10 Day Greece Itinerary

10 day Greece itinerary plans gather ten days of places across mainland Greece and its islands. The trips behind such plans run through Athens, Attica, the Cyclades and Crete, led by a host. Early sections cover the geography of Greece, the National Archaeological Museum, Piraeus and the Benaki Museum. Next come the Museum of Cycladic Art, the Byzantine and Christian Museum, Thiseio, Koukaki, Gazi, Kifisia and Glyfada. Mykonos, Santorini, Crete and Greek food come later. Sister pages cover Greece tour packages, Greece island hopping tours and the classical Greece tour. The full list of trips sits under Greece tours.

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What is a 10 day Greece itinerary?

10 day Greece itinerary means a list of places for ten days in Greece. Itinerary is the word for a journey’s planned route. Greece sits mainly on the Balkan Peninsula, in Europe’s southeast. A peninsula is land wrapped by sea on three sides.

On a 10 day Greece itinerary, Albania, North Macedonia and Bulgaria form the northern neighbours. Turkey lies across the eastern border. Border means the dividing line between two countries’ lands. To the west, the Ionian Sea separates Greece from Italy. Italy therefore sits on the opposite side of the Ionian Sea.

Across central Greece runs the Pindus range, on a northwest to southeast line. Range here names a long chain of linked summits. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, the Isthmus of Corinth ties the Peloponnese to the mainland. Isthmus is the term for a slim land bridge joining two larger landmasses.

To the south, the mainland narrows into Epirus, Thessaly and Central Greece. Each one counts as a region, meaning a large named slice of the country. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, Central Greece holds the region of Attica and the capital city, Athens. Capital refers to the city that houses a nation’s government.

• Island count: One common count lists 1,425 Greek islands, with 166 said to be inhabited.
• Largest islands: Crete ranks as the largest Greek island, and Euboea follows in second place.
• Land borders: Greece’s land borders with its neighbours run to about 1,110 kilometres in total.

A 10 day Greece itinerary spans a country whose latitude runs from 35 to 42 degrees north. Latitude gives the distance of a spot from the equator, counted in degrees. The equator is an imagined ring around the middle of the planet.

Why does a 10 day Greece itinerary single out the National Archaeological Museum?

A 10 day Greece itinerary in Athens shares the capital with the National Archaeological Museum. Its finds come from sites all over Greece. They stretch from prehistory, the age before writing, to late antiquity. Late antiquity marks the closing phase of the ancient world.

The Cycladic rooms take their name from the Cyclades, an Aegean island group. Their marble figurines, or small carved statues, came from island cemeteries of the 3rd millennium BC. A millennium covers a full thousand years. Bronze tools and containers were found with them. The figures look like modern art, and Henry Moore was one artist they inspired.

The bulk of the Egyptian collection came from two donors, Ioannis Dimitriou and Alexandros Rostovic. A donor hands over a gift with no payment in return. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, Dimitriou gave his share in 1880. Rostovic followed with his share in 1904. Each such gift goes by the name donation.

One Egyptian exhibit is a loaf of bread about 3000 years old. A bite-sized chunk is missing from the loaf. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, the Stathatos collection holds about 1000 objects, mainly jewels. They run from the Middle Bronze Age to the post-Byzantine era. Post-Byzantine means the years after Byzantine rule ended.

• Find sites: Objects in the halls come from places such as Vari Cave and the Antikythera wreck.
• Olympic link: A fired-clay statuette called daidala inspired the Athens Olympic mascots, Athena and Phevos.
• Library: The archaeology library holds about 20,000 volumes, with rare editions from the 17th century.

On a 10 day Greece itinerary, the Egyptian rooms put 1100 artefacts on show to the public. An artefact is any object shaped by human hands. Each one belongs to the wider Egyptian collection held inside the same museum building.

Which past does a 10 day Greece itinerary meet in Piraeus?

A 10 day Greece itinerary centred on Athens counts Piraeus as part of the same urban area. This port city lies in the Attica region. Port city names a town that grew up around a harbour. Urban area means one continuous built-up zone.

People have lived at Piraeus from the 26th century BC, if not earlier. BC marks years counted back from the traditional birth of Christ. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, the port also carries an old Greek name, Porto Drako. Drako meant not only dragon but any monster. Porto is the Italian-style word for port.

Two early tries at a new town failed. The first brought settlers from Hydra in 1792. The second, in 1825, placed people from Psara there. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, Piraeus has its fresh start in 1829, when permanent settlement resumed. Permanent here means lasting, not short-lived.

For a 10 day Greece itinerary, the municipality of Piraeus dates from 1835. Its founding revived the ancient name, Piraeus. Municipality is the Greek term for a self-governing town, headed by a mayor. To revive a name is to bring it back into use. Ancient refers to the age of the old Greek city-states.

• Area: The municipality of Piraeus covers an area of 10.865 square kilometres.
• Carnival start: The Three Kings’ Way Festival in Piraeus opens the carnival season, complete with costumes.
• Northern edge: Mount Aigaleo bounds Piraeus on the northwest, while the Saronic Gulf lies south and west.

In the Kastella quarter of Piraeus lies the Cave of Arethusa, from prehistoric times. Prehistoric refers to the long age before written records. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, the Syrangion there is thought to honour the local hero Syrango.

How does the Benaki Museum widen a 10 day Greece itinerary through Greek history?

A 10 day Greece itinerary names the Benaki Museum as one Athens home of Greek history. Over 100,000 artefacts from that history fill its rooms. They trace the eras and cultures that shaped the country. Culture covers the customs, beliefs and arts a people share.

For a 10 day Greece itinerary, the museum’s founding family, the Benakis, lived in Alexandria, Egypt. More than 9,000 artefacts joined the collection by the 1970s. Those additions spurred gifts from other sources. Collection here means the museum’s whole body of held objects. Spurred means urged others into action.

The museum does not centre on nationalism. Nationalism is a strong stress on one’s own nation above others. Instead, it recognises and celebrates foreign influences on Greek culture. In 2005 an ancient Greek solid gold drinking cup left Greece for the first time. It travelled to a museum in Sydney, Australia.

Parts of the collections have travelled far beyond Greece. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, the Benaki collections count a visit to Canada in 2008. Earlier, in 1959, they reached the United States. That American journey ran in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution. A partnership is a project shared between two bodies.

• Islamic art: The Islamic collection, from lands shaped by Islam, spans the 7th through the 19th centuries.
• Gift of a building: Lambros Eftaxias donated the building complex that houses the Islamic art collection.
• Floor space: The Islamic art museum fills more than 1,000 square metres of remodelled space.

Across a 10 day Greece itinerary, the Benaki Islamic collection holds rich Ottoman art. The pieces date from the empire’s peak in the 16th century. A peak marks the height of a power. Ottoman art is the art of that Turkish empire and its court.

What does a 10 day Greece itinerary gain from the Museum of Cycladic Art?

A 10 day Greece itinerary counts the Museum of Cycladic Art, dating from 1986, among Athens collections. It was set up to house the art of Nikolaos and Dolly Goulandris. Their holdings mix Cycladic pieces with ancient Greek works of art.

For a 10 day Greece itinerary, the couple began collecting Greek antiquities in the early 1960s. Antiquities are objects that survive from the ancient past. Their special interest lay in prehistoric art from the Cyclades islands of the Aegean Sea. Collecting means seeking out and buying such pieces over time.

For a 10 day Greece itinerary, the Stathatos Mansion dates from 1895. Ernst Ziller, a Saxon-Greek architect, built it for Othon and Athina Stathatos. Mansion names a grand house of generous size. It remained the family’s residence until 1938. Residence is the formal word for the place where someone lives.

The mansion is made of two nearly symmetrical wings. Symmetrical means each half mirrors the other. An entrance and a cylindrical atrium, or central hall, link them. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, the museum took over this neo-classical mansion in 1991. Neo-classical building revives the forms of ancient Greece and Rome.

• Collection size: The permanent collection of the museum includes over 3,000 items.
• Island culture: Cycladic island culture thrived between about 3300 and 1100 BCE, before the Common Era.
• Folded arms: The best-known surviving Cycladic artwork is a marble figure, commonly female with folded arms.

For a 10 day Greece itinerary, the Cycladic figurines show smooth blank faces apart from a sharp nose. Traces on a number of them show they were first painted in colour. Figurine means a statue at small scale; blank means bare of carved features.

In what way does the Byzantine and Christian Museum shape a 10 day Greece itinerary of Athens?

A 10 day Greece itinerary takes note of Vassilissis Sofias Avenue, home of the Byzantine and Christian Museum. The word Christian in its title points to art made for that faith. An avenue is a broad street running through the heart of a city.

Byzantine art covers works of the Byzantine Empire and of states that inherited its culture. Inherited here means taken over from an earlier power. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, that empire lasted until the Conquest of Constantinople in 1453. A conquest is the capture of a place by force.

