The Museum of Cycladic Art and its magnificent exhibition "Picasso and Antiquity. Line and Clay" was awarded the International Audience Award by Youniversal at the sixth annual Global Fine Art Awards (GFAA), which took place online on 11 May. The recognition is all the sweeter when it is a small Greek museum pitted against the...
Read morePoet, philhellene and avid hiker John Kittmer leads us through forts and cloisters, battlefields and tombs, encountering characters -mythological, historical or just mortal - exchanging stories and verses over tsipouro through an imaginary personal odyssey across his beloved Greece. In the last few days of June, I have a retur...
Read moreFrench ceramicist and artist Diane Alexandre’s sculpted beauty matches that of her creations - fired up to fragile perfection. With the Aegean blue and Apollonian light offering as much inspiration as Greek mythology, Diane’s aesthetic vernacular is shaped by that of her adopted home. Diane, you’re a multi-talented personality a...
Read moreBold new plans are afoot to make Athens a walker’s delight with the Municipality voting in favour of an ambitious pedestrianization project. The quarantine was perhaps a gentle reminder of how wonderful a walking experience car-free Athens could be. It also drove home the need to increase public space and decongest public tran...
Read moreWith our Lockdown cholesterol fest under our belts (literally), the beckoning summer calls for quick, effective and inexpensive ways to shape up fast. You know the detox drill (more water and veg; less of everything else), but try allocating a few minutes in your week to the following exercises, add in some running too, and watch your sve...
Read moreKonstantinos Patsios’ upcoming exhibition in Budapest and Paris is a tangle of paint, paper and irony that revisits the female form. It decodes the artist’s interest in feminine and feminist issues, using known painting metaphors long ignored by the male-dominated art world. Using recognizable motifs from classic works of the ...
Read moreWhen in Athens, get up close and personal with the antiquities, explore Greek, Byzantine and Ottoman culture, and familiarise yourself with the contemporary artistic scene in Athens. Devote two days to museum hopping to get a feel for Greece’s layered history and end with a visual performance at one of the newer cultural venues in Athens....
Read moreAs Greek hoteliers check their options before opening their doors on June 1, it is an uphill task both in terms of implementing the necessary changes and in training staff to adopt new health protocols, when so much is still unclear. The de-Covidization era desperately needs a new narrative. In the absence of clear guidelines, the World T...
Read moreMichael Ondaatje’s new novel, Warlight (shortlisted for the Man Booker and the Walter Scott Prize), opens with a scene where Nathaniel Williams is crouched over his desk, trying to pull together the threads of his fractured adolescence and declares, “As if I cannot see what is taking place in the dark beyond the movement of this pencil. T...
Read moreKoukoumi, the Greek term for hygge or cocooned living, offers an alternative tourist option with a menu to match as it launches Mykonos’ first vegan hotel. A departure perhaps for meat-obsessed Greeks but a welcome option for millennials seeking a cruelty-free holiday. For trend-setting Mykonos, it was only a question of time...
Read moreJohn Carr reviews Leo Kanaris’ gripping potboilers with private eye George Zafiris. Both Codename Xenophon and Dangerous Days are spiked with Zafiris’ incisive descriptions of Athens and its resilient crisis- scarred people. Whether you opt for the beach or balcony to snuggle with these thrillers, before long, you’ll be rooting for the un...
Read moreNow that we've all taken to testing our culinary skills, Christina Vlahouli urges us to try out easy-to-make Greek comfort food. Her courgettes with minced meat recipe captures the wholesomeness of home-cooking as few dishes do. Ingredients: 6-8 medium round courgettes 1 kilo ground beef 2 tablespoon olive oil + a little ...
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