Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Ancient Sites”
.entry-header .entry-excerpt The palace where Alexander the Great was born will be open in 2021 In this building, part of which was excavated in 1957, when no one even knew it was the palace, the Greek king Macedonia grew up while in the arena located a short distance from the building the young prince played sports with the children of …
On April 6, 1896, the Olympic Games, a long-lost tradition of ancient Greece, are reborn in Athens 1,500 years after being banned by Roman Emperor Theodosius I. At the opening of the Athens Games, King Georgios I of Greece and a crowd of 60,000 spectators welcomed athletes from 13 nations to the international competition. The first recorded Olympic Games were …
Divani Palace Acropolis Fortification Wall Athens has had numerous fortification walls around the city since ancient times. When the Second Persian War ended in 479 BC, it resulted in the destruction of most buildings, statues, and walls in and around the city. After the departure of the Persians, the citizens began planning the rebuild of the city. Athenian statesman Themistocles feared …
Authorities on the Northern Sporades island of Alonissos have announced plans to create an underwater museum around the 5th-century shipwreck of Peristera to be visitable through guided dives. The plan, to be run under the EU’s BlueMed program, was presented at a two-day event organized jointly by the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities and the Thessaly Region on the management and preservation of underwater cultural …
On April 6, 1896, the first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens, at the Panathenaic Stadium with athletes from 14 countries participating and Greek Spyros Louis winning in the marathon run. The International Olympic Committee met for the first time in Paris in June 1894 and chose Greece as the site of the inaugural modern Olympiad, appropriately since Greece …
Greece isn’t all golden beaches and cat-filled tavernas. Here are 10 attractions you wouldn’t expect. Impressions of Switzerland The first prize for the most un-Greek experience in this country of sandy beaches, crystalline waters and sun-bleached landscapes must surely go to the Odontotos (“Toothy”) rack railway, so take a ride on a train that’s more Swiss than Greek. Running for 23km from …
Lavrion Greece, is a good starting place for a yacht charter tour in the Cyclades island, but whats the history of this place? Laurion lies approximately 50 kilometers (31 miles) south of Athens between Thoricus and Sounion and it was famous in ancient times for its productive mines. Silver, copper, lead and even rare metals have been mined there since the …
Only 20 km (12 miles) from Athens, Elefsina (Eleusis) is an ancient city which became an industrial hub in the nineteenth century. Over the last several decades, however, it turned into a rather drab, tired post-industrial town. But now the city has been reborn, and will be honored as the “European Capital of Culture 2021.” With 30,000 inhabitants, Eleusis is …
Greece’s Culture ministry submitted a nomination to UNESCO on Tuesday asking them to declare Crete’s Spinalonga islet, with its impressive sixteenth-century Venetian fortress, a new “World Heritage Site”. The Central Archaeological Council of Greece had earlier given its approval to the ministry’s management plan for the islet. Spinalonga had also served as a leper colony in the 20th century, up until …
Naxos is a Greek island in the South Aegean, the largest of the Cyclades island group. Its fertile landscape spans mountain villages, ancient ruins and long stretches of beach. The namesake capital (also called Hora or Chora) is a port town filled with whitewashed, cube-shaped houses and medieval Venetian mansions. One of Naxos’ most distinctive and important sights are the three …
An ancient Greek value which ranked at or near the top of the list of virtues, and still lives on today in modern Greece, is “philoxenia”. Translated from Greek, philoxenia literally means “friend to a stranger”. The roots of philoxenia live deep in the heart of every Greek person, and this ancient concept and way of life which ancient Greeks …
When sailing around with my guests in Greece I get many questions about the drystone walls that are a very common sight on the Greek islands. The local names for them vary from region to region, but Greece’s drystone walls all share common elements. These masterpieces of folk architecture, crafted using the simplest of materials, invariably enrich the environment, turning …