In the 9th and 10th centuries, patronage of Byzantine art and architecture increased. Patronage is the backing that wealthy sponsors give to artists and builders. At the same time, the empire’s military situation improved. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, those two centuries stand out for rising support of Byzantine art.

For a 10 day Greece itinerary, Stamatios Kleanthis and Eduard Schaubert drew an Athens city plan in 1832. The plan held broad avenues, gardens and large public buildings. It also gave Athens its first street names. A city plan maps out where streets and buildings will go. Public buildings are those that serve the whole community.

• The villa: The museum is housed in Villa Ilissia, which Stamatios Kleanthis designed.
• Completion: Kleanthis finished the Duchess of Plaisance’s tower in 1841, then completed Villa Ilissia in 1848.
• River name: The Ilisia district takes its name from the Ilisos river, rising near Kaisariani on Mount Hymettus.

A 10 day Greece itinerary near Athens also names the Daphni Monastery among major surviving Middle Byzantine churches. Monastery names a house of monks who follow a shared rule of prayer. Middle Byzantine names the central stage of Byzantine art history.

Where does Thiseio sit within a 10 day Greece itinerary of old Athens?

A 10 day Greece itinerary in old Athens shares its streets with Thiseio, a traditional neighbourhood. It lies northwest of the Acropolis, inside the old city of Athens. Neighbourhood here means a small district with its own name and character.

On a 10 day Greece itinerary, the name Thiseio refers to the Temple of Hephaestus. People once wrongly called that temple the Thiseion. The mistaken name pointed to Theseus, the mythical king of Athens. Mythical means drawn from myth, the old sacred stories of a people. A temple is a building raised to honour a god.

Apostolou Pavlou is a pedestrian street that meets Dionysiou Areopagitou Street. A pedestrian street is kept for people on foot, not for cars. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, Thiseio holds the two synagogues of Athens. They are known as Etz Chaim and Beth Shalom. Synagogue is the name for a place of Jewish worship and study.

The Pnyx lies less than 1 kilometre west of the Acropolis. From as early as 507 BC, citizens of Athens met there for popular assemblies. Assembly here means a gathering of citizens to debate and decide. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, this hill ranks among the earliest sites in the creation of democracy.

• Digs: Excavations began in 1910 and confirmed the hillside site as the Pnyx.
• Speakers: Pericles, Aristides and Alcibiades were among the speakers heard at the Pnyx.
• Equal speech: The Pnyx embodies isegoria, meaning each citizen’s equal right to speak on policy.

A 10 day Greece itinerary finds Thiseio ringed by three archaeological sites: the Agora, Keramikos and the Pnyx. Archaeology studies the human past through the things people left behind. Ringed means surrounded on every side. Keramikos and the Agora sit close beside the neighbourhood.

Which stories does Koukaki hold for a 10 day Greece itinerary of the capital?

A 10 day Greece itinerary around Athens lists Koukaki, a neighbourhood in the southeast of the city. Southeast is the compass point halfway between south and east. Such a district forms one named part of the wider capital city.

For a 10 day Greece itinerary, Makrygianni and the historic district of Plaka border Koukaki to the north. Makrygianni takes its name from Ioannis Makrygiannis, who served as a general in the War of Independence. General is the rank of an officer leading large bodies of troops. He once owned a house and fields in that area.

On a 10 day Greece itinerary, Andrea Syngrou Avenue marks the border between Koukaki and Neos Kosmos. Neos Kosmos is Greek for New World. The avenue is an important road in Athens. It links the city centre with Poseidonos Avenue to the south. A border here is the dividing edge between two districts.

Andreas Syngros planned and built that avenue, which later took his name. Koukaki also holds a large weekly vegetable market on every Friday. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, that market is a fixed weekly event in the district. A market here means a gathering of stalls selling fresh produce.

• Old brewery: The ruins of a brewery on Syngrou Avenue now house the National Museum of Contemporary Art.
• Museum date: That museum of present-day, or contemporary, art was established in October 2000.
• Main streets: Veikou and Dimitrakopoulou, its two largest streets, run north to south and south to north.

A 10 day Greece itinerary notes the composer Mikis Theodorakis among famous Koukaki residents, past and present. Composer is the title for someone who creates musical works. He lived from 1925 to 2021. Residents are the people who make their homes in a place.

In a 10 day Greece itinerary, what role does Gazi play around the old gasworks?

A 10 day Greece itinerary in Athens holds Gazi, a neighbourhood wrapped around the old city gasworks. A gasworks is a factory that made fuel gas for a city. Today the site serves as Technopolis, an industrial museum and exhibition space.

The old gasworks was founded in 1857. Founded means set up and started. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, the mid-20th century brought small homes with large gardens around the plant. These dwellings had only a small number of rooms. Dwelling is an older word for a house. The plant here means the gas factory itself.

The area was mainly home to crate makers. Crate names a slatted wooden box used to carry goods. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, Gazi also has a multicultural school, the 87th Elementary School of Athens. Multicultural means drawing pupils from more than one culture and faith. Elementary is the term for a primary school for young children.

In July 1986, the culture minister Melina Merkouri declared the factory a listed building. A listed building is protected by law for its history or design. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, the former gas plant thus holds official protected status. Minister here means the government member in charge of culture.

• Size: Technopolis spreads across an area of about 30,000 square metres.
• Museum branch: The Benaki Museum also runs a branch inside the Gazi area.
• Walking link: Footpaths along Ermou Street connect Gazi with the nearby Thissio neighbourhood.

A 10 day Greece itinerary dates Technopolis as a cultural focal point from 30 September 1987. On that day it became central to the cultural identity of Athens. A focal point is a centre that draws attention. The city of Athens helped bring the change about.

How far back does Kifisia’s story reach for a 10 day Greece itinerary of Attica?

A 10 day Greece itinerary around Athens has Kifisia in the northern part of the urban area. It is a large suburban municipality. Suburban describes the home districts beyond a city’s centre. The name also appears as Kifissia in English.

The geographer Strabo listed Cephisia among the twelve original cities of Attica. King Cecrops, the mythical first king of Athens, founded those cities. A geographer studies and describes the lands of the Earth. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, the name Cephisia came from the Cephisus river. Cephisia is the ancient form of the name Kifisia.

The dramatist Menander was born in Kifisia, in ancient times. Dramatist is the word for an author of stage plays. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, Herodes Atticus counts as the builder of the Villa Cephisia. He made it his personal estate. An estate is a large house with its own grounds.

The traveller Evliya Çelebi described the crisp white cherries of Kifisia as famous. Crisp means firm and fresh to the bite. A cherry is a small round fruit with a hard stone at its heart. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, Kifisia thus carries an old fame for white cherries.

• Distance: Kifisia lies 12 kilometres northeast of central Athens, in central Attica.
• Area: The wider municipality of Kifisia covers an area of 35.1 square kilometres.
• Flower festival: Kifisia Grove is the home of a yearly spring flower festival, still held today.

A 10 day Greece itinerary also finds the Goulandris Museum of Natural History in the heart of Kifisia. Its exhibits show Greek nature and wildlife, fossils among them. A fossil is the stony trace of a plant or animal from long ago.

What does a 10 day Greece itinerary find in Glyfada on the Saronic coast?

A 10 day Greece itinerary on the Athens Riviera meets Glyfada, a town by the Saronic Gulf. Riviera names a stretch of coast lined with seaside towns. A gulf is a broad arm of the sea reaching into the land.

Glyfada runs from the base of Mount Hymettus to the shore of the Saronic Gulf. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, ancient Aixone was the deme on this ground. Deme is the ancient term for a township inside the Athenian state. Base here means the lowest slopes of a mountain.

By one view, Glyfada is a strongly Americanised municipality of Athens. Americanised describes a place shaped by the habits of the United States. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, the cause is an American airbase near the town. That base remained in place until the early 1990s. An airbase is a home field for military aircraft.

When the 20th century opened, the town already bore the name Glyfada. The name came from the salt-water wells typical of the area. A well is a shaft dug down to reach water underground. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, Nella Golanda’s Aixoni Quarry Sculpted Theatre fills an old Hymettus quarry.

• Area: Glyfada’s municipal land measures 25.366 square kilometres, on the Athens Riviera.
• Twin towns: Glyfada is formally paired, or twinned, with Bayside in Australia, Niš in Serbia and Gżira in Malta.
• Water polo: The town is the seat of ANO Glyfada, a club holding honours in Greek water polo.

A 10 day Greece itinerary in Glyfada spans districts such as Ano Glyfada, Terpsithea, Evriali and Eksoni. Each district forms a named quarter within the municipality. Ano Glyfada means Upper Glyfada in Greek. Kolimvitirio and Pirnari are two more of its districts.

What does Chora, the main town of Mykonos, add to a 10 day Greece itinerary?

