Greece Tours for Solo Travellers

Greece tours for solo travellers pair lone travellers with a host, from Athens to Thrace and the Cyclades. The squares and streets here run from the plateia and Ermou Street to Exarcheia, Metaxourgeio and Athinas Street. Thessaloniki brings the Bedesten, Tsimiski Street and Eleftherias Square. Xanthi, Komotini and Ano Syros follow, along with Greek customs of hospitality and shared meals. Wider choices fill Greece small group tours, day trips from Athens and Greece island hopping tours. The full range of trips sits on the Greece tours home page.

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What are Greece tours for solo travellers?

Greece tours for solo travellers are host-led trips around Greece for people who set out alone. Tourism means travel for pleasure and the trade that supports it. Its English name grows from tornos, the Ancient Greek word for a lathe.

A lathe is a machine that turns wood or metal while a tool shapes it. The English word tourist was in use by 1772, and tourism followed in 1811. In the same era, the Grand Tour was a mark of status for upper-class students. It held that place through the 18th and 19th centuries.

Young men on the Grand Tour travelled with a tutor or a family member. The trip was commonly made with a cicerone. A cicerone is a learned companion who explains places and their past. A solo traveller is a person who sets out alone. Greece tours for solo travellers pair such a person with a host.

Backpacking means independent travel with every belonging carried in a pack. It was once seen as a marginal way to travel. It has since become a mainstream form of tourism, and backpackers can be of any age. Greece tours for solo travellers are a separate form, built around a host.

• Classic art: Writers such as Goethe named Italy, France and Greece as fine examples of classic art.
• Rite of passage: The Grand Tour served as a rite of passage, a step into adult life through learning.
• Early cruises: Leisure cruise ships began in 1844 and sailed from Southampton to places such as Athens.

Creative tourism draws on travellers who take an active part in the culture of their host communities. A host community is the local population that receives the travellers. Greece tours for solo travellers run on the mainland of Greece and on its islands.

How does the plateia shape Greece tours for solo travellers in Greek towns?

Greece tours for solo travellers unfold in a country with its own word for a town square. That word is plateia, also spelled platia, and its plural is plateies. A typical Greek or Cypriot city has more than one.

Town squares serve as points of reference when people find their way around Greek and Cypriot cities. In ancient Greek, the word had a different sense. It meant one of the main streets of a city, and a city had three as a rule. Narrower streets called stenopoi ran between them. Their grid formed rectangular blocks for buildings.

Omonoia Square in Athens is also called Concord Square. Concord means agreement and peace between people. Syntagma Square in the same city means Constitution Square. A constitution is the set of basic laws that governs a country. Greece tours for solo travellers take place in a country where squares carry such names.

Agoras Square in Kilkis gives Greece tours for solo travellers a name that means Market Square. In Greek, agora names a marketplace and a public meeting ground. In villages and provincial communities, the plateia hosts meetings, events, feasts and celebrations. Provincial here means away from the capital and the big cities.

• Cyprus: Troodos Square serves as a reference point for weather, time, distance and altitude.
• Mytilene: Sapphous Square appears among the named town squares of Mytilene.
• Volos: Riga Fereou Square is one of the town squares of Volos.

Nikis Square in Kozani takes its name from niki, the Greek word for victory. Lassani Square is a second named square in the same town of Kozani. Greece tours for solo travellers are trips with a host through the towns and villages of Greece.

Why does Ermou Street matter to Greece tours for solo travellers in Athens?

Greece tours for solo travellers gain Ermou Street, whose name means Hermes Street. Hermes is a god of ancient Greek myth. The road runs through Monastiraki, Psiri and Thiseio in central Athens. It has three sections: east, middle and west.

Ermou Street was one of the first roads drawn for modern Athens. It was a main axis of the first town plan, made by Kleanthis and Schaubert in 1833. An axis here is a main line that the rest of a plan follows. Since 1997, cars have been barred from the stretch between Syntagma Square and Aiolou Street.

The east section holds the Byzantine Church of Panagia Kapnikarea in a small square. Panagia means the All-Holy, a name Greeks give to the Virgin Mary. At the western end, the small Holy Archangels Church stands at Agion Asomaton Square. Both churches add old Christian Athens to Greece tours for solo travellers.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, the western section was tied to the industry of Peiraios Street. Work to remodel that section began on 9 July 2003. It now forms the end of the Grand Promenade, the walkway around the Acropolis. On Greece tours for solo travellers, a promenade means a wide path made for walking at leisure.

