Athens | MY GREECE TRAVEL BLOG

Category: Athens (page 5 of 9)

Tuesday food & drink promotion kicks off at bars, restaurants & cafes in Central Athens

The Have Fun in Athens (Βγαίνουμε Αθήνα) food and drink promotion launched today at 39 participating establishments in the city center

Cheap ‘n’ cheerful: More than three dozen restaurants, bars and cafés have teamed up to offer special food and beverage discounts every Tuesday as part of a City of Athens initiative to boost local business and enliven the city center.

The Βγαίνουμε Αθήνα promotion, which translates as “Going out in Athens,” is a weekly event that will take place every Tuesday starting today.

Participating establishments will be offering special tasting menus at a price of €10, coffee beverages for €2, drinks for €5 and bottles of wine for €12. The specials are available all day on Tuesdays, and each restaurant will offer its own menu.

City staging a comeback from the economic crisis

With Βγαίνουμε Αθήνα, the City aims to maintain momentum in the ongoing revival of its historic and commercial center, which has been staging a remarkable comeback from the financial crisis that devastated the country’s employment and economy for five years.

The goal is to draw more people into the city’s central core to further animate and enliven the area and enhance social and economic activity.

Though just under 40 businesses have signed up so far, the City is actively encouraging more establishments to participate. Click here to see a list of places already in the program.

Click here to read an announcement about the Βγαίνουμε Αθήνα program, in Greek, at this page on the City of Athens website. (I have written to the City’s press office to ask if information about the program is available online in English, but haven’t heard back yet. However, you can use a program like Google Translate to read a reasonable translation of the program description.)

Athens: A hot travel spot on a cold winter day

January 8, 2015 / admin / 0 Comments

Central Athens as seen from Mars Hill near the Acropolis, in a photo by Athens Walks. Click on the image to view a full-size version of the photo.

View from the hill: My friends at the Athens Walks tour company captured this exhilarating view of Athens last Saturday (January 3 2015).

Shot from a vantage point on Mars Hill near the Acropolis, the image was posted to the Athens Walks Facebook page shortly before 8 in the morning, with the caption: “Winter Athens is so cool! -2 C this morning.” Brrr!

But even though it may have been bone-shivering cold on that crisp sunny morning, travel experts consider Athens one of the world’s hottest destinations to visit in 2015. Just last month, Condé Nast Traveller magazine included Athens in its list of the Top 10 Destinations to Watch in 2015.

City is experiencing a ‘cultural revival’

The magazine noted that Athens is basking in a long-overdue “renaissance” thanks to artists and young entrepreneurs who are leading “a cultural revival with pop-ups and start-ups and creative ventures, cool little shops and exciting hotels.” Major new cultural venues are opening, too, including the National Museum of Contemporary Art and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center.

Athens is a year-round travel destination, and by visiting in low season periods like January you can avoid the tourist crowds and long lineups that travellers encounter from spring to fall.

The many monuments and historic sites in Central Athens are best explored on foot, something you could do on your own provided you have a detailed map of the city. Speaking from experience, however, I recommend taking a private tour offered by firms such as Athens Walks who will show you fascinating places you probably would never discover on your own.

Mars Hill is a great spot to view the Acropolis, too, seen here in a photo I shot on May 30 2014.

Athens bounces back: NY Times travel report sees rise in Greek capital’s confidence & creativity

October 17, 2014 / admin / 0 Comments

Click the arrow to view 36 Hours in Athens by The New York Times

On the rebound: As tourists continue pouring into Athens in record numbers, visitor statistics aren’t the only things on the rise — so is the city’s self-confidence and creativity, The New York Times reports.

That surge in local pride is in turn reflected in the city’s burgeoning arts and culture scene, where new shops, restaurants, bars and, museums and cultural venues have been popping up all over Athens, Joanna Kakissis notes in a travel piece published by the venerable American newspaper.

New cafés & restaurants revive city squares

“After years of dreadful press that defined Athens as a broken-down capital prone to fiery riots, the city’s self-confidence and creativity are stirring again. Enterprising young fashion and graphic designers are opening shops celebrating the classic lines of ancient Greece and the anarchic wit of modern times. In reviving city squares, there are new restaurants and cafes serving native delicacies like Cretan sausage and sheep’s milk yogurt with preserved quince. The five-year-old Acropolis Museum is consistently rated one of the top museums in the world, and the National Museum of Contemporary Art is set to move into a new building later this year. Even rough times have silver linings,” she writes in 36 Hours in Athens, published this week.