10 day Greece itinerary readers meet the word Chora on Mykonos. There it is a second name for the main town, which also bears the name Mykonos. In Greek, the word Chora simply means ‘Town’, a plain label for the principal settlement of the island.

At the 2021 census, Mykonos counted 10,704 inhabitants. The larger share of them lived in its largest town, also called Mykonos. A census counts every resident of a place in one official survey. For readers of a 10 day Greece itinerary, that town sits on the island’s western shore.

Chora contains a neighbourhood called Kastro, where a medieval castle once stood. In those days, a castle meant a strong wall around a settlement. The church of Panagia Paraportiani stands in Kastro; Panagia is a Greek title for the Virgin Mary. The Ghisi family, who then ruled Mykonos, built the castle in 1207.

The 16th century saw the old castle destroyed. Its remains vanished beneath new buildings as the town of Chora spread outward in the 18th century. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, one Greek custom explains the town’s name. Throughout Greece, a principal town is commonly called Chora when it shares its island’s name.

• Revolution: Mykonos took a major part in the 1821 Greek Revolution, led by Manto Mavrogenous.
• Statue: A statue of Manto Mavrogenous stands in the middle of the main town’s square named after her.
• Library: The Municipal Library of Mykonos stands on Ayia Kyriaki Square, inside the main town of Chora.

A 10 day Greece itinerary reader hears of the Kato Mili in Chora, Greek for lower mills. These windmills stand side by side in one row along a hill. From that height, the row of mills looks out over the sea below.

Which story does Panagia Tourliani give a 10 day Greece itinerary?

10 day Greece itinerary readers hear of Panagia Tourliani as the leading monastery of Mykonos. The monastery takes its name from the island’s patron saint. The term patron saint names the holy protector linked to a place or a group.

For a 10 day Greece itinerary, tradition credits fugitive monks from Paros with building Panagia Tourliani. They had fled the Archontissa of Paros and asked Mykonos for asylum. Asylum means safe shelter for people who are escaping danger. Monks are men who live together in a religious community under shared rules of prayer.

The monastery was founded in 1542, replacing an older church named after the Entrances of Panagia. Between 1757 and 1767, the hieromonk Ignatios Basoula renovated it. A hieromonk is a priest who has also taken a monk’s vows. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, Panagia means All-holy, a Greek name for the Virgin Mary.

The catholicon, meaning the main church of a monastery, has three aisles in a cross shape. Its Byzantine design, from the eastern Roman tradition, adds a dome and a high spire of marble. Its iconostasis, a screen of holy images, runs 10.20 metres long. That screen stretches across all three aisles of the church.

• Icon: Tradition holds that Luke the Evangelist painted the miraculous Virgin Mary icon kept by the monastery.
• Museum: A church museum inside the monastery shows icons, gold-embroidered epitaphs and the monastery’s first bells.
• Festival: On August 15, a big festival takes place at the monastery.

The monastery gave plots of its own land free of charge. A primary school, a kindergarten, a spiritual centre and a square were created on those plots. Readers of a 10 day Greece itinerary find these places rooted in monastery land.

How does the hill village of Pyrgos fit a 10 day Greece itinerary?

10 day Greece itinerary travellers come across Pyrgos Kallistis on Santorini, a name that means ‘Beauty Tower’. The village also goes by the shorter name Pyrgos, which means ‘Tower’. Both names refer to a village in the Cyclades archipelago, meaning a scattered chain of islands.

Readers weighing a 10 day Greece itinerary find that Pyrgos had 1,078 residents at the 2021 census. The village was built on a hill, laid out like an amphitheatre. That kind of theatre is round or oval, with seats climbing in rings around a central stage.

The ruins of Kasteli, a Venetian castle, survive on the top of the hill. Kasteli was once the administrative centre of Santorini. An administrative centre is the seat from which officials run an area. On Santorini, casteli, also spelled kasteli, were large settlements that were fortified and permanent. Fortified means guarded by strong walls.

Pyrgos serves as a typical case of medieval architecture. Its narrow streets twist like a labyrinth, meaning a maze of winding paths. Fortified walls and hidden passages also form part of the old village. A 10 day Greece itinerary reader learns of these features as marks of the village’s medieval past.

• Five casteli: Santorini held five casteli, at Agios Nikolaos in Oia, Akrotiri, Emborio, Pyrgos and Skaros.
• Gate church: Every casteli entrance had a church for Saint Theodosia, protector saint of castles.
• Old legend: A legend recorded in 1701 says Emperor Alexios I Komnenos gave land outside Pyrgos to Panagia Episkopi.

Pyrgos today ranks among the Santorini villages that tourism has spoiled least. Put plainly, the growth of tourism has altered it less than other island villages. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, that record sets Pyrgos apart from its neighbours on Santorini.

Why is Panagia Episkopi a name worth knowing for a 10 day Greece itinerary?

10 day Greece itinerary planners learn of Panagia Episkopi, a former cathedral on Santorini. Today it serves as a church built in the middle-Byzantine style. Its name opens with Panagia, meaning ‘All-holy’, a Greek Orthodox title for the Virgin Mary.

An old inscription, now almost wholly destroyed, records who ordered the building. It names the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, at the end of the 11th century. A 10 day Greece itinerary reader finds the church low on the northern slopes of Profitis Ilias. That peak is the highest mountain on Santorini.

Until 1207, Panagia Episkopi served as the seat of Santorini’s Orthodox diocese. Between 1537 and 1827 it filled that role once more. A diocese is an area of churches under one bishop, and a cathedral is its main church. Anyone reading a 10 day Greece itinerary meets the name Episkopi, meaning episcopal, or tied to a bishop.

The floor plan forms a Greek cross, measuring 14 metres in length and 11.1 metres in width. Where the arms meet, a dome rises on a drum-shaped base. The iconostasis is a screen of icons that sets the altar area apart. Its lower part keeps the original furnishings from the building of the church around 1100.

• Frescoes: Researcher Anastasios Orlandos dated the wall paintings, called frescoes, to 1100.
• Protection: Since 1962, Panagia Episkopi has ranked as a protected monument.
• Theft: Two modern icons replace 17th-century icons that thieves stole from the church in 1982.

Every 15th of August, the old cathedral becomes the centre of the Dormition feast. Dormition means falling asleep, the Orthodox word for the Virgin Mary’s death. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, the day ranks as the leading Orthodox celebration of the Virgin.

Where does Nea Kameni, the young volcano of Santorini, sit for a 10 day Greece itinerary?

10 day Greece itinerary research covers Nea Kameni, a small Greek island of volcanic origin. It lies inside the flooded caldera of Santorini, and nobody lives on it. A caldera is the huge bowl left when a volcano collapses into itself.

Its name means ‘new burnt’, while its neighbour, Palea Kameni, means ‘old burnt’. Both islands have grown over the past two thousand years. Eruption after eruption of dacite lava and ash built them up. Dacite is a pale, silica-rich volcanic rock. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, the pair sits close together in the caldera.

An undersea volcano broke through the sea surface in 1707. That event created the present centre of activity at Nea Kameni. Major eruptions ran from 1707 to 1712 and from 1866 to 1870. Later ones followed from 1925 to 1928 and from 1939 to 1941. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, those were the strongest spells.

The last small eruption took place in 1950. It squeezed out a lava dome, which is a rounded mound of stiff lava over a vent. A vent is an opening through which gas, ash or lava escapes from below. Scientists call this process extrusion, which means pushing material out through an opening.

• Size: Nea Kameni is nearly round, roughly 2 kilometres wide, and covers 3.4 square kilometres.
• Plants: In summer, red grassy succulents, which are water-storing plants, carpet the thin soil.
• Gases: Steam and carbon dioxide still rise from the island’s present active crater.

Between 2011 and 2012, satellite radar revealed that the magma chamber under the volcano had swollen. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, the swelling came to 10 to 20 million cubic metres. Magma is melted rock that lies below the ground.

What lies beneath the sea at Kolumbo for a 10 day Greece itinerary?

10 day Greece itinerary notes touch on Kolumbo, a submarine volcano still active beneath the Aegean Sea. It lies northeast of Cape Kolumbo on Santorini. Submarine here means under the sea, so the volcano erupts from the seabed instead of dry land.

For a 10 day Greece itinerary, Kolumbo ranks as the biggest of about twenty underwater volcanic cones. These cones form a line that runs northeast from Santorini. A cone is the hill of ash and rock that builds up around a volcanic opening. Kolumbo measures about 3 kilometres in diameter, and its crater spans 1.5 kilometres.

Humans first noticed Kolumbo when it broke the sea surface in 1649–1650. An eruption in 1650 then sent pyroclastic flows across the water to Santorini. A pyroclastic flow is a racing avalanche of scorching gas, ash and rock fragments. About seventy people and a large number of animals died along Santorini’s shores and slopes.

