Greek Gods

The Greeks made use of their myths to read and understand the world around them. They mixed their mythological tradition making use of their moral concepts and developed some supreme beings to praise.

The life span of the gods organized the foundations for the comprehension of how to live a virtuous life. These myths were passed down through their society’s storytellers like Homer, who wrote the epic poems the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey.” These works of art are the source of much of our knowledge of the Greek gods , and the beliefs surrounding them.

Greek Gods Family Tree

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The twelve Olympian gods ( they are named after their dwelling place, Mount Olympus) were the best known gods. They ruled after the overthrow of the Titans.

The relationship between ancient Greeks and their gods was based on a fairly easy concept: if men worshipped and made sacrifices towards the gods, then your gods would look favourably upon them in exchange.

The Olympians:

Aphrodite : Goddess of love and beauty . Her son was Eros , the god of love. She is also considered to have kept a watchful eye over sailors.

Apollo : Beautiful god of the light, medicine and music. Apollo represents order, harmony, and civilization

Ares : God of war. He had an affair with Aphrodite, and was father to many kids.

Artemis : Goddess moon, forest, childbirth and the hunt. Although she was associated with childbirth and kids, Artemis was a virgin.

Eros, Greek Gods

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Athena : Daughter of Zeus and goddess of knowledge and war and also the patron goddess of Athens. Like Artemis , she was a virgin goddess too.

Hades : God of the Underworld.

Hephaestus : God of fire and the forge. Mated to Aphrodite.

Hera : Queen from the Gods, wife of Zeus a, protector of marriage.

Hermes : The messenger of the gods, god of business. He was a very smart child, inventing the lyre using a tortoise’s shell as he was just a baby baby.

Hestia : Goddess of home, symbolized by the hearth which holds the ever-burning flame.

Poseidon : God of the sea and earthquakes. As god of the seas Poseidon held great power, and could calm the waves or create terrible storms. He’d an unreliable temper, and used his powers to generate fear and punishment on people as revenge.

Zeus : King from the Gods, god of the sky, symbolized by the thunderbolt. Because the ruler of the Olympian gods, Zeus held enormous power and almost absolute authority. His role was primarily to watch over the activities of the other gods, and make sure they weren’t exceeding their powers.

The Titans, also called the elder gods, ruled the planet earth before the Olympians overthrew them.
The ruler of the Titans was Cronus who was de-throned by his son Zeus .

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Prometheus : He stole the sacred fire from Zeus and also the gods.

Atlas : Zeus punished him to forever bear the heavens upon his shoulders.

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Acropolis Hill, Greece Islands Hotel

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The newly built Acropolis Hotel Group Tour last February, the area surrounding the Acropolis. It is close to the sound of the new Acropolis Museum and the historic center of Athens.

You can enjoy great views of the Acropolis, the hill Filopapou and around the city of Athens from its private balcony. The contemporary style rooms with wooden floors and comfortable beds. Wi-Fi is free and available on the premises.

Equally short walk from the hotel, you can visit the Plaka, Syntagma, Monastiraki and other attractions of Athens. It is easily accessible by subway Syngrou-Fix and the tram or bus.

Rooms: 37

Hotel: Hotel Tour

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Royal Olympic, Greece Islands Hotel

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Located opposite the Temple of Zeus, the Royal Olympic elegantly decorated rooms with free wireless Internet access and personalized services.

Located beside the beautiful Plaka and royal gardens, this hotel offers a stylish base in one of the best places in Athens. Acropolis, shops and restaurants are within walking distance.

Each room at the Royal Olympic Hotel is decorated with high standards and offers luxurious facilities.

Visit the Roof Garden restaurant, where you can enjoy the unique recipes and a wonderful view of the Greek Acropolis and the Temple of Zeus.

Free access to Royal Olympic Hotel fully equipped business center and modern fitness center is available during your stay.

Rooms: 265th

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Greece Islands

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The Islands of Greece

The seas of Greece are sprinkled with over two thousand islands and islets.The Islands of Greece

The Greek islands have been a popular tourist destination for a long time, and each island of Greece with its unique topography, history, and culture attract thousands of visitors from around the world every summer.

Tourists flock to the Greek islands every year to enjoy a few days of beautiful weather, unique architecture, and the character of Greek hospitality. With so many islands to choose from, one is bound to find their favorite vacation spot, and while many preffer to island hop, others return to the same island year after year.