The article chronicles a weekend visit Joanna paid to the city, describing the various landmarks and tourist attractions she visited, the restaurants and bars where she ate and drank, and the shops and cultural centers she discovered.

36-hour weekend visit

The informative travel feature includes a map showing the locations of places referred to in the article, plus a “details” list of addresses and websites (where available) for the various venues.

The article is accompanied by the video I posted above, which includes insightful brief interviews interspersed with colourful scenes of city streets and attractions. The video was created by the team of Fritzie Andrade, Max Cantor, Chris Carmichael and Aaron Wolfe.

Click here to read the complete article by Joanna Kakissis in The New York Times‘ online travel section.

One of the places The New York Times visited was Heteroclito cav & bar à vin, seen here in a screen capture from the newspaper’s 36 Hours in Athens video

“I’m an Athenian too” campaign lets visitors show the world what they love about Athens

October 1, 2014 / admin / 0 Comments

This Discover Greece video shows how its “I’m An Athenian Too” campaign lets Athens visitors stamp their personal “Athenian identity” on their favourite travel photos to share with the world — and possibly win them a trip back to Greece. Click on the arrow to watch the video.

Be an Athenian: It happens every time one of our holidays in Greece comes to a close: I’m at Athens International Airport, waiting for our flight home to Canada, yet part of me feels like Athens is a home I’m about to leave behind. It’s an intense, heart-felt emotion that gets even stronger if I start reviewing vacation photos on my camera in the departure lounge to pass time before boarding the plane.

The people who promote tourism to Greece understand that millions of other tourists feel exactly the same way, so they have created a clever new promotional campaign that invites Athens visitors to show the whole world what they love about the fabulous Greek capital city — using their own holiday photos.

Called “I’m An Athenian Too,” the campaign is an initiative of Discover Greece, conducted in collaboration with Athens International Airport.

The promotional program is based on a smartphone app that “lets you express the Athenian inside you” by sharing personal travel photos on social media. Users simply download the special app from the I’m An Athenian website, choose one of their favourite Athens photos, and then select a hand-drawn stamp to apply to the image to describe how it captures their feelings for the city. When they share their stamped photo on social media, the picture will automatically appear in the campaign, and their name will be entered into a contest to win great prizes, including trips for two to Athens.

This image from the I’m An Athenian Too campaign shows some of the hand-drawn stamps that contest participants can attach to the Athens travel photos they plan to post and share on social media

If you’ve been to Athens and want to enter the contest, click here to obtain further details and to download the app.

For those of you who haven’t been to Athens before, here are some photos from the I’m An Athenian Too campaign that just might inspire you to book a trip to this amazing historic city:

Three must-see Athens landmarks include the world-famous Acropolis and Parthenon plus Lycabettus Hill (upper right)

A vine-shaded passageway in the National Garden, my favourite place to visit when I want a break from the hustle and bustle of downtown Athens. The 15-hectare National Garden is a tranquil oasis of parks, gardens and ponds located directly behind the Greek Parliament Building in Central Athens.

The lanes, alleys and streets of the historical Plaka neighbourhood are packed with delightful cafes, bars, tavernas and shops

Besides its energetic city core filled with museums, galleries, historic ruins, shops and restaurants, Athens boasts an amazing natural attraction — the Athenian Riviera, an extensive coastline dotted with beautiful parks, footpaths, beaches, marinas, restaurants, nightclubs, and spectacular scenery.

2board summer issue features food guide, hotel profiles + tour ideas for Athens & Chania

August 11, 2014 / admin / 2 Comments

The July–September issue of 2board magazine features a gastronomy guide, suggested tours for Athens and Chania, and profiles of top boutique hotels

Tons of great tips: If you’re passing through Athens International Airport anytime this month, be sure to grab a copy of the July–September issue of 2board magazine while you’re in the terminal.

The 212-page glossy publication is packed full of useful travel tips about hotels, restaurants, and attractions at a variety of destinations — information that could come in handy during your current travels in Greece, or for planning a future holiday.

2board is the official magazine of the Athens airport. Copies are available free of charge from magazine racks situated at various locations in the terminal building.

I always find a wealth of interesting information, travel ideas and helpful research material in 2board, and this summer’s edition is no exception. In fact, it’s one of the better issues, content-wise, that I’ve seen. (And, as always, it’s packed with photos of luxurious resorts, villas and restaurants I can only dream about visiting someday … but it’s still great fun to imagine what it would be like seeing these places and photographing them with my own camera.)