Even at its highest points, the crater rim now sits about 10 metres below sea level. The rim is the raised edge circling the top of the crater. The crater itself is the hollow, shaped like a bowl, at the volcano’s mouth. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, even the summit of Kolumbo lies under the water.

• Crater floor: About 505 metres down, the crater floor holds hot-water vents, called hydrothermal vents, in its northeast.
• Chimneys: Vent water as hot as 224 degrees Celsius has built metal-rich chimneys up to 4 metres tall.
• Hidden chamber: Scientists announced in October 2022 a magma chamber found 2 to 4 kilometres below sea level.

The Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program treats Kolumbo as part of the Santorini volcano. At least one source, however, sees it as a separate magma system. A 10 day Greece itinerary reader meets a volcano whose links to Santorini are still debated.

How does the island of Thirasia relate to a 10 day Greece itinerary?

10 day Greece itinerary background notes Thirasia, an island also spelled Therasia. It forms part of the Santorini group of volcanic islands in the Greek Cyclades. Volcanic here means made by eruptions of melted rock that rise from deep below the ground.

Thirasia is the group’s second largest island. Thera, the main island of Santorini, is by far the largest of the group. Both islands were once a single stretch of land, until the Thera eruption split them apart. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, that split left Thirasia standing as its own island.

Thirasia spreads over 9.299 square kilometres of land. One square kilometre is a square block of land, each edge one kilometre long. At the 2021 census, 249 inhabitants made their homes on the island. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, the figure 9.299 means a little over nine square kilometres.

Manolas is both the capital of Thirasia and its main settlement. A capital is the town where the local government of an area sits. The village lies in the east of the island. It perches above the steep Santorini caldera, the sunken bowl of an old volcano. Steep here means dropping sharply, almost straight down.

• Village style: Manolas keeps a traditional Cycladic look: small cube-shaped houses, white walls and narrow streets.
• Kera: Near Manolas stand the empty settlement of Kera and the Cycladic monastery of Panagia Trypiti.
• Water: Small drinking water units, each able to make 6 cubic metres a day, stand on Thirasia.

From Nea Kameni, Thirasia lies off to the north-west. Volcanic activity built that small island in recent centuries, and it marks the centre of the group. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, the young island at the centre sits to the south-east of Thirasia.

What did Ancient Thera on Mesa Vouno leave behind for a 10 day Greece itinerary?

10 day Greece itinerary history takes note of Ancient Thera, an archaeological site from classical times on Santorini. The ruins crown a limestone hill called Mesa Vouno. Limestone is a light-coloured stone built up from the shells and skeletons of ancient sea creatures.

Doric colonists from Sparta founded the city. They saw strategic value in its position on a rocky ridge. Colonists are people who move from their home city to found a new one. Strategic means useful for defence or for control of an area. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, Ancient Thera stands as a city with Spartan roots.

In the late 3rd century BCE, its harbour served as base for the Ptolemaic Aegean navy. Ptolemaic refers to the Greek kings who ruled Egypt after Alexander the Great. In the year 726, a fairly small eruption of the Santorini volcano buried the city under pumice. Pumice is a light volcanic rock full of tiny holes.

A 10 day Greece itinerary reader meets the agora, the city’s main square, about 110 metres long. Its width runs between 17 and 30 metres along the mountain ridge. Beside it stands the Basilike Stoa, a huge portico measuring 46 by 10 metres. A portico is a covered entrance with a roof carried on columns.

• Theatre: Built in the 2nd century, the theatre held about 1,500 spectators, beyond the city’s own needs.
• Building stone: Every building in the city was made from local limestone from the mountain itself.
• Excavation: From 1895 until 1904, Friedrich Hiller von Gaertringen carried out a systematic study of the city.

Up into the 5th century, Thera remained the only urban settlement on Santorini. Urban means belonging to a town rather than to the countryside. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, this hilltop city once held all town life on the island.

How is the Assyrtiko grape linked to a 10 day Greece itinerary?

10 day Greece itinerary wine notes pick up the name Assyrtiko on Santorini. This white wine grape is native to the island. Native, or indigenous, means it began there rather than arriving from elsewhere. The grape also goes by the spelling Asyrtiko.

For a 10 day Greece itinerary, Assyrtiko grows widely in the dry, ash-rich soil of Santorini. Paros and other Aegean islands grow it as well. On Santorini, a large share of its vineyards are old and grow on their own roots. Santorini is widely called phylloxera-free, meaning free of a tiny insect that ruins vine roots.

On Santorini, growers keep the vines close to the ground, coiled into baskets called kouloura. Such baskets guard the fruit against strong winds and the sun. Yields per hectare on Santorini reach only 10 to 20% of those common in France or California. Farmers measure their fields in hectares, a metric unit of land area.

In the volcanic soil of Santorini, Assyrtiko holds on to its acidity even in very ripe grapes. Acidity is the sharp, fresh taste that natural fruit acids give to wine. Ripe means fully grown and sweet. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, Assyrtiko counts as a grape of both ripeness and acidity.

• Clusters: Assyrtiko clusters are large, with clear yellow-gold skin and juicy flesh inside each grape.
• Other names: The grape also goes under the names Arcytico, Assirtico, Assyrtico and Asurtico.
• To America: Harold Olmo brought the original Assyrtiko cuttings, or vine pieces for planting, into the USA in 1948.

A wine labelled Santorini must hold 75% or more Assyrtiko. The remaining 25% comes from the local white grapes Athiri, Aidani or both. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, that rule makes Assyrtiko the main grape of the Santorini wine.

Which sweet wine tradition does Vinsanto add to a 10 day Greece itinerary?

10 day Greece itinerary wine lovers find Vinsanto, a sweet and strong dessert wine of Santorini. Its grapes, Assyrtiko, Athiri and Aidani, are dried in the sun before use. A dessert wine is a sweet wine drunk with or after the last course.

The name Vinsanto comes from Italian and means ‘holy wine’. Packages taken from Santorini were labelled ‘Santo’ to mark where they came from. A label is a written tag that shows what a package holds or where it began. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, that label pointed straight back to the island of Santorini.

Wine shipped from the island was marked ‘vin’ or ‘vino’, the Italian words for wine. Those two labels together gave rise to the term Vinsanto. In 2002, the European Union ruled that Vinsanto came from Santorini. The decision gave the island sole rights to use the name Vinsanto on its sweet wines.

To carry the Vinsanto label on Santorini, a wine must be made mainly from Assyrtiko, at least 51%. The remaining 49% comes from Athiri, Aidani and small amounts of other local white grapes. Percent means parts out of each hundred. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, Vinsanto counts as a wine led by Assyrtiko.

• Taste: Vinsanto matures into a sweet, dark amber-orange wine with hints of nuts, raisins, figs, honey and tea.
• Strength: Vinsanto must reach a minimum alcohol level of 9% abv, meaning alcohol by volume.
• No added sugar: Vinsanto skips chaptalisation, the adding of sugar, and relies solely on the sugars and acids its grapes hold.

Santorini wine reached the Greek fleet in April 1821, in a gift of 100 barrels. The island had not openly backed the revolt, yet it still sent them. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, the barrels place Santorini wine in the story of that year.

Why does the Minoan eruption matter to a 10 day Greece itinerary?

10 day Greece itinerary study looks back to the Minoan eruption, a catastrophic volcanic blast around 1600 BC. It devastated Thera, the island also called Santorini. Minoan names the Bronze Age culture that flourished on the island of Crete in ancient times.

Its centre was a small island lying just to the north of present-day Nea Kameni. It reached a Volcanic Explosivity Index, or VEI, of 7. That index rates the size of eruptions on a scale from zero upward. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, the blast ranks among the largest volcanic events of human history.

On Santorini, a layer of white tephra 60 metres thick lies over the old ground. Tephra means the ash and broken rock blasted out by a volcano. Archaeologists at the Akrotiri site have found no human remains. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, early volcanic activity appears to have driven the islanders away.

Volcanologists class the eruption as Plinian. Its column of ash and gas climbed an estimated 30 to 35 kilometres, reaching the stratosphere. The stratosphere is the layer of air above the one where weather forms. Plinian eruptions are violent blasts that throw huge columns of ash high into the sky.

• Tsunamis: Waves 35 to 150 metres high struck Crete’s north coast at a distance of 110 kilometres.
• Akrotiri: The eruption destroyed the Minoan town at Akrotiri and farmland on nearby islands and Crete’s coast.
• Time marker: Its tephra serves as a dating layer in nearly every archaeological site of the Eastern Mediterranean.

The Minoan eruption has been seen as a possible inspiration for ancient tales, including the story of Atlantis. Atlantis is a legendary island said to have sunk beneath the sea. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, the Atlantis link stays a possible inspiration, not a proven one.

What does a 10 day Greece itinerary gain from Rethymno?

