Category: Greek Islands videos (Page 11 of 19)

Timeless treasures of Zakynthos

April 20, 2015 / admin / 0 Comments

Treasures of Zakynthos – A Timelapse Film from Maciej Tomków on Vimeo

I haven’t been to Zakynthos yet (or any of the other Greek islands in the Ionian Sea, for that matter), but I already know I would love it.

I’m drawn to islands that boast superlative scenery and, based on the scores of photos and videos I have seen, Zakynthos would not disappoint. With its stunning landscapes — verdant mountains, soaring cliffs, picturesque towns and harbours, and especially its spectacular coastlines, Blue Caves and magnificent beaches — Zakynthos would tick off a lot of boxes on my list of favourite features for an ideal Greek holiday destination.

And if you saw my August 2 2014 post about Shipwreck Beach, you’ll know that Zakynthos is already on my bucket list of the places I most want to see in Greece.

The Treasures of Zakynthos video I posted above simply reinforces my strong belief that I would thoroughly enjoy visiting the island. The breathtaking film was produced, directed and photographed by cinematographer Maciej Tomkow, who captured astounding timelapse images of the island’s amazing natural treasures — its mountains and hills; sunrises and sunsets; towns and harbours; star-filled night skies; and its coastlines, bays, and beaches (Shipwreck plays a starring role, as you’d expect).

If you haven’t been to Zakynthos yet, either, I bet you’ll be adding it to your own travel bucket list after watching Maciej’s film.

Beguiling beaches on Ios

April 20, 2015 / admin / 1 Comment

Visit inviting beaches on Ios in this 3.5-minute clip from luxurios.com

The first time I watched Ios Beaches, I instantly wanted to hop on a plane to Greece and catch the next available ferry to Ios. The second time I watched the video, I wanted to go to Ios even more. The urge to hit the beach on Ios felt even stronger after my third viewing.

I love Ios — I have been there twice, and absolutely will return — yet this video made me feel a slight tinge of regret that I won’t be visiting the island on my upcoming trip to Greece.

The film shows several of the Ios beaches that I have seen in person, plus others that I haven’t yet had the opportunity to visit. The superb video photography of the island’s outstanding beach and coastal scenery has convinced me that I simply must get back to Ios to see all of the amazing places I missed.

(Ios has more than three dozen wonderful beaches, only some of which can be reached by local bus service or excursion boats. Both of my trips to Ios were in mid-May, before summer bus service and tour boat service to the island’s top beaches had begun, and since I didn’t have a rental vehicle at my disposal, I was limited to seeing beaches within walking distance of the ferry port and Chora, the main town).

Let me know if watching the video makes you want to book a trip to Ios, too (I’m pretty sure it will).

The film was produced by LuxurIOS Island Experience, a Greek-owned travel company that promotes responsible and environmentally sustainable tourism on Ios.

To see more of images from beautiful Ios, check out my Ios photo collection on Flickr.

Bumpy rides to blissful bays and beaches on Karpathos

April 11, 2015 / admin / 4 Comments

Click on the arrow to take a ride to Kato Lako on Karpathos

My fascination with Karpathos continues — I keep spending some of my spare time viewing photos and watching videos of the island. I won’t get to see Karpathos on my trip to Greece this spring, but it never hurts to research places to visit on future vacations, right?

I thought I’d share several Karpathos videoclips that I enjoyed watching today. All four were posted online by YouTube member 365Roman, and I found them interesting because they show what it’s like to drive to some of the island’s sights and attractions, including gorgeous bays and beaches as well as charming mountain and seaside villages.

As all the clips confirm, some of the most breathtaking views and scenery in the Greek Islands are off the main tourist path and take some effort to reach. But it’s worth it — and it’s all part of the fun of exploring Greece.

So sit back, relax and enjoy your tours on Karpathos while someone else does the driving!

The ride to Forokli beach

Driving around the northern part of Karpathos

Touring the island’s southern regions

A roller coaster ferry ride across rough seas in the Cyclades

April 10, 2015 / admin / 0 Comments

The Blue Star Paros ferry rocks and rolls in rough seas as it crosses the strait between Tinos and Mykonos around noon on April 9 2015

Greek Easter celebrations got off to a chilly, windy and soggy start yesterday for thousands of Greeks and tourists hoping to spend the holiday weekend with family and friends on islands in the Aegean.

