Jeff Siger has called Greece home for 35 years. Spending his lockdown in pastoral New Jersey with a grizzly-size black bear who drops in occasionally, he has been plotting his next mystery thriller set on a Greek isle. The emotions that run through this column starkly contrast with the hope he expresses in his first corona chronicle. [...
Read moreBeaches open as mercury soars! Time to place first dibs on sun loungers! Greece prepares to open up its beaches on May 16 as the country eases lockdown and looks to lure tourists back. Organised beaches - those with ticketed entrances and organised sunbeds - are set to reopen tomorrow following official advice. Almost all 515 ...
Read moreHere's a quick recap of travel dos and don'ts and countries you can fly to and back. Please note that flights are strictly for repatriation purposes or to join families. Travel protocols for tourism will be announced later this month. Flights banned to the following destinations: Flights between Greece and seven countries will ...
Read moreWhat do you get when a former diplomat reinvents himself as a bicycle-riding Indiana Jones and shares his contagious curiosity for Greece's ancient landscape? Brady Kiesling's restless years of scouring Greece's hillsides and ancient manuscripts is now a friendly app for the curious at heart. By arming visitors with ToposText, he hopes to...
Read moreIt is one of Athens’ most prominent squares and perhaps its most blighted. Its radically controversial and often unappealing design changes have pock-marked its 175 years of existence. So there was justifiable cause for celebration as Omonoia finally got the makeover it deserved when its 20-metre high water fountains soared into the night...
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 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 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 moreFor a truly transformative holiday experience, Athens Insider suggests an alternative destination billed as offering hands-on learning about living in sync with nature on the verdant slopes of Mt. Pelion. The Pelion Homes Retreat Center could well be the starting focal point to your personal pursuit to finding yourself, or indeed, losing ...
Read moreGreece has been a powerful muse for countless scribes throughout the ages. Athens Insider rounds up 8 must-read contemporary tales that will help you get under Greece’s skin. Dinner with Persephone, Patricia Storace Dinner with Persephone is the product of Patricia Storace’s year spent living in Greece and provides a great ...
Read moreBeyond the ringing endorsement for our little nation’s brave response to the pandemic, Yuval Noah Harari believes that ‘decisions being taken by governments today will shape countries for years to come, not just for a few weeks.’ In a shape-shifting tourism landcape, it is the same nimble response to ‘flattening the curve’, that will se...
Read moreA timely promotional tool for Greece, The Trip To Greece promises plenty of mouth-watering Mediterranean meals – with a side helping of ancient ruins and stunning seascapes. Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon reunite to follow in Odysseus’ footsteps in director Michael Winterbottom’s culinary and comedic travelogue series, The Trip to Greece. ...
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