A 10 day Greece itinerary on Crete turns to Rethymno, home to over 35,000 inhabitants. Rethymno also heads the regional unit that bears its name. The city is believed to stand where the earlier city of Rhithymna once lay.

Rethymno grew when its Venetian conquerors made it a trading station. The station lay midway between Heraklion and Chania. A trading station is a base for merchants. In that period the town acquired a bishop and nobles of its own. A bishop leads the church in a district, and nobles are families of high rank.

The Ottoman Empire conquered the town in 1646. The conquest came during the Cretan War, which lasted from 1645 until 1669. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, Resmo is the old Turkish name of Rethymno. Under Ottoman rule, Resmo served as the seat of a sanjak. A sanjak was an administrative part of a province.

In 1937, the writer Pandelis Prevelakis published The Chronicle of a Town. The book paints a nostalgic picture of Rethymno. Its story begins in the period of the Cretan State, in 1898. Nostalgic means fondly longing for a past time. Within a 10 day Greece itinerary, Rethymno is the town that Prevelakis described.

• Venetian quarter: The Republic of Venice built almost all of the old town, called palia poli in Greek.
• Old streets: Buildings in the town date from the 16th century, with arched doorways and stone staircases.
• Playwright: Georgios Chortatzis, a Rethymno writer of plays in Cretan verse, lived from 1545 to 1610.

Each year at the beginning of July, the town holds a wine festival. Wine is made by fermenting grape juice. Fermenting means letting yeast turn sugar into alcohol. In a 10 day Greece itinerary, Rethymno stands as a city with its own summer wine festival.

Where does Agios Nikolaos sit for a 10 day Greece itinerary east of Heraklion?

A 10 day Greece itinerary east of Heraklion comes to Agios Nikolaos, a town on the Cretan coast. The cities of Ierapetra and Sitia sit south and east of it. In 2021, 13,605 people lived in the town. The wider municipality counted 27,785 inhabitants.

Agios Nikolaos is a common place name across Greece and Cyprus. Sailors, and Greece as a whole, have Saint Nicholas as their patron saint. A patron saint is a saint thought to guard a certain group or country. The Greek word agios means saint, while Nikolaos is the Greek form of Nicholas.

For a 10 day Greece itinerary, Lake Voulismeni marks the middle of the town. The lake is round, with a diameter of 137 metres. Its depth is 48.8 metres. Soldiers of the French Army dug a channel in 1907 to link it with the harbour. A channel here is a narrow waterway cut by people.

Near the town lies Priniatikos Pyrgos, a site of ancient remains. People stayed active there through the Minoan, Classical Greek and Roman ages. Altogether, that activity spanned up to 4,000 years. A host on a 10 day Greece itinerary can explain Minoan as Crete’s Bronze Age culture.

• Old survey: Captain Thomas Spratt once measured the lake’s depth as 64 metres, or 210 feet.
• Old nickname: When the lake turned stagnant, or still and stale, locals called it Vromolimni, the stinky lake.
• Legend: A legend says that the goddess Athena once bathed in Lake Voulismeni.

Agios Nikolaos became internationally known during the 1960s. In that decade, film directors discovered the town. A film director is in charge of the actors and crew who make a film. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, Agios Nikolaos is the Cretan town that cinema found.

Which ancient city came before Elounda for a 10 day Greece itinerary on Crete?

A 10 day Greece itinerary on Crete’s northern coast looks to Elounda, a small town. Its name is also spelt Elounta or Elouda. The 2021 census counted 2,254 people in its community. In a census, officials record every resident of a place.

The earliest recorded settlement at Elounda was Olous, a city of ancient Greece. Towards the close of the Ancient Greek period, the sea took back the bulk of Olous. Parts of the sunken city remain under the water of Elounda bay. Within a 10 day Greece itinerary, Olous is the drowned forerunner of modern Elounda.

Olous once had a temple to Britomartis. Her wooden statue in the temple was set up by Daedalus. Daedalus is the mythical father of Cretan art. Mythical means belonging to old stories rather than to recorded history. A temple is a holy building raised for a god or goddess.

The people of Olous had long boundary quarrels with Lato, a fortified hilltop town. In the end, the citizens of both cities agreed a treaty. Treaty here means a binding written agreement of peace. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, Lato and Olous recall a long quarrel that ended in peace.

• Seven villages: Seven villages and one island area with no residents together form Elounda.
• Schisma: Schisma has by far the biggest population of these villages and counts as Elounda Centre.
• Coins: Old coins struck at Olous carried the likeness of Britomartis.

Elounda features in The Island, a novel by Victoria Hislop. Greek television turned the book into a mini series in the winter of 2010-11. A mini series is a short television drama. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, Elounda appears in this story.

What story do the caves of Matala tell on a 10 day Greece itinerary of Crete?

A 10 day Greece itinerary on Crete names Matala, a village 75 km south-west of Heraklion. Cape Lithinon lies to its south. Man-made caves in the cliff of Matala bay date from the Neolithic Age, the late Stone Age.

In Minoan times, Phaistos relied on Matala as its harbour. In 220 BC, the Gortynians took control of Matala. Under Roman rule, it then became the port of Gortys. Ships load and unload their cargo at a port. Cargo is the load of goods on board a vessel. Gortynians were the people of Gortys.

In the 1960s, hippies made their homes in the caves of Matala. Hippies were young people who turned away from settled mainstream life. Later, the church and the military junta forced them to leave. A junta is a military group that rules by force. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, the Matala caves recall this hippie decade.

The song Carey by Joni Mitchell was inspired by her stay at Matala. During that stay, she lived among a hippie community that made its home in the caves. A community here means people sharing one place and one way of life. Within a 10 day Greece itinerary, Matala is the village behind this song.

• Brutus cave: One cave is called Brutospeliana, after a legend that the Roman general Brutus spent time there.
• Myth: In myth, Zeus took the form of a white bull and carried Europa to Matala beach.
• Kommos: The partly excavated ancient site of Kommos lies 5 km north of Matala.

The earliest temple at Kommos, Temple A, was a rural shrine. It was built around 1020 BC, in the Subminoan period. A shrine is a holy place, and rural means of the countryside. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, Subminoan names the age after Minoan times.

Why does Vai, on a 10 day Greece itinerary, carry the Greek word for palm?

A 10 day Greece itinerary in east Crete reaches Vai, a name that means palm in Greek. Cape Sidero and Cape Plaka mark the two ends of the region. Vai is not an official village in its own right.

Vai Palm Forest is known officially as Vai Aesthetic Forest. Thousands of palm trees grow in a valley that meets the beach at a right angle. Aesthetic means having to do with beauty. A right angle is the square corner where two lines meet. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, this valley is the Vai palm forest.

In 1987 the state made the forest a national park and put a fence around it. That fence is believed to have shielded the trees from 200,000 or more visitors each year. National parks are areas guarded by law for nature. Recovery work waited for a European Commission project of 1999 to 2002.

Phoenix theophrasti gives the forest its name. It is one of 14 species in the palm group Phoenix. In 1967, Werner Greuter presented the Vai palm as a separate species. He named it after Theophrastus, the botanist at Aristotle’s school. A botanist studies plants. Within a 10 day Greece itinerary, Vai is the home of this palm.

• Before 1957: The palm forest was in no danger before 1957 and covered 300 hectares, or 740 acres.
• Today: The palm forest now covers 20 hectares, which equals 49 acres.
• Pigeon rocks: Peristerovrachoi, or pigeon rocks, are small islets lying off the northern headland at Vai beach.

Two headlands enclose the beach at Vai. The northern headland measures 47 metres, and the southern one 10 metres. A headland is a point of land running out into the sea. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, these two headlands frame the beach of Vai.

Which Roman capital does a 10 day Greece itinerary find at Gortyn?

A 10 day Greece itinerary across Crete comes upon Gortyn, an archaeological site 45 km from Heraklion. Under Rome, Gortyn was the capital city of the province Creta et Cyrenaica. The Latin name means Crete and Cyrenaica, joined together under Roman rule.

Artifacts found at Gortyn date from the Minoan period of 2600 to 1100 BC. Others come from the Early Iron Age, around 1100 BC. An artifact is an object made by people. Gortyn’s richest period came later, in the Hellenistic era. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, Hellenistic names a stage of ancient Greek history.

Scholars know Gortyn today above all for the Gortyn Code, discovered in 1884. It is the oldest known code of ancient Greek law. It is the fullest example known. A law code is a written set of rules for a community. Within a 10 day Greece itinerary, Gortyn stands as the city of this early code.

The cathedral at Gortyn is dedicated to Saint Titus. Titus was the first Bishop of Crete. Builders raised the cathedral in the 6th century AD. A cathedral holds the official throne of a bishop. A bishop is a senior Christian church leader. AD counts the years after the birth of Christ.