Gastro Guide to 10 top restaurants

Foodies will want to flip directly to page 21 for 2board‘s “Gastro Guide to Greece,” which profiles “Ten restaurants that do not simply dish up Greek high gastronomy, they consistently take it one step further.”

The guide highlights two acclaimed restaurants on Mykonos, three on Santorini, one each on the islands of Corfu, Crete and Rhodes, and two on the Greek mainland — one at Preveza and another in Halkidiki:

♦ Etrusco at Kato Korakiana on Corfu;

♦ Old Mill at the Elounda Mare Hotel at Elounda on Crete;

♦ The Squirrel, one of the restaurants at Danai Beach Resort & Villas in Halkidiki;

♦ the dining room at Bill & Coo Suites & Lounge above Megali Ammos beach on Mykonos;

♦ the brand new White Star at Lakka Square in Mykonos Town;

♦ the restaurant at SESA Boutique Hotel at Kanali beach in Preveza;

♦ The Greek, a new dining room at the Sheraton Rhodes Resort on Rhodes;

♦ Selene in Pyrgos village on Santorini;

♦ Sea Side by Notos at Santorini’s Perivolos beach; and

♦ the dining room at the Grace Santorini hotel in Imerovigli.

The Gastro Guide includes full-page photos of the respective restaurants’ chefs and some of their tantalizing creations, along with suggestions of signature dishes to try if you get the opportunity to dine at one of these fine establishments. A word of warning: don’t read this article on an empty stomach, because the stunning food photos and descriptions of the unique dishes will instantly make you feel hungry!

The seaside dining terrace at The Squirrel restaurant in the Danai Beach Resort & Villas in Halkidiki. The photo is from the Danai Beach Resort Facebook page.

Please click on the 2 in the link below to continue reading this report.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

Revisiting the Acropolis and the Parthenon … 10 years after our first trip to Athens

June 15, 2014 / admin / 0 Comments

Crowds were so sparse the first time we visited the Acropolis in Athens (on the afternoon of Friday June 11 2004, to be precise) …

… that we were able to get this shot of me standing in front of the Parthenon — with nobody else in sight!

However, it was impossible to get photos of the Parthenon without any other people around during our return visit to the Acropolis on Sunday June 1 2014

No all-by-my-selfies possible: We practically had the Acropolis and the Parthenon all to ourselves when we visited the historic Athens monuments for the first time late on the afternoon of Friday June 11 2004. Even though it was only two months before the opening of the Athens Summer Olympics, the site — one of the most famous tourist attractions in the entire world — wasn’t crowded. In fact, Dan managed to take a photo of me standing by myself in front of the Parthenon — with nobody else around.

There was no chance of getting another photo like that when went back to the Acropolis for a repeat visit two weeks ago. It was late in the morning on a Sunday this time (June 1), and we were among hundreds of people who kept jockeying for prime positions to get the perfect Parthenon picture. With huge throngs of tourists all around, including some guided groups with dozens of participants apiece, there was absolutely no way to take a frontal photo of the Parthenon without getting a bunch of people in the shot. Or without getting constantly jostled and bumped while making a valiant attempt.

34% increase in foreign tourists to Athens

We shouldn’t have been surprised to find the Acopolis so busy — tourism in Greece is booming this year. In fact, statistics reported by the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises (SETE) show that 500,000 more foreign visitors arrived in Greece during the first five months of this year than during the same period last year — an increase of nearly 21%. Specifically for Athens, the number of foreign visitors surged by a whopping 34% between January and May (compared to 2013), and rose by nearly 31% in May alone.

SETE expects that Greece will reach its target of 19 million international visitors for 2014 — a tourism record for the country.

Based on the number of tourists we saw wandering around Athens during the weekend of May 30 to June 2, I’m certain Greece will set that record.

Below is a brief videoclip I shot showing a few of the tourists who were visiting the Acropolis at the same time as us on June 1. Notice that almost everyone is moving briskly — no doubt to quickly find the perfect place to take selfies with the Parthenon in the background!

Tourists at the Athens Acropolis on June 1

Acropolis Museum turns 5

June 6, 2014 / admin / 0 Comments

Looking toward the Acropolis Museum from a vantage point on the Acropolis itself. Below is a zoom view of the museum, which turns 5 years old on June 20. I shot the photos on June 1 during a weekend visit to Athens.

