Description of Greece

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Greece or Hellas is among the world's most popular tourist destinations, boasting for an astonishingly extensive coastline of beaches both in mainland and the Greek Islands and pleasant warm Mediterranean climate ideal for summer holidays. The tourist facilities have been considerably developed in both hotels and restaurants. You can find accommodation varying from luxury hotels, all-inclusive resorts, traditional pensions and guesthouses, apartments and budget hotels. No need to mention the Greek Mediterranean cuisine you can taste in every restaurant and the famous nightlife. The diversity of the landscapes offers numerous choices of different kind of holidays but all come with the same big smile and warm hospitality of Greeks.

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Climate of Greece

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Greece has a pleasant typical Mediterranean climate with mild winters and hot, dry summers. The diversity of the landscapes though has created many individual microclimates that vary from area to area with considerable differences in temperature and rainfall. The mountainous parts of mainland feature an Alpine climate with heavy snowfalls, while the northern parts feature a temperate climate with cold, damp winters and hot, dry summers. The western parts are wetter receiving more rainfalls and the islands have milder climate. The climate and the landscapes are ideal for a number of outdoor activities and sports.

History of Greece

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The place that actually shaped the western history from scratch, there is no coincidence that ruins of ancient temples are literally everywhere! The land of Greece is inhabited since Upper Paleolithic period (30000–10000 BC) and was the first area in Europe where advanced early civilizations emerged. The first civilization begins in the islands of Cyclades in Aegean Sea at around 3000 BC, the Minoan civilization in Crete (2700–1500 BC) and then the Mycenaean civilization on the Peloponnese(1900–1100 BC). By the 5th century BC the first city-states are springing across Greece and what is known as Classical Greece establishes economic prosperity and a great progress in culture, science, philosophy, fine arts, architecture and politics giving birth to democracy in Athens. After the wars against the Persian invasion, the devastating Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta gives the end to Classical Era. The city-states in Greek Peninsula get united for the fist time under Phillip the Macedonian and then his son Alexander the Great who leads expeditions against the Persians and gets till the very heart of Persia, where Pakistan is nowadays. After his death Greece becomes a part of the Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire. After the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 begins a constant occupancy of Ottoman Turks and Venetians in some parts that ends only in 1829 after the Greek War for Independence against the Turks starting in 1821. The state of Greece has been born but parts of Greece are still missing till 1948 when Dodecanese were ceded to the Greek State of Italians.

Geography of Greece

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Greece is located on the southernmost tip of the Balkan Peninsula in Southern Europe with many islands in Ionian Sea on the west and Aegean Sea on the east. It shares borders with Albania, the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and Bulgaria in the north and Turkey in the east. Greece spans an area of 131.940 sq. km. and a population of 10.688.058 residents. It is member of the European Union and its currency is the euro. The geographical specific nature of Greece is the intense diversity of the landscape with a mainly mountainous mainland and numerous of idyllic islands scattered in both the Ionian and Aegean Seas. The capital city is Athens and some of the most famous islands are: Santorini, Mykonos, Corfu, Rhodes and Crete.