• Law stones: The Gortyn laws are carved into big slabs of stone in Dorian, a regional form of Greek.
• Arab raid: Arab invaders ruined the city around AD 828 and founded their own state on Crete.
• Royal sons: Myth makes Minos, Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon, children of Zeus and Europa, kings of three Minoan palaces.

The Praetorium stood at the centre of Roman Gortyn. Crete’s Roman Governor worked from this building. A governor runs a province on behalf of a ruler. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, Praetorium is the Latin name for a governor’s headquarters.

How old is Malia’s Minoan palace on a 10 day Greece itinerary east of Knossos?

A 10 day Greece itinerary along the north coast of Crete meets Malia, a Minoan and Mycenaean site. Malia lies about 40 km east of Heraklion and 35 km east of Knossos. Mycenaean names the Bronze Age Greek culture of the mainland.

People occupied Malia from the middle of the 3rd millennium BC until about 1250 BC. One millennium is a block of a thousand years. Between 1700 and 1470 BC, Malia held the third biggest palace of Minoan Crete. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, BC stands for before Christ.

By around 1450 BC, Mycenaeans had reached Malia. Linear B writing appeared there with them. The town then came back to life. Linear B is an early script used to write Greek. A script is a set of written signs. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, Malia holds two Bronze Age cultures in one place.

The palace was built around three courts: Central, North and Northwest. It measured about 80 metres in one direction and 100 metres in the other. A court is an open yard ringed by buildings. The longer side ran roughly from north to south. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, these courts shape Malia’s palace.

• Seals Workshop: Quartier Mu, also called the Seals Workshop, lies 200 metres north-west of the palace.
• Tablets: Six tablets written in Linear A, an early Cretan script, have been found at Malia.
• Altar stone: The Malia altar stone carries sixteen carved signs, which appear to be Cretan Hieroglyphs.

The French School of Athens has excavated Malia for over a century. Excavation means careful digging to reach buried remains. A school here means an institute for research. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, Malia is one Minoan palace site excavated by French scholars.

Which walls guard Toplou Monastery on a 10 day Greece itinerary through Lasithi?

A 10 day Greece itinerary through eastern Crete finds Toplou, a Greek Orthodox monastery in Lasithi. Its name means the Monastery of the Place of the Cannon. It stands about 6 km north of Palekastro and 85 km east of Agios Nikolaos.

The monastery’s founding is believed to go back to the 14th century. Its founders placed it on the upper southern slope of Moni Toplou Gorge. The gorge was named after the monastery. A gorge is a deep, rock-walled split through high ground. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, Moni simply means monastery in Greek.

In 1498, Muslim corsairs reached the monastery while it had no defences and sacked it. Corsairs were sea raiders, and to sack means to rob and wreck a place. In 1612, a strong earthquake brought the monastery to the ground. An earthquake is a sudden, violent shaking of the ground.

Strong square walls, 10 metres high, enclose the monastery. Inside them lies a courtyard paved with pebbles from the sea. The defences answered the threat of pirates and invaders. A courtyard is an open space surrounded by buildings or walls. Fortified means built strong against attack. Within a 10 day Greece itinerary, Toplou counts as a fortified monastery.

• Bell-tower: The bell-tower dates from 1558, and the main church has two naves, or long central halls.
• Portraits: Thomas Papadoperakis painted a series of about 20 portraits of monks and abbots held there.
• Frescoes: Icon painter Manolis Betinakis covered the monks’ dining hall with frescoes, or wall paintings.

The monastery was first called Panagia Akrotiriani, a name honouring the Virgin Mary as Lady of the Cape. That old name still appears to carry legal weight. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, Akrotiriani comes from akrotiri, the Greek word for cape.

What history does a 10 day Greece itinerary meet at Arkadi Monastery?

A 10 day Greece itinerary near Rethymno marks Arkadi Monastery, 23 km south-east of the city. This Greek Orthodox monastery sits on a fertile plateau. Mount Ida’s north-west slope holds this plateau, 500 metres above the sea.

Building work kept the monastery growing. Stables went up in 1610, and a refectory followed in 1670. A refectory is the room where monks eat together. During the Ottoman period, 100 monks lived inside the convent. Another 200 lived in the countryside around it. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, a convent means a house of monks.

Under Ottoman rule, the monastery gained a Turkish name, Çanlı Manastır. The name means the monastery with the ringing bell. Ottoman refers to the Turkish empire that then ruled Crete. Manastır is the Turkish form of the word monastery. Within a 10 day Greece itinerary, the bell name marks Arkadi’s Ottoman years.

The siege of 1866 lasted three days. Then, on the orders of the hegumen, the Cretans inside blew up barrels of gunpowder. They chose to sacrifice themselves rather than surrender. A hegumen is the abbot, or head, of an Orthodox monastery. Gunpowder is an explosive powder once used in guns.

• Size: The total area of the monastery reaches 5,200 square metres.
• Wine: Wine made at Arkadi was called Malvoisie, after a town close to Heraklion.
• Memorial: A former windmill west of the monastery took its present memorial shape in 1910.

The monastery became a national sanctuary in honour of the Cretan resistance. Each year it is remembered on 8 November. Sanctuary here means a place made holy by memory. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, resistance here means the struggle of Cretans against Ottoman rule.

Who founded the monastery at Preveli that a 10 day Greece itinerary names?

A 10 day Greece itinerary on Crete’s south coast notes Preveli, in the Rethymno region. The place is known for its monastery. Its ruined lower monastery honours Saint John the Baptist. The working upper monastery honours Saint John the Theologian.

The monastery is thought to date from the Middle Ages, when Venice ruled Crete. Its founder was a feudal lord named Prevelis. A feudal lord held land and ruled the people who worked it. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, the Middle Ages means the long age between ancient and modern times.

In 1821, Abbot Melchissedek Tsouderos headed a rebel band during the Greek War of Independence. As a result, the monastery was destroyed. Later its buildings rose again. The monastery once more helped to organise rebellions against Turkish rule, in 1866 and 1878. An abbot leads a community of monks. A rebellion is an armed rising against rulers.

In the Battle of Crete in 1941, Agathangelos Lagouvardos aided British, Australian and New Zealand soldiers. He supplied them and gave them shelter. To supply troops means to provide them with food and other needs. Within a 10 day Greece itinerary, Preveli is the monastery tied to this wartime aid.

• Prevelly: Australian Corporal Geoff Edwards later settled a seaside hamlet in Western Australia and named it Prevelly.
• Palm glade: A broad grove of Cretan date palms, Phoenix theophrasti, grows behind Preveli beach.
• Fire: On 22 August 2010, fire burned much of the palm grove, which grew back by 2011.

Preveli beach and its lagoon sit beneath the monastery, where the Kourtaliotiko gorge meets the sea. A lagoon is a body of shallow water set apart from the open sea. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, the spot also goes by the local name Palm Beach.

How narrow does Imbros Gorge get on a 10 day Greece itinerary of southern Crete?

A 10 day Greece itinerary on Crete points to Imbros Gorge, an 11 km canyon near Hora Sfakion. Its Greek name is Faragi Imbrou. At its narrowest point, the gorge measures just 1.60 metres across. The gorge comes out at the village of Kommitades.

The village of Imbros, also called Nimbros, sits 780 metres above sea level. Askyfou, a fertile plain, stretches away to its north. A plain is broad, level country. Fertile land is rich enough to grow good crops. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, Nimbros serves as a second name for Imbros village.

Before the road, a mule trail through the gorge linked Chania with Hora Sfakion. It was the only connection between the two. A mule is the young of a donkey and a horse. A trail is a rough path worn by feet and hooves. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, Imbros Gorge holds that old route.

Sfakia, a remote and mountainous region, has Hora Sfakion as its capital. The people of Sfakia, called Sfakians, see themselves as direct descendants of the Dorians. The Dorians came down to Crete around 1100 BC. Within a 10 day Greece itinerary, a descendant means a person from a later generation of a family.

• Gorge floor: The bed of Imbros Gorge is a dry creek covered with round scree, or loose stones.
• War years: In World War II, thousands of British soldiers were evacuated through the gorge on the way to Egypt.
• Hora Sfakion: Hora Sfakion stands on the south coast close to the gorge’s end, 74 km south of Chania.

The gorges of Sfakia all run from north to south. Every one of them ends in the sea. A gorge is a sharp, deep cleft in hills or mountains. On a 10 day Greece itinerary, Sfakia is the Cretan region of these gorges.

On a 10 day Greece itinerary, what is tzatziki?

A 10 day Greece itinerary is set in the home of regular Greek tzatziki. The recipe starts with strained yogurt, which comes from sheep or goat milk. Greek cooks then add cucumbers and garlic, plus salt, vinegar, olive oil, dill, parsley and mint.

The word tzatziki reached English around the middle of the 20th century. English borrowed it from Modern Greek as a loanword, a word taken from another language. The Greek word itself grew from the Turkish name cacık. Today, cacık remains a widely eaten and refreshing dish in Turkey, above all in summer.