• Twin street: Ermou Street has been twinned with Okurayama Street in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, since 1988.
• Olympic work: The western section of the road was remodelled for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.
• Grand Promenade: The walkway begins at the Panathenaic Stadium and runs on through Dionysiou Areopagitou Street.

The western remodelling aimed to tie the Kerameikos archaeological site into daily city life. Archaeological here describes ground where experts study the remains of the past. Ermou Street gives Greece tours for solo travellers one long line from ancient ruins to modern shops.

Which story does Dionysiou Areopagitou Street tell Greece tours for solo travellers today?

Greece tours for solo travellers gain a saint’s name with Dionysiou Areopagitou Street. The street honours Dionysius the Areopagite, the patron saint of Athens. A patron saint is held to protect a place. It starts from Amalias Avenue near the Arch of Hadrian.

Dionysius was the first Athenian convert to Christianity after the sermon of the Apostle Paul. A convert is a person who takes up a new faith. The word Areopagite means a member of the Areopagus, the old council of Athens. At its far end, the street meets Philopappos Hill and continues as Apostolou Pavlou Avenue.

The street was first mapped in 1857, further north than its line today. It took its current shape in 1955, when architect Dimitris Pikionis redesigned it. Pikionis also designed the paved paths of the archaeological site. Paved paths are walkways laid with stone slabs. His work gives Greece tours for solo travellers a modern design on ancient ground.

In the middle of the street, the foundations of the house of Proclus were found. Proclus was a Greek Neoplatonic philosopher of late antiquity. Neoplatonic thought grew from the ideas of Plato. Late antiquity is the age between the Roman world and the Middle Ages. The site adds a philosopher’s home to Greece tours for solo travellers.

• Composer: Vangelis Papathanasiou owned a neoclassical mansion on the street near the Acropolis Museum.
• Painter: The house of Konstantinos Parthenis on the street was demolished after his death in 1967.
• Economist: Xenophon Zolotas, an economist and interim prime minister of Greece, lived on the street.

The street was finally pedestrianised in 2003. To pedestrianise a street is to close it to cars and keep it for people on foot. Greece tours for solo travellers travel with a host through Athens and the rest of Greece.

What does Athinas Street add to Greece tours for solo travellers in the capital?

Greece tours for solo travellers gain a goddess’s name in Athinas Street. The street takes its name from Athena, goddess of wisdom. It runs from Ermou Street north to Omonoia Square through the Psiri neighbourhood of central Athens.

Athens City Hall stands on the west side of the street. A city hall is the building where a town council meets and works. The Modern Agora lies to the east of Athinas Street. To the south, shops and homes fill neoclassical buildings. Neoclassical describes buildings that borrow the columns and shapes of Greek and Roman antiquity.

The Varvakeios municipal market is the oldest market in Athens. Municipal means run by the city. This market gives Greece tours for solo travellers a link to daily trade in the capital. Metro Line 1 runs under Athinas Street for its entire length. A metro is an underground railway inside a city.

The road was first paved in the late 19th century. In the 1950s, modernist buildings rose along its northern part. Modernist describes a plain style of building that rejects old ornament. Since 1999, an 80 m stretch has served as a walkway. On Greece tours for solo travellers, a walkway is a path kept for people on foot.

• Pedestrian plan: In June 2008, the Mayor of Athens ordered the street pedestrianised.
• Green aim: The plan set out to make it one of the greenest streets in Athens.
• Kotzia Square: This square lies to the east of the street, as does Karamanou Square.

Its crossings include Evrypidou, Sofokleous and Armodiou streets. Evrypidou and Sofokleous carry the names of the ancient playwrights Euripides and Sophocles. A playwright is a person who writes plays for the stage. These street names give Greece tours for solo travellers a short roll of ancient drama.

Where does Metaxourgeio fit into Greece tours for solo travellers in modern Athens?

Greece tours for solo travellers gain an Athens neighbourhood in Metaxourgeio, a name meaning silk mill. It lies between Kolonos to the west and Plateia Vathi to the east. A silk mill is a factory that spins and weaves silk thread.

Metaxourgeio is built on the Dimosio Sima, the ancient cemetery of eminent Athenians. Eminent means famous and highly respected. The Metaxourgeio factory, built in the early 19th century, drew the area into the growing city. In the late 19th century, it became a thriving working-class district of craftsmen and tradesmen.