A powerful storm system swept across the Cyclades and other archipelagos, thrashing islands with cooler than seasonal temperatures, heavy rains, and wind gusting to force 8 and 9 on the Beaufort scale. Photos and videos shared on social media showed flooded beach areas on Naxos and Paros, as well as large waves crashing ashore at Amorgos, Mykonos, Syros and Samos.

Rough seas forced the cancellation of numerous ferries scheduled to depart Piraeus port at Athens, and there were reports that some Olympic Air flights to several islands, including Naxos, were cancelled as well. The port authority of Heraklion, on Crete, also ordered the suspension of ferry service from that island.

Bigger ferries tried to battle the seas

Many people whose ferries weren’t cancelled probably wished they had been — including, I’m sure, many of the passengers who travelled on the Blue Star Paros from Mykonos to Tinos yesterday. The video that I posted above shows the ship battling its way through enormous waves in the straight between the two islands. The film, which was shot by someone on Tinos, shows the ferry almost disappearing from view as it crashes through swells several storeys tall. I couldn’t imagine what it was like being a passenger as the ship rocked, rolled and swayed in such tempestuous seas.

The Nissos Mykonos ferry yesterday managed to sail only partway through its route from Pireaus to Syros, Mykonos, Ikaria, and Samos. It made it as far as Mykonos when adverse weather conditions prevented it from continuing the journey to Ikaria. The ship instead returned to Syros for safe anchorage, but because of brutal wind and waves there, it took over an hour for the crew to dock the vessel. The ferry was carrying 430 passengers who had to spend the night in Syros and hope the ship could resume its voyage today.

Meanwhile, light snow and hail fell on parts of mainland Greece and mountainous areas of some islands.

The unusually severe Holy Week weather follows on the heels of what many Greeks say was the coldest and snowiest winter in memory, during which at least three separate storm systems battered the islands and mainland. You can view photos and videos of the winter storms in my posts on January 2, January 17, and February 14.

Wind, rain and cloud is expected to continue today but the forecast shows gradually improving conditions, with sunshine, for Easter weekend. Ferry service from Piraeus and Heraklion could resume later this afternoon (Friday April 10) if the weather improves.

This video shows the Nissos Mykonos ferry attempting to dock at Syros after it had to cut short its scheduled voyage to Samos because of the weather.

Delightful moments on Naxos

April 3, 2015 / admin / 0 Comments

NAXOS from Kassiani Koufaki // on Vimeo

It’s no secret that we love Naxos. We picked it as our Destination of the Year in 2013, and I have been happy to see Our Top 15 reasons to visit Naxos has been one of the most-read posts I have published to date.

As you can probably imagine, I’m always keen to view photos and videos of Naxos, particularly to see how other travellers have enjoyed and experienced this remarkable island. This short video called Naxos, by Kassiani Koufaki, is one of my all-time favourites.

Though it’s only a minute and a half long, it captures dozens of delightful sights and enchanting travel moments on the island. It brings back many warm memories for me personally, since I’ve seen many of the scenes in person. But I think people who haven’t yet been to Naxos will also enjoy its brief glimpses of beautiful scenery and simple details that make it such a pleasure to visit.

Why you should visit Paros

April 3, 2015 / admin / 1 Comment

BEST OF PAROS from Art in Design-Alternative on Vimeo.

PAROS from Dimitris Christopoulos on Vimeo.

I never need an excuse to visit Greece, but in online travel forums I often see people asking whether they should go to certain places, or wondering why specific Greek destinations are popular. They think they want to visit them, but they really don’t have a clue what they will get to see and do once they get there.

Paros is one of those places. Since it’s a stop on the busy ferry route between Mykonos and Santorini, the two most popular Cyclades islands, many travellers realize it would conveniently fit into an island-hopping itinerary. But is it the right island for them to visit? Does it have enough attractions to make it a worthwhile stopover for a few days?

I think these two films, which I found on Vimeo today, will help visitors determine if Paros is their kind of place. (I think the answer will most likely be “yes.”) I’ve already been to Paros (twice), but both videos made me want to go back again.