The tzatziki known along a 10 day Greece itinerary traces back to a 10th-century recipe called jājaq. That recipe sits in a cookbook from Baghdad. Food historian Nawal Nasrallah calls it the forerunner of the tzatziki found in the Middle East and Greece. A 14th-century Egyptian cookbook gives the oldest known record of strained-yogurt jājaq.

Where a 10 day Greece itinerary takes place, Greek kitchens also make close relatives of the dip. A version with purslane, a small leafy plant, goes by the name glistrida me yiaourti. That name means purslane and yogurt salad. Another version stirs crushed nuts, walnut oil and red peppers into the yogurt base.

• Cyprus: Cypriots call the dish talattouri, with a stronger mint flavour and added lemon juice.
• Sauce: Greek cooks also spoon tzatziki onto gyros, souvlaki and other Greek dishes.
• Bulgaria: In Bulgaria, the related dish called tarator is a traditional cold soup.

The tzatziki of a 10 day Greece itinerary belongs to a wide family of dips, soups and sauces. That family reaches from Southeastern Europe to West Asia. In Iran, for example, the dish goes by the name mast o khiar.

How does a 10 day Greece itinerary relate to the syrtos dance?

A 10 day Greece itinerary unfolds in a country with two favourite dances. Syrtos and its relative, the kalamatianos, are the best-loved dances across Greece and Cyprus. In syrtos, dancers join hands to form a chain or a circle.

A leader heads the line and breaks away at intervals to improvise steps. To improvise means to make up moves on the spot. Beyond the borders of a 10 day Greece itinerary, Greeks abroad dance syrtos all over the world. The dance is a favourite at social gatherings, weddings and religious festivals.

Rennell Rodd suggested in 1892 that the dance copies the pulling in of a seine net. A seine is a long fishing net drawn through the water. C. T. Dimaras describes an inscription from the time of Caligula, a Roman emperor. It implies that syrtos already counted as an ancient local Greek dance back then.

On a 10 day Greece itinerary, koftos is a syrtos form from Thessaly, Epirus and central Greece. Koftos means to cut in Greek, as the music cuts off at intervals. When the music stops, the dancers shout “Hey”. The word syrto comes from the Greek syro, meaning to pull or to lead.

• Kalamatianos: The related kalamatianos uses 10 steps counterclockwise, followed by 2 steps clockwise.
• Chain hold: An older syrtos from Arcadia uses a chain hold shown on ancient Greek vase paintings.
• Pyleas: Syrtos Pyleas comes from a village in Macedonia and is danced mainly by women.

An ancient Greek dance called hormos, literally a string, is a possible forerunner of syrtos. Politiko syrto comes from Constantinople, a city once simply called the poli. For a 10 day Greece itinerary, that form keeps a slow, quick, quick rhythm.

In a 10 day Greece itinerary, what place does gyros hold?

A 10 day Greece itinerary moves through the land of gyros, meat roasted on an upright rotisserie. A rotisserie is a spit that turns slowly in front of heat. Cooks slice the meat and roll it in pita with fried potatoes, onion, tomato and tzatziki.

In Greek, the word gyros stands for a circle or a turn. It is a calque of the Turkish döner, a word that also means turn. A calque is a phrase borrowed by translating it word for word. Greeks once called the dish döner, written in Greek letters, until gyros replaced it.

The gyros of a 10 day Greece itinerary arrived with Greeks from Asia Minor after 1922–23. They came in a population exchange, a planned swap of people between Greece and Turkey. Lamb gyros was present in Athens after the Second World War. The Greek version settled on pork served with tzatziki, under the name gyros.

Names for the dish change from region to region of a 10 day Greece itinerary. In Athens and southern Greece, souvlaki serves as a general word for gyros. There, the skewered meat known elsewhere as souvlaki is called kalamaki. Thessaloniki keeps the word gyros for the spit-roasted meat alone. The wrap itself goes by the name sandwich there.

• Spit: Cooks stack thin, round, flat slices of meat on a spit and season them.
• Spices: The seasoning for hand-made gyros can include cumin, oregano, thyme and rosemary.
• North: In northern Greece, ketchup or mustard sometimes tops the wrap instead of tzatziki.

For a 10 day Greece itinerary, the pita around gyros has a long word history. English took the word pita from Modern Greek, where it means bread, cake or pie. The Greek word goes back to Byzantine Greek, with a record from 1108.

Which story does a 10 day Greece itinerary find in the tsamiko dance?

A 10 day Greece itinerary sits in the country of tsamiko, a popular traditional folk dance. It also goes by the name kleftikos, and its music has three beats to each bar. The tempo stays strict and slow, with the stress on attitude, style and grace.

Dancers hold hands with their elbows bent upwards at 90 degrees. The first or last dancer in the line leans on a neighbour to make high leaps. These leaps are acrobatic, which means athletic jumps that need balance and strength. The steps are fairly easy, yet they must be precise and land exactly on the beat.

In the language of a 10 day Greece itinerary, tsamiko means from Chameria, or dance of the Chams. Samuel Baud-Bovy, a Swiss scholar of music, noted that Cham Albanians did not dance the Greek tsamiko. The other name, kleftikos, means dance of the klephts. Klephts were fighters linked to the independence war of 1821–1830.

Tsamiko is popular at festivals and weddings in rural Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Thessaly and Epirus. Epirus keeps a slower version than Central Greece. The tsamiko of Central Greece, also called Roumeli, counts as the standard version. In the past only men danced it, but today men and women both take part.

• Dress: Dancers sometimes wear the fustanella, a traditional pleated garment that looks like a skirt.
• Film: Greek cinema had a popular fustanella film genre between the 1910s and the 1960s.
• National days: Across a 10 day Greece itinerary, tsamiko marks national events, such as the anniversary of 1821.

Within a 10 day Greece itinerary, Central Greece treats tsamiko as its top folk dance. In the Peloponnese, it ranks with syrtos among the best-loved folk forms. The idea of a true tsamiko stays unclear, because regional, musical and dance versions vary.

Along a 10 day Greece itinerary, where did baklava come from?

A 10 day Greece itinerary spans a country where baklava changes with the region. Southern Greek bakers fill it mainly with chopped almonds, while the north uses walnuts. The Greek syrup blends sugar, honey, water and cinnamon with orange or lemon zest and juice.

Ancient Greek writing describes sweets that share features with the baklava of a 10 day Greece itinerary. Homer’s Odyssey, written around 800 BC, speaks of thin breads made sweet with walnuts and honey. In the fifth century BC, the poet Philoxenos described a milk and honey cheesecake baked as a pie.

The placenta cake, a honey-covered layered dessert, takes its name from the Greek plakous, meaning flat and broad. The poet Archestratos, also of the fifth century BC, praised the honey-soaked plakous of Athens. In the Byzantine Empire, people ate koptoplakous, a placenta cake similar to baklava. Historian Speros Vryonis calls koptoplakous a Byzantine favourite.

The modern baklava of a 10 day Greece itinerary took shape in the palace kitchens of Topkapı, Istanbul. Cooks cut the dough into regular pieces, such as diamonds and triangles, before baking. Once baked, the pastry soaks up a syrup poured over the top. Baklava then reaches the table at room temperature, with ground nuts on top.

• Gastris: An ancient Greek recipe called gastris shaped nuts, poppy seeds, honey and pepper into a square.
• Cookbook: A 10th-century Arabic cookbook, the work of Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq, has no baklava recipe.
• Origin view: Food writer Gil Marks traces the dish to Persian and Turkish roots.

The early history of the baklava known on a 10 day Greece itinerary stays open to debate. Proposed roots include the Greek placenta cake and the medieval Arabic sweet lauzinaj. Another idea points to yufka, the layered dough of Central Asia.

How does a 10 day Greece itinerary connect with Greek name days?

A 10 day Greece itinerary falls within a culture that marks name days. In Greek, a name day is onomastikí eortí, or simply yiortí. That short word means celebration. A person named after a saint holds a big celebration on that saint’s day.

A strong Greek custom since antiquity names newborn children after one of their grandparents. Antiquity is the era of the ancient Greeks and Romans. The custom keeps the same names alive down the family line. The Greek Orthodox Church gives every day of the year to at least one saint or martyr.

In the country of a 10 day Greece itinerary, a common name can come from pagan antiquity. Such a name can lack a saint, so its bearer has no name day. That person can instead celebrate on All Saints’ Day. Name days keep fixed dates, except names tied to Easter, which move each year.

Every Greek-language calendar in the land of a 10 day Greece itinerary lists name days in detail. The tradition helps people keep in social touch. People named Chrēstos or Christine celebrate on Christmas. Those named after Saint Basil celebrate their name day on New Year’s Day. Anastásios and Anastasía celebrate on Easter Sunday.