A period of abandonment began in the 1970s. Today Metaxourgeio is frequently described as a transition neighbourhood. On Greece tours for solo travellers, a transition neighbourhood means one in the middle of change. New art galleries, museums and cafes have given it a name as an artistic and fashionable district.

Avdi Square is the centre of the neighbourhood. Theatres and an art gallery stand around it. Festivals and gatherings are held in the square from time to time. For Greece tours for solo travellers, a gathering means a meeting of people for a shared purpose. A gallery is a hall where works of art hang on display.

• Metro: Since January 2000, the district has been linked to line 2 of the Athens metro.
• Second square: Karaiskaki Square is a second named square inside the Metaxourgeio neighbourhood of Athens.
• Rural past: For centuries the area was largely rural and stood on the outskirts of the city.

People linked with Metaxourgeio include painter Alekos Fassianos and poet Tassos Livaditis. Actress Marika Kotopouli and singer Vicky Moscholiou are also linked with the district. Greece tours for solo travellers gain through these names an Athens district with an artistic past.

Which features define Exarcheia for Greece tours for solo travellers in central Athens?

Greece tours for solo travellers share Athens with Exarcheia, a district named after a businessman called Exarchos. He lived in the 19th century and opened a large general store in the area. Alexandras Avenue, Patission Street and Panepistimiou Street frame the district.

Exarcheia was created between 1870 and 1880 on the fringe of the city. On the east, it is bordered by the Kolonaki district. Its central square features cafes and bars. Theatrical shows and concerts are held around that square. For Greece tours for solo travellers, a concert means a public performance of music.

One of the oldest summer cinemas of Athens stands on Exarcheia Square. A summer cinema is an open-air cinema used in the warm months. The Antonopoulos apartment building on the same square is known as the Blue Building, after its original colour. It is a typical example of modern architecture in Athens between the two world wars.

Stournari Street, lined with computer shops, is also called the Greek Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is the name of a famous technology region in California. Exarcheia is also known for its comic book shops. Intellectuals and artists in large numbers live in the district. Their presence gives Greece tours for solo travellers a district of books and art.

• Bookshops: Bookstores stand in large numbers across Exarcheia, beside organic food stores and fair trade shops.
• Polytechnic: The historical building of the National Technical University of Athens stands close to Exarcheia.
• Uprising: The Athens Polytechnic uprising of November 1973 took place in Exarcheia.

Exarcheia has played a significant role in the social and political life of Greece. The artist Nikolaos Gyzis is among the notable people linked with Exarcheia. Greece tours for solo travellers gain from its streets a roll of Greek writers and singers.

How does Ano Syros connect to Greece tours for solo travellers in the Cyclades?

Greece tours for solo travellers gain the medieval settlement of Syros in Ano Syros. The town stands on the island of Syros, in the Cyclades. It is also a former municipality. Its population was 3,611 at the 2021 census.

It was built in the late Byzantine era or early in the Frankokratia. Frankokratia is the Greek name for the rule of Western Europeans over Greek lands. Houses crowd tightly along narrow roads that follow a circular order and a radial plan. In a radial plan, streets spread out from a centre like the spokes of a wheel.

Ano Syros is inhabited by Catholic Greeks. Their faith dates to the long Frankokratia in Syros, which began right after the Fourth Crusade. Its role as the seat of a Roman Catholic diocese kept it a religious centre. For Greece tours for solo travellers, a diocese means a church district under a bishop.

The Catholic Church of Saint George stands atop the hill of Ano Syros. The church dates first from 1208, and three rounds of destruction and rebuilding have followed. A Capuchin monastery in the town was founded in 1637. Capuchins are an order of Catholic friars. Both buildings give Greece tours for solo travellers a tie to Catholic Syros.

• Citadel look: The overall landscape of the town resembles a fortified citadel, a strong walled fort.
• Music museum: Markos Vamvakaris, one of the town’s notable people, has a museum of his own there.
• Twin town: Since 1994, Ano Syros and the French town of Grillon have been twinned.

Once nearby Hermoupolis was founded, Ano Syros lost its place as the administrative centre of Syros. An administrative centre is the town from which an area is governed. Ano Syros gives Greece tours for solo travellers the older half of the island’s story.

What is the Bedesten of Thessaloniki to Greece tours for solo travellers in the north?

