LastMinuteGuide.com

Greece offers a myriad of experiences, landscapes and activities. It is the pulsing nightclubs of Mykonos and the ancient beauty of Delos; the grandeur of Delphi and the earthiness of Ioannina; the rugged hillsides of Crete and the lush wildflowers of spring. It is the blinding light of the Mykonos sun, the melancholy throb of Thessaloniki’s rembetika (blues songs), the tang of home-made tzatziki, the gossip in the kafeneia (coffee shops). It is the Parthenon - solitary and pristine - lording it over the hazy sprawl of Athens.

Greece is a country with a hallowed past and an at-times turbulent present. Appreciation of the achievements of its classical past has tended to overshadow its development as a free nation since the War of Independence from the Ottomans in 1821. Many foreign Hellenists imbued with a romantic ideal of the Greece of Pericles and the Parthenon are blithely ignorant that Greece today is a vibrant modern European country. It is equally a land where the languages of recent migrant communities from the Balkans, Africa and Asia - not to mention the English and German of EU migrants and retirees - contribute to Greece’s status as one of Europe’s more recent multicultural societies.
Greece is one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations, ranking in the world’s top 20 countries. According to the greek Ministry of Tourism, the nation received about 17 million visitors from January to mid August 2007, a large number for a small country of 11 million. Visitors are drawn to the country’s beaches and reliable sunny summer weather, its nightlife, historical sites and natural beauty.

Over 90% of visitors who come to Greece come from other European countries, although in recent years there have been growing numbers of tourists from other world regions. The vast majority of visitors arrive during tourism season, which is April through October. Peak season is July through August, and most of the tourists and tourism industry are concentrated in Crete, the Dodecanese, Cyclades, and Western Greek Islands, and to a lesser extent: the Peloponnese, and the Halkidiki peninsula in Macedonia. There are still many rewarding areas in the country free of large-scale tourism.

Get in

By plane

Athens’ Elefthérios Venizélos International Airport located near the Athens suburb of Spáta is the country’s largest, busiest airport and main hub, handling over 15 million passengers annually as of 2006. Other major international airports in terms of passenger traffic are, in order of passengers served per year, Heraklion (Nikos Kazantzákis Int’l), Thessaloniki (Makedonia Int’l), Rhodes (Diagóras), and Corfu (Ioánnis Kapodístrias).

Athens and Thessaloníki handle the bulk of scheduled international flights. However, during tourism season, several charter and planned low-budget flights arrive daily from many European cities to many of the islands and smaller cities on the mainland.

Olympic Airlines , the nation’s flag carrier, offers service to Greece from several cities in Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and North America. Aegean Airlines , which owns half the the domestic market, also operates a number of international routes to Greece from various European cities. Athens is also well-served by airlines from all over Europe, the Middle East, North America, and Southeast Asia, with flights to their respective hubs.

The presence of low-cost carriers in Greece’s international market has increased tenfold within the past decade, offering service to Athens and Thessaloníki from several other European locations, such as Easyjet (from London Gatwick, London Luton, Milan, Paris and Berlin), SkyEurope (Vienna, Bratislava, Prague, Budapest and Krakow), Virgin Express (flying from Brussels), Transavia (Amsterdam), German Wings (Cologne/Bonn and Stuttgart), Hemus Air (Sofia), Sterling (Copenhagen, Stockholm, Gothenburg and Oslo), LTU (Düsseldorf), MyAir (Venice), Norwegian Air (Warsaw, Katowice and Krakow), Wizzair (Katowice and Prague), FlyGlobeSpan (Glasgow), Clickair (Barcelona) and Vueling (Barcelona).

By train

Thessaloniki is Greece’s hub for international rail service. Trains connect Thessaloníki to Sofia (3 daily), Bucharest (1 daily), Budapest (2 daily), Istanbul (2 daily), Beograd via Skopje (2 daily), and other international cities. In summer there are direct services to Praha, Bratislava and Moskava. There are special fares as Balkan-Flexi-Pass and other offers e.g. the City-Star Ticket form Czech Republic to Greece.

By car

Greece can be entered by automobile from any of its land neighbors. From Italy, ferries will transport cars to Greece. From western Europe, the most popular route to Greece was through Yugoslavia. Following the troubles in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s, most motorists from western Europe came overland by Italy, and then took a trans-Adriatic ferry from there. Although the countries of the former Yugoslavia have since stabilized, and Hungary-Romania-Bulgaria form another, albeit a mugh longer, alternative, the overland route through Italy now remains the most popular option.

By bus

There is some, albeit limited, international bus service to neighboring Albania, Bulgaria, and Turkey.

By boat

From Italy, several ferries depart for Greece daily. Ferries to Patras (Pátra), Igoumenítsa, and Corfu (Kérkyra) leave throughout the year from the Italian port cities of Venice, Trieste, Ancona, Bari and Brindisi.

From Turkey there are ferries: from Marmaris to Rhodes, from Cesme to Chios, from Bodrum to Kos, from Kusadasi to Samos, From Cesme to Ancona or Brindisi.

There are also ferries connecting Piraeus and Rhodes to: Alexandria, Egypt; Larnaca and Limassol, Cyprus; and Haifa, Israel.