Birthday bargain: If you’re going to be in Athens on June 20, make plans to pay the Acropolis Museum a visit. The beautiful building will mark its fifth anniversary that day, and will be charging a reduced admission fee of only €3 to celebrate the occasion. (That’s two Euros cheaper than the already bargain-priced entrance charge.)

Exhibition areas will be open from 8 a.m. until midnight, so you’ll have plenty of time to drop by and enjoy the museum’s permanent collections as well as its current special exhibition, Archaic Colors.

The museum will be hosting two special events for the big day. One involves the use of three-dimensional digital image technology to show how copper weapons and bridles would appear on the horsemen on the west frieze of the Parthenon. The second is a 9.30 p.m. concert by musical artist Leon of Athens in the museum’s courtyard entrance.

I described the museum in my March 3 2012 post, Acropolis Museum is a must-see Athens attraction, which includes photos the museum provided of some of the spectacular items in its collection. And in my post Another Acropolis Museum treasure: food earlier this year, I reported that VirtualTourist.com had ranked the Acropolis Museum Restaurant as one of the world’s top 5 museum restaurants.

Below are several more pictures I took of the museum exterior last weekend. (Although photography is permitted in most of its galleries, the Acropolis Museum does not permit media publication of such images, so I didn’t take any shots inside. The wonderful treasures are best viewed in person in any event, so be sure to schedule time to see the museum if you haven’t been there already.)

A street view of the museum’s eastern facade

Visitors gather on the museum’s entrance plaza, which overlooks archaeological ruins discovered during construction of the building

Architectural details on the building’s eastern facade

A walkway leading to the museum entrance

Window and facade details on the museum exterior

The museum’s rooftop cafe terrace has views of the Acropolis

A view of the Acropolis from the museum’s entrance plaza. The large sign on the side of the building at left is a promotional poster for the museum’s Archaic Colors exhibition, running until July 31.

Extended opening hours lead to big spike in tourist visits to Greece’s top museums & historic sites

June 4, 2014 / admin / 0 Comments

Tourists climb steps to the Propylaea, the monumental entrance to the Acropolis of Athens, on the morning of Sunday June 1

Wise move: A decision to extend operating hours for 33 of Greece’s top museums and archaeological site this summer is proving to have been a wise move, sparking a significant surge in the number of visitors to each of the attractions.

As I reported in a March 4 2014 post, the Greek Ministry of Culture recently implemented longer opening hours for nearly three dozen major museums and historic sites, including the Acropolis in Athens and the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion in Crete. From April 1 to October 31, each of the sites will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day of the week. (Many had previously been closed to the public on Mondays, and were not open for nearly as many hours on other days of the week.)

A May 30 news report on the Greek Travel Pages website says government data for the month of April has shown significant double- and triple-digit increases in visitor numbers and revenue at each of the venues offering extended hours.

Ticket sale increases ranged from 14% to 116%

The smallest increase was the 14.12% rise in ticket revenue reported for the Archaeological site of Sounion, while sales of combined entrance passes to a group of central Athens historic sites, including the Acropolis, also hit double digits, climbing by 17%.

The biggest increase in revenue was achieved at the Archaeological Site of Akrotiri, on Santorini, which reported a nearly 116% rise in sales compared to April 2013. The Archaeological Museum of Heraklion posted a 109% increase, while revenues rose slightly more than 100% at the White Tower in the city of Thessaloniki.

I was in Athens from May 30 to June 2 and saw substantially more tourists in the central area of the city than I recall seeing at the same time last year and in 2011 and 2010. In fact, in many parts of the city I heard more people speaking English, Italian and French than I heard speaking Greek. And during my June 1 visit to the Acropolis, visitors from China and Japan almost outnumbered tourists from other countries.

Greece had been anticipating a record 18.5 million visitors for 2014, but the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises (SETE) last week predicted that the number will surpass 19 million.

Click here to read a June 3 Globe and Mail newspaper report on Greece’s tourism rebound…it includes comments by the Greek minister of tourism, Olga Kefalogianni.

Throngs of tourists explore the area around the Parthenon on June 1.

Category: Athens (page 5 of 9)

Athens: A hot travel spot on a cold winter day

Athens bounces back: NY Times travel report sees rise in Greek capital’s confidence & creativity

2board summer issue features food guide, hotel profiles + tour ideas for Athens & Chania

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