Greece tours for solo travellers gain a historical Ottoman market in the Bedesten of Thessaloniki. Ottoman describes the Turkish empire under which the city lay for centuries. It dates from the reign of Sultan Mehmed II, around 1455 to 1459.

The Bedesten stands on Venizelou and Solomou streets, near the Hamza Bey Mosque. Bey was an Ottoman title for a local lord. The word bedesten comes from the Arabic word bez, which means fabric. Its style represents the Ottoman architecture of the fifteenth century. Greece tours for solo travellers belong to the Balkans, where similar buildings stand.

In bedestens, valuables were sold and documents and assets were kept. Assets are things of value that a person or firm owns. The Bedesten of Thessaloniki gives Greece tours for solo travellers one of three surviving Ottoman bedestens in Greece. The other two stand in Larissa and Serres.

The building is a rectangular space with an entrance on each of its four sides. Inside, six rooms rest under seven double arches on two central piers. A pier is a thick pillar that carries the weight of arches. Six lead-covered domes crown the roof. A dome is a curved roof in the form of a half sphere.

• Old shops: Before the fire of 1917, the Bedesten held one hundred and thirteen shops.
• After the fire: New shops were added around the outside of the central area after the fire.
• Repairs: Restoration in the 1980s and 1990s repaired subsidence, a slow sinking of the ground.

Bedestens were a typical and common feature of Ottoman cities and towns. Today the Bedesten of Thessaloniki houses a range of shops once more. On Greece tours for solo travellers, a bedesten means an Ottoman market for valuable goods.

Which past shaped Tsimiski Street for Greece tours for solo travellers in Thessaloniki?

Greece tours for solo travellers draw on Tsimiski Street, a major avenue in Thessaloniki. Thessaloniki ranks second in size among the cities of Greece. The street carries the name of the Byzantine Emperor Ioannis Tzimiskis. Its busiest point is its crossing with Aristotelous Square.

Before the Balkan Wars, the road was called the second parallel. It was the second street built parallel to the city’s waterfront. A waterfront is the part of a town that faces the sea. Before 1890, the street joined the two sides of Thessaloniki, from the eastern walls to the west.

The street took its current form after the Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917. French architect Ernest Hebrard drew up the new master plan that set its design. For Greece tours for solo travellers, a master plan means a full plan for how a city grows. The street in its current form was built in 1921.

Hundreds of fashion shops and boutiques line the street. A boutique is a small shop that sells fashionable clothes. The western end holds the city’s financial district. The avenue was designed with four lanes for one-way traffic across the whole city centre. Tsimiski Street gives Greece tours for solo travellers one of the busiest streets in Greece.

• Meeting point: Aristotelous Square is a major meeting point for the people of Thessaloniki.
• Buried past: Metro construction uncovered about 300,000 artefacts from ancient, medieval and Ottoman times.
• Two ends: The avenue starts near the Thessaloniki International Fair grounds and ends at Ionos Dragoumi Street.

The street was renamed after Ioannis Tzimiskis in 1913, when the city was in Greek hands. To be in Greek hands means to be ruled by the Greek state. Its name ties Greece tours for solo travellers to the Byzantine rulers of the past.

What story does Eleftherias Square tell Greece tours for solo travellers about Thessaloniki?

Greece tours for solo travellers gain Liberty Square, or Eleftherias Square, in downtown Thessaloniki. It takes its name from the Young Turk Revolution, which began in the square in 1908. The Young Turks were reformers who sought change in the Ottoman Empire.

Before the square existed, a Byzantine-era tower guarded the entrance of the port here. In the Ottoman period, people called this tower Tophane, meaning Cannon House. The opening of a road in 1867, now Venizelou Street, created a small square. It was later called Olympus Square because of the views of Mount Olympus across the sea.

In the late Ottoman era, the square stood at the centre of the Frangomahalas. On Greece tours for solo travellers, Frangomahalas means the European or Frankish Quarter. The square became the point of entry to the city for visitors arriving by boat. From 1893, it was the western starting point of the tram network.

The original look of the square drew on the Western European Belle Epoque style. For Greece tours for solo travellers, Belle Epoque names the fine age before the First World War. At that time it was still the largest public square in Ottoman Thessaloniki. The Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917 spared only the Stein Building on the square.