The gamut of character is incredibly wide. There are islands that have been forgotten by time that allow visitors to feel as if they live in a different era, and there are islands that offer cosmopolitan luxuries for every contemporary taste. There are quiet island spots where one can be lost in solitude, and also there are islands where one can be absorbed in the crowds.

Better yet, several islands offer everything in one destination. Islands like Rhodes and Crete are popular because they offer spectacular topography, unique hospitality, beautiful beaches, exciting tourist resorts, fascinating history, unique culture, quiet villages, and party-till-you drop towns.

Given the beautiful weather and the amount of sunshine that bathes the Greek islands in the summer, they have become the favorite destination of millions of Europeans and who choose the Greek islands to spend their annual vacation. Needless to say, several of the most popular islands of Greece are overrun by tourists in the summer, but depending on one’s taste, being among so many people who are there just to have fun together is not a bad place to be.

Alongside the most touristy islands of Greece are the quiet holiday spots with sleepy villages, picturesque promenades, endless sunny days, and crystal cool waters.
The major industry these days for most of the islands is tourism, but the remnants of the yesteryear activities of fishing, diving, commerce, and small-scale agriculture are everywhere. Greek islanders have a strong sense of tradition, and despite the considerable development of tourist infrastructure, they retain the unique cultural character of their individual island.

The unique topography, the long history of invasions, and the long tradition of commerce imprint each island with unique characteristics. Once you experience one Greek island, you will want to see them all. Searching for the perfect island is half the fun and might entice you to Greece annually for life.

Greece Island Gropings

Greece is surrounded by three seas: the Ionian Sea to the west, the Aegean sea to the East, and the Sea of Crete to the south. They are all northern extensions of the Mediterranean sea that touches the south of the Peloponnese and Crete.

Accordingly, the islands of Greece are divided into Ionian and Aegean Islands and they in turn are separated into smaller administrative groupings or prefectures.

The Ioninan Sea

The islands of the Ionian Sea all belong to the prefecture of Eptanisa. Eptanisa means “seven islands” and the grouping is comprised of

  • Corfu
  • Paxi and Antipaxi
  • Lefkada
  • Kefalonia
  • Ithaki
  • Zakynthos (Zante)
  • Kythira and Antikythira

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The Aegean Sea

The islands of the Aegean Sea are divided into several administrative regions:

  • Saronic Gulf Islands (Islands of the Saronic Gulf and the vicinity)
    • Salamina
    • Aegina
    • Poros
    • Hydra
    • Spetses
  • Sporades (Islands of the northwest Aegean Sea)
    • Skiathos
    • Skopelos
    • Alonnisos
    • Evia and Skyros,
      despite their proximity to the Sporades, these two islands administratively belong to Sterea Ellada
  • Souther Aegean Islands that include
    • Cyclades
      • Andros
      • Tinos
      • Syros
      • Mykonos
      • Delos
      • Paros and Antiparos
      • Naxos
      • Little Cyclades
        • Iraklia
        • Shinousa
        • Koufonisia
        • Donousa
      • Amorgos
      • Ios
      • Santorini (Thera)
      • Anafi
      • Sikinos
      • Folegandros
      • Milos
      • Kimolos
      • Sifnos
      • Serifos
      • Kythnos
      • Kea
    • Dodekanese
      • Rhodes
      • Halki
      • Karpathos
      • Kassos
      • Kastellorizo (Megisti)
      • Symi
      • Tilos
      • Nisyros
      • Kos
      • Astypalea
      • Kalymnos
      • Leros
      • Patmos
      • Lipsi
      • Arki
      • Agathonisi
  • North-Easter Aegean Islands
    • Ikaria
    • Fournoi
    • Samos
    • Chios
    • Inousses
    • Psara
    • Lesvos
    • Agios Efstratios
    • Samothraki
    • Thassos
      Despite their position in the northeastern Aegean, Thassos and Samothraki islands belong administratively to the Easter Macedonia & Thrace prefecture.
  • Crete

Visiting the Greek Islands

By Sea

To serve the multitude of islands, Greece has developed the most extensive network of ferries in Europe. In the last five years the fleet has been modernized and expanded with new ferries that sail between the islands, faster and safer than any previous years. One major accident in the island of Poros in the late 90s was the starting point for this modernization of the fleet, and maritime regulations that have become stricter to ensure the safety of the passengers. The newer ferries, besides speed and safety have added considerable comfort to their offerings.

The ports of Piraeus and Rafina are the busiest hubs of ferry activity. Between them they connect every major and minor island of the Aegean with every conceivable kind of boat. The islands closest to Athens can be reached within a few hours from these two ports, while islands further away require an overnight ferry ride.

