developed. We spent 6 days there but it was not enough.” But in those six days, she saw a variety of places I’ve only read about in online travel guides — Thiafes beach, Tria Pighadia, Kolymbissionas, Amoudaraki and Manddrakia.

Spellbinding nature, beaches and good food

In her second report, Greece again. Yes to Milos!, Dace reveals why she returned to Milos for another holiday. “So why Milos again? It really got its spell on us, so much of beautiful nature and beaches and good food :),” she wrote. (I totally understand; the exact same features drew us back to Milos for our own second visit.)

Once more, Dace posted lots of beautiful photos and descriptions of even more amazing places I haven’t seen, leaving me feeling a strong tinge of envy. Those spots included Cape Vani, Voudia Bay, Pollonia, and a slew of splendid beaches — Angathia, Agios Ioannis, Triades, Firiplaka, Paleochori, Plateina, Agio Kyriaki and Tsigrado.

Both reports are fascinating and fun to read. Dace has a great sense of humour, so I chuckled at some of her stories (like the “quad people” they encountered at some beaches) and cringed at another (her account of a stomach-churning ferry ride to Milos). And of course there’s dozens of photos of stunning Milos scenery that are bound to make you dream about going there yourself.

Click here to read Dace’s first report, and then click here to read about her return visit. (The second report includes photos and information about her stay in Athens, too, and elsewhere on her blog you can read about her trip to Santorini.)

A teasing glimpse of Korthi

December 16, 2015 / admin / 1 Comment

Korthi Bay and the village of Ormos Korthiou are seen in a photo from the Andros travel and information website Island Andros.

Quick peek: Have you ever experienced that nagging feeling, while travelling from one scheduled holiday destination to the next, that you’re missing out on some really worthwhile sights and attractions you simply don’t have time to stop and visit along the way? We certainly did during our trip to Andros last spring.

After spending 3 nights in Andros Town at the beginning of our vacation, it was time to move on. Our friends had to return to Athens, and they agreed to drop us off at our next stop — a hotel near the resort area of Batsi, on the northwest coast of Andros — while they drove to Gavrio port to catch their ferry back to the mainland.

So that we could all see a little more of Andros during the drive, we avoided the most direct highway route from Andros Town to Batsi and detoured to the south, following a highway that winds through the island’s Korthi region. The plan was to stop at the fishing harbour and seaside village of Ormos Korthiou to have a coffee before resuming the drive to Batsi.

Click here or on the link under the next photo to turn to page 2 of this post, where you can continue reading about Korthi and view more pictures of some of its top attractions.

One of the iconic sights we didn’t get to see in Korthi was Tis Grias to Pidima beach (also called Old Lady’s Leap), shown in this photo from airbnb.gr. Pictures of the sandy beach and its towering stone pillar can be found on scores of postcards, websites and travel publications for Andros.

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Tips for budget travel from Turkey to mainland Greece

December 15, 2015 / admin / 0 Comments

The bus station at Orestiada, a town in eastern Greece near the Turkish border, is seen in a photo by EcoTripSos.com. The website’s “Travel Tips for Greece” guide provides detailed information about local bus travel.

Survival Guide: Readers occasionally email me for advice on ways to travel overland from Turkey to mainland Greece, and onward to some of the Greek islands. They are typically younger travellers who intend to backpack throughout Europe, as well as individuals who simply want to combine trips to Turkey with a budget-friendly foray into parts of Greece.

Since I haven’t been to Turkey yet and have never travelled east of Athens to the Greece-Turkey border, I haven’t been able to answer their questions. But an information-packed article published by EcoTripSos should be a valuable research rescource for anyone seeking economical ways to travel to Greece from Turkey.

Founded by Turkish travel enthusiasts Özge Çetinkayar and Kutay Uzun, EcoTripSos is an online guide offering advice on budget and eco-friendly travel, particularly for inexperienced or beginner travellers.

On November 15, they published Travel Tips for Greece, a photo-illustrated “Greece Survival Guide for Travelers.” It recounts a 10-day journey to seven Greek villages and cities, including Kastanies, Orestiada, Alexandroupolis, and Thessaloniki on the eastern Greece mainland, plus Heraklion, Rethymno and Chania on the island of Crete. The guide describes how the travellers crossed the border at Pazarkule (9 km from the city of Edirne in Turkey) to reach the Greek town of Kastanies, used local bus transportation to travel onward to Alexandroupolis and Thessaloniki, and from the latter city flew to Crete and back.

Besides providing practical information about how to use Greece’s intercity and local city bus systems (including how and where to buy bus tickets), the article describes air travel between Thessaloniki and Crete, and offers myriad useful tips about hotels and “Daily Life in Greece from Travelers’ Eyes,” including such topics as food, beer, water and wi-fi service.

Click here to read the EcoTripSos Guide to Greece.

The tiny train station at Kastanies, near Greece’s border with Turkey