• Size: The square is trapezoidal, four-sided with two parallel sides, and covers about 5,087 square metres.
• Public space: The square was officially proclaimed a public space on 6 April 1963.
• Memorial: The Holocaust memorial Menorah in Flames was placed in the southern corner in 2006.

A rise in western travellers left the first square unfit for their needs. Between 1898 and 1911, it was entirely rebuilt. The modern Stein Building was completed there in 1911. The square gives Greece tours for solo travellers a long harbour-side history.

How does the old town of Xanthi colour Greece tours for solo travellers in Thrace?

Greece tours for solo travellers draw colour from Xanthi, known as the city of a thousand colours. The city rises like an amphitheatre on the lower slopes of the Rhodope Mountains. In an amphitheatre, rows of seats rise in a curve.

The old part of town is called Palia Poli, which means old city in Greek. It is known throughout Greece for its distinctive architecture. By 1715, Xanthi was renowned for the quality of its tobacco. The tobacco trade throughout Europe brought the town prosperity, which means wealth and success.

In March and April 1829, two earthquakes levelled the city. Its rebuilding got under way straight after. For Greece tours for solo travellers, to level a city means to flatten its buildings. The bazaar of Xanthi is famous and takes place at Emboriou Square. A bazaar is a market of stalls held in a public place.

The clock tower of Xanthi rises from the central square of the town. Hadji Emin Agha, a rich Muslim local, built it in 1859. The tower was part of the market mosque complex. A complex here means a group of linked buildings. The tower gives Greece tours for solo travellers an Ottoman landmark in a Greek square.

• Festival: The old town festival of Xanthi takes place in early September.
• Visitors: Tourism in Xanthi has grown, especially during the period of the Old Town Festival.
• Old trades: Tobacco, commerce and farming have long been the chief trades of local people.

The Folklore and Historical Museum is among the landmarks of Xanthi. Folklore covers the customs and crafts handed down among ordinary people. A festival named after Manos Hatzidakis, the composer, draws worldwide interest. Xanthi gives Greece tours for solo travellers a cultural centre of Thrace.

Why do the squares of Komotini matter for Greece tours for solo travellers across Thrace?

Greece tours for solo travellers gain an old fortress town in Komotini. The city began as a Byzantine fortress built by Emperor Theodosius in the 4th century AD. The ruins of this quadrangular fort lie north-west of the central square.

An inscription on the wall ruins reads Theodosiou Ktisma, meaning Building of Theodosius. Such an inscription means letters chiselled into the masonry. The current settlement dates to 1207. In that year, people from the ruined town of Mosynopolis settled inside the abandoned fortress. Mosynopolis had been destroyed by Kaloyan, ruler of the Bulgarians.

The central square is Plateia Irinis, the Square of Peace. It is the focus of lively nightlife, boosted by the city’s large student body. The old commercial centre houses traditional shops and workshops long gone from other Greek cities. On Greece tours for solo travellers, a workshop means a room where crafts are made by hand.

The Municipal Central Park sits at the city’s heart. The 15 m Heroes’ Memorial of the Second World War stands there as well. People in the city call the memorial The Sword. The Open-air Municipal Theatre lies south-west of the central square. The theatre gives Greece tours for solo travellers a cultural summer of shows and events.

• Clock tower: Sultan Abdulhamid II built a clock tower and a madrasah, an Islamic school, in the 19th century.
• Second square: Vizyinou Square is a second named town square in the city of Komotini.
• Old plan: The older parts of the city show little urban planning, unlike its newer quarters.

The old commercial centre is very popular with tourists. Komotini has Archaeological, Byzantine and Folklore museums. A Byzantine museum holds art and objects from the eastern Roman empire. Greece tours for solo travellers gain in Komotini a city of squares, crafts and museums.

How do Greece tours for solo travellers connect with the ancient symposium?

Greece tours for solo travellers meet an old Greek custom in the symposium. The term derives from a Greek verb that means to drink together. It described a gathering where guests shared wine and talk in a single room of a house.

Two ancient books carry the name Symposium. Plato and Xenophon each wrote one as a Socratic dialogue, a written conversation featuring the thinker Socrates. Greece tours for solo travellers now run through the country of these old gatherings. As a rule, the gatherings met in the andron, which means the citizen quarters of a household.

Inside that room, guests lay back on couches with pillows. The couches stood against three walls, away from the door. Space allowed between seven and nine couches in one room. That limit kept a symposium to between fourteen and twenty seven guests. Each guest was known as a symposiast, meaning a member of the drinking party.