By Air

The largest, and most popular Greek islands have airports that connect them to Athens and Thessaloniki by air. Most flights to the islands leave from Athens airport, and in high season they are connected directly with major European cities via charters that land with some regularity.

Smaller islands have smaller  airports and see flights more infrequently, but several development programs have subsidized air travel between smaller Greek cities and Islands. For example, there is air travel between the city of Sitia in Crete and Alexandroupoli in eastern Thrace.

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Greece General Info

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Greece also known as Hellas and officially the Hellenic Republic is a country in southeastern Europe. Situated on the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula, Greece has land borders with Albania, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the east. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of mainland Greece, the Ionian Sea to the west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the tenth longest coastline in the world at 14,880 km (9,246 mi) in length, featuring a vast number of islands (approximately 1400, of which 227 are inhabited), including Crete, the Dodecanese, the Cyclades, and the Ionian Islands among others. Eighty percent of Greece consists of mountains, of which Mount Olympus is the highest at 2,917 m (9,570 ft).
Modern Greece traces its roots to the civilisation of ancient Greece, generally considered the cradle of Western civilization. As such, it is the birthplace of democracy,Western philosophy, the Olympic Games, Western literature and historiography, political science, major scientific and mathematical principles, and Western drama,including both tragedy and comedy. This legacy is partly reflected in the 17 UNESCO World Heritage Sites located in Greece. The modern Greek state was established in 1830, following a victorious uprising against Ottoman rule.
A developed country with an advanced,[10][11] high-income economy, a very high Human Development Index and consistently high quality of life rankings,[13][14][15] Greece has been a member of what is now the European Union since 1981 and the eurozone since 2001,NATO since 1952,and the European Space Agency since 2005.[18] It is also a founding member of the United Nations, the OECD, and the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization. Athens is the capital and the largest city in the country (its metropolitan area includes also Piraeus); other major cities include Thessaloniki, Patras, Heraklion, Larissa, Volos and Ioannina.
Greece was the first area in Europe where advanced early civilizations emerged, beginning with the Cycladic civilization of the Aegean Sea, the Minoan civilization in Crete and then the Mycenaean civilization on the mainland. Later, city-states emerged across the Greek peninsula and spread to the shores of the Black Sea, South Italy and Asia Minor, reaching great levels of prosperity that resulted in an unprecedented cultural boom, that of classical Greece, expressed in architecture, drama, science and philosophy, and nurtured in Athens under a democratic environment.

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Athens and Sparta led the way in repelling the Persian Empire in a series of battles. Both were later overshadowed by Thebes and eventually Macedonia, with the latter under the guidance of Alexander the Great uniting and leading the Greek world to victory over the Persians.
The Hellenistic period was brought only partially to a close two centuries later with the establishment of Roman rule over Greek lands in 146 BC.Many Greeks migrated to Alexandria, Antioch, Seleucia and the many other new Hellenistic cities in Asia and Africa founded in Alexander’s wake.

The subsequent mixture of Roman and Hellenic cultures took form in the establishment of the Byzantine Empire in 330 AD around Constantinople. Byzantium remained a major cultural and military power for the next 1,123 years, until the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. On the eve of the Ottoman conquest, much of the Greek intelligentsia migrated to Italy and other parts of Europe not under Ottoman rule, playing a significant role in the Renaissance through the transmission of ancient Greek works to Western Europe.Nevertheless, the Ottoman millet system contributed to the cohesion of the Orthodox Greeks by segregating the various peoples within the empire based on religion, as the latter played an integral role in the formation of modern Greek identity.
After the Greek War of Independence, successfully waged against the Ottoman Empire from 1821 to 1829, the nascent Greek state was finally recognized under the London Protocol in 1830. In 1827, Ioannis Kapodistrias, from Corfu, was chosen as the first governor of the new Republic. However, following his assassination, the Great Powers installed a monarchy under Otto, of the Bavarian House of Wittelsbach. In 1843, an uprising forced the King to grant a constitution and a representative assembly.
Due to his unimpaired authoritarian rule, he was eventually dethroned in 1863 and replaced by Prince Vilhelm (William) of Denmark, who took the name George I and brought with him the Ionian Islands as a coronation gift from Britain. In 1877, Charilaos Trikoupis, who is attributed with the significant improvement of the country’s infrastructure, curbed the power of the monarchy to interfere in the assembly by issuing the rule of vote of confidence to any potential prime minister.

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