• Open house: The traditional name-day party is an open house, where all well-wishers are welcome.
• Gifts: Guests bring gifts, while the host offers a meal, drinks, desserts and music.
• Timing: A name day can be celebrated up to 40 days after its set date.

Within the culture of a 10 day Greece itinerary, children mark birthdays and name days with equal festivity. In Finland, the Almanac Office of the University of Helsinki sets the name-day calendar. That office reviews its name lists every 5 to 10 years.

Within a 10 day Greece itinerary, how is galaktoboureko made?

A 10 day Greece itinerary belongs to a country where galaktoboureko is a popular dessert. In Turkey, the eastern Black Sea region also enjoys it. Cooks build it on semolina custard or on muhallebi, a type of milk pudding.

In a pan, cooks place filo above and below the custard, 20 layers in total. Filo is a pastry dough rolled out into very thin sheets. The pan is then cut into square portions. Cooks can also roll the dessert into single servings about 10 cm long. A clear, sweet syrup then coats each piece.

The custard can taste of lemon, orange or rose. Galaktoboureko looks only a little like mille-feuille, a French layered pastry. Unlike mille-feuille, its custard bakes with the pastry instead of going in afterwards. Across the regions of a 10 day Greece itinerary, recipes for it vary from place to place.

The oldest written mentions of the dessert go back to the Byzantine period. A related ancient Greek dish, plakous, combined honey, cheese and wheat. Filo itself began in Ancient Greece, and the Ottomans later adopted it. Tradition places the birth of galaktoboureko in Smyrna, in the rich Greek districts of western Asia Minor.

• Cyprus: Beyond a 10 day Greece itinerary, Cyprus knows the same dessert as galatopourekko.
• Laz version: The Laz version, called paponi, puts cornmeal and ground black pepper in the pudding.
• Albania: In Albania, cooks sometimes prepare it as a dessert for Orthodox Easter.

On a 10 day Greece itinerary, notable versions of galaktoboureko are linked with Athens and Thessaloniki. Turkey registered its Laz version in 2019 as a geographical indication. That term means a protected product name tied to one place of origin.

What links a 10 day Greece itinerary with mastika, the Chios liqueur?

A 10 day Greece itinerary is a trip through the land of mastiha, a sweet liqueur. Greek makers flavour it with mastic resin from the island of Chios. The resin hardens into crystals before distillation. Distillation boils a liquid and gathers the rising steam.

Mastic is a resin with a slightly pine-like or cedar-like flavour. The resin comes from the mastic tree, a small evergreen native to the Mediterranean. On Chios, the tree grows on rocky ground across the south of the island. Growers cut 5 to 10 incisions, or small slits, into the bark of each tree.

Greek law, in force across a 10 day Greece itinerary, regulates how the liqueur is made. Makers flavour alcohol with mastic oil by stirring, or distil mastic with alcohol. Water then thins the mixture, and sugar sweetens it. Chios Mastiha must reach an alcoholic strength of at least 15%. It is clear and sweet-smelling, and it is served cold.

The mastiha of a 10 day Greece itinerary is a sweet drink for the end of a meal. Its flavour recalls pine and herbs. It is claimed to have healing powers and to help digestion. Roman emperors added mastic, egg, pepper and honey to a spiced wine. That wine bore the name conditum paradoxum.

• Elixirs: Grape-based digestive liqueurs like mastiha were known as Greek elixirs before the French Revolution.
• Names: In Greece, the liqueur also goes by the names mastiha and mastichato.
• Tree: The mastic tree of Chios is a variety named Pistacia lentiscus var chia.

The mastic behind the liqueur of a 10 day Greece itinerary softens and turns bright white when chewed. Its taste starts bitter, then turns fresh, close to pine and cedar. Before that, the dried resin forms brittle pieces that let light through.

Dolma on a 10 day Greece itinerary: which stuffed dishes carry the name?

A 10 day Greece itinerary runs across lands where dolma names a family of stuffed dishes. The family is largely tied to Ottoman cuisine. Cooks hollow out or wrap vegetables and leaves, then stuff them with spices, herbs, rice and minced meat.

The name derives from the Turkish verb dolmak, meaning to get filled or stuffed. In Turkey, dolma means a hollowed vegetable with stuffing. Sarma, meaning a rolled thing, wraps the filling in vine or cabbage leaves. In the Greek spoken across a 10 day Greece itinerary, the word becomes ntolmás. Everyday speech uses dolma for both kinds.

Stuffing, a cooking method known across a 10 day Greece itinerary, appears in a 10th-century Baghdad court cookbook. Ancient Greeks made thrion, a fig leaf filled with sweetened cheese. Andrew Dalby sees late Roman and early Byzantine stuffed vine leaves as forerunners of modern dolmades. The Pontic Greeks had keftethes, vine leaves wrapped around small bits of meat.

Claudia Roden suggests that the dish possibly came from the Greeks. She also calls stuffed vegetables a court cuisine for a rich, leisured class. Eugenia Ricotti argues that rice, now central to stuffed vine leaves, did not exist in Ancient Greece. Margareta Aslan adds that rice saw little use in Roman and Byzantine times.

• Sardines: Greek stuffed sardines take a filling of tomato, onion, kasseri cheese, parsley and basil.
• Peppers: Stuffed peppers are popular in Greece, filled with rice, herbs, onions and currants.
• Names: Stuffed vine leaves are dolmades in Greece and koupepia in Cyprus.

The dish reaches far beyond a 10 day Greece itinerary. Related names include dolmeh in Persian, ṭolma in Georgian and tulma in Tatar. Eastern Armenian writes tolma, and Swedish speakers say dolme. Azerbaijani keeps the spelling dolma, as modern Turkish does.

For a 10 day Greece itinerary, what sets strained yogurt apart?

A 10 day Greece itinerary takes place where strained yogurt carries the Greek name strangistó giaoúrti. Other names for it include labneh, yogurt cheese, sack yogurt and hung curd. In Britain, the label Greek yoghurt only fits yoghurt imported from Greece.

Strained yogurt needs more milk than ordinary yogurt, which raises its production cost. Straining removes part of the lactose, the natural sugar found in milk. As a result, strained yogurt holds less sugar than unstrained yogurt. It also curdles less readily when heated, which suits it to cooking.

A British court case in 2013 limited the term Greek yogurt to strained yogurt made in Greece. Yoghurt strained elsewhere is sold there as Greek-style yoghurt. In the United States, far from a 10 day Greece itinerary, no legal definition of Greek yogurt exists. There, yogurt thickened with agents such as pectin or starch can still carry the Greek label.

Throughout a 10 day Greece itinerary, a small group of savoury Greek dishes also uses strained yogurt. Cyprus, as in Greece, uses strained yogurt widely in recipes and on its own. Cypriot strained yogurt mainly comes from sheep or goat milk. In Europe and North America, makers turn to low-fat or fat-free cow’s milk instead.

• Labneh: Labneh, a strained yogurt from the Levant, is thicker than Greek yogurt and salted.
• Skyr: In Iceland, a similar product goes by the name skyr.
• Protein: Protein in strained yogurts ranges from 3.3 to 11 grams per 100 grams.

In England, strained yogurt only became widely known outside immigrant communities in the 1980s. In 2012, the bulk of growth in the American yogurt industry came from strained yogurt. Beyond a 10 day Greece itinerary, strained yogurt has gained ground in Western Europe and the United States.

What do travellers ask about 10 day Greece itinerary, and what are the answers?

A 10 day Greece itinerary sits in a culture with its own café, the kafenio. The taverna, a small Greek restaurant, serves Greek food. The hasapiko, a folk dance, carries the meaning butcher’s dance. Philotimo, a Greek noun, literally means love of honour.

Before a 10 day Greece itinerary, what is a kafenio?

The word kafenio has the plural kafenia. Kafenia tend to offer meze, small shared dishes, or free snacks, yet rarely full meals. Families traditionally ran them, and their furnishings were simple. Inside, people meet to talk after the working day or sit down to a game of cards.

On a 10 day Greece itinerary, what does hasapiko mean?

Hasapiko comes from Constantinople. It began in the Middle Ages as a mock battle with swords. The Greek butchers’ guild performed it, after taking it from the Byzantine army. A guild is a society of people who share one trade. In Byzantine Constantinople, its name was makellarikos horos, which also means butcher’s dance.

What is a taverna, for a 10 day Greece itinerary?

Its name traces back to the Latin taberna, a shop. That Latin word grew from tabula, meaning table. Wine shops also existed in the Byzantine Empire. A 10th-century ordinance there set a curfew to stop violence and rioting caused by drink. An ordinance is an official order, and a curfew is a set closing time.

Why does philotimo matter to a 10 day Greece itinerary?

Plato’s Republic uses an older form of the word ironically, meaning covetous of honour. Covetous means greedy for something. By the start of the Christian era, the word carried a firmly positive sense. Today it means honouring one’s duties and keeping one’s honour, dignity and pride intact.