In case you need more convincing, click here to view my Paros Greece 2012 collection on Flickr, which features hundreds of photos from the picturesque harbour village of Naoussa, and several beaches in its surrounding area. Some photos of the main port town of Parikia, as well as the Yria Hotel and the scenic coastline near Parasporos beach, can be viewed in my Paros collection.

The history behind Santorini’s spectacular caldera cliffs

March 26, 2015 / admin / 2 Comments

Click on the arrow to view Santorini volcano history, a fascinating 6-minute video by Santorini resident Nikos Korakakis.

Captivating cliffs: Like most people who have visited Santorini, I know that the island’s distinctive crescent shape was created by hundreds of thousands of years of volcanic activity. I’ve read about it in travel guides, and I have seen illustrations of the island’s various different shapes over the centuries in some of the souvenir books I’ve collected on our travels.

But a video that I recently discovered does the best job, in my opinion, of showing precisely how the volcanoes and the course of time have shaped the Santorini of today.

Produced by Nikos Korakakis, an art director who lives and works in Santorini, the nearly 6-minute-long film is based on research by scientists, institutes and universities. It features narration (in Greek) by Anastasia Platanioti and music by Ross Bugden.

Although the narration is completely in Greek, you don’t have to understand the language to follow the video — the film includes explanatory English text superimposed on the animated illustrations.

Click the arrow at the bottom left corner of the video screen (top) to watch how centuries of volcanic activity created the spectacular island scenery that will enthrall more than a million visitors from around the world this year.

Below are just a few of the photos we have shot of the magnificent caldera cliffs that have taken our breath away on three visits to Santorini. You can full-size versions of those images, along with dozens of additional photos, in The Cliffs, an album on the MyGreeceTravelBlog Flickr page.

The homes and hotels in Imerovigli village are precariously perched atop cliffs that climb hundreds of meters above the sea

Oia village at the northern tip of Santorini is seen in this distance photo shot from Skaros Rock at Imerovigli

Resorts cling to the steep upper slopes of the caldera cliffs at Oia

A view toward Imerovigli (center) and Skaros Rock (to the left of Imerovigli) from the Athinios ferry port on Santorini

A view of Skaros Rock and, in the distance, Oia village

Fira is the biggest town and the main commercial center on Santorini

Cruise ships anchored near the caldera cliffs below Fira

The village of Firostefani is a short but very scenic walk from Fira

The caldera cliffs below Firostefani

The rugged cliffs plunge hundreds of feet to the turquoise sea in the caldera

We shot this photo of Imerovigli from a terrace at our hotel in Firostefani

A view of the Armeni Villas resort in Oia, with Imerovigli and Skaros Rock providing a backdrop across the caldera

Oia, seen from the top deck of a Blue Star ferry as we arrived at Santorini

We captured this view of the caldera cliffs during a walk from Fira to Oia along the island’s world-famous clifftop footpath

Click here to view 125 photos of the caldera cliffs on the MyGreeceTravelBlog Flickr page.

Only on Mykonos! A bizarre ‘table dancing’ performance from a 1960s travel film

March 26, 2015 / admin / 0 Comments

This excerpt from a travel promotion shows scenes from Mykonos Town from sometime in the early 1960s

I love seeing old photos and films from Athens and the various Greek Islands we have visited so far — especially if they show places like Mykonos before traditional island life gave way to the glitz and glamour of high-end hotels, shops and restaurants aimed at affluent international tourists.

So it was fun to find this black and white tourism promotion film with scenes of Mykonos Town in the early 1960s before it was drastically transformed by extensive tourism-related development.

But besides views of the town’s iconic cube-shaped white buildings, its maze of cobblestone streets, and the island’s famous pelican mascot, Petros, the film includes an odd table dancing demonstration performed for the entertainment of tourists at a taverna.

Footage of what the film narrator describes as “a very strange performance” starts around the 2:10 mark of the video.

It shows “a very special talent by an enterprising young man,” the narrator says.

You’ll have to see it for yourself to believe it. It’s nothing like the Zorba the Greek dance that tourists might get to see while visiting Greece nowadays!