Macedonian hosts tied hunting to the drinking party. A young man there reclined only after he had killed his first wild boar. To recline here means to lie back on a couch, the position of the adult guests. Such regional habits belong to the past of the land where Greece tours for solo travellers run.

• Symposiarch: This leader of the party set the strength of the wine for each evening.
• Skolia: These drinking songs passed between guests, with one starting and another inventing the end.
• Order: In a Greek symposium, the wine came only after the dinner was over.

Symposia were frequently held to mark the entry of young people into aristocratic society. Aristocratic here means belonging to the old leading families of a city. Greece tours for solo travellers today run in the land where this custom of welcome once lived.

Which hospitality idea links Greece tours for solo travellers with Theoxenia?

Greece tours for solo travellers share a land with Theoxenia. These were holy meals laid out for gods or heroes in ancient times. At these meals, the deities were treated as guests. The Greek name joins theos, meaning god, with xenos, meaning guest.

The roles at these feasts sometimes turned around. The gods then acted as hosts and invited mortals to dine. Rome later borrowed the idea. Its lectisternia, a Latin word for Roman feasts held for the gods, were modelled on these Greek rites. Greece tours for solo travellers move across the country that held these rites.

Hesychius, an ancient writer who explained Greek words, called Theoxenia a common feast for all the gods. Private households kept their own form of the rite. Since very early times, families or tribes laid table offerings before chosen gods or heroes. They did this on fixed dates, such as birthdays or moments of success.

In one record, the people of Delphi offered leeks to the goddess Latona. The person who brought the largest leek won a share of her table. A share of the table here means a portion of the food laid out for the goddess. Greece tours for solo travellers are journeys through the home of this custom.

• Pindar: The poet received a special invitation to the table of Apollo, an honour passed to his descendants.
• Andros: The feast of Dionysus there featured wine said to flow from the temple by miracle.
• Dioscuri: These deified twin heroes were frequent guests of honour at such feasts.

The gods were imagined to feast at separate tables, alone or in pairs. Each table had a cushioned couch, known as the pulvinar. Greece tours for solo travellers run in the country where these sacred meals were laid.

What can Greece tours for solo travellers learn from kottabos, an ancient party game?

Greece tours for solo travellers cross a land that once played kottabos at drinking parties. Each player threw the last drops of wine in the cup at a target in the room’s centre. These leftover dregs are known as wine lees.

Kottabos was a game of skill at Greek and Etruscan symposia, meaning drinking parties. It thrived above all in the 6th century BC and the 5th century BC. Each winner received a prize known as the kottabion. It consisted of cakes, sweetmeats or kisses. Sweetmeats are small sweet treats, such as candied fruit.

Greece tours for solo travellers cross the homeland of writers who knew the game. Pindar, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes made frequent and familiar mention of it. Skill counted for a great deal. A player of unusual ability earned as much respect as an excellent javelin thrower. A javelin is a light spear thrown for distance in athletic contests.

Kottabos seems to have begun in Sicily, home of an early people called the Sikels. From there it spread across Greece, reaching places from Thessaly to Rhodes. The game became especially fashionable at Athens. Greece tours for solo travellers run across that same broad Greek world in modern times.

• Throw: The player leaned on the left elbow on a couch and moved only the right forearm.
• Kottabos kataktos: Also called kottabos with a pole, it used a small disc, the plastinx, on a bronze lamp stand.
• Bowl version: Players aimed to sink small saucers floating on water, an easier task than the pole game.

In Sicily, special round buildings were set up for the game. Their shape let players gather around the target and throw in rapid turn. Greece tours for solo travellers are present-day trips through the old lands of this party game.

For Greece tours for solo travellers, what does Clean Monday mean in the Greek year?

Greece tours for solo travellers run in a country where Clean Monday is a public holiday. Cyprus marks the day as a holiday too. The day belongs to Lent, the Orthodox season of fasting before Easter. To fast here means to give up certain foods.

The date moves from year to year. Clean Monday comes six Mondays ahead of Palm Sunday, the start of Holy Week. A feast of this kind is called moveable, because its date shifts. The day also goes by other names, such as Pure Monday and Green Monday. Greece tours for solo travellers share this shifting calendar.

In church terms, Lent begins on the Sunday night before. A special service called Forgiveness Vespers marks the start. Vespers is an evening prayer service. At its close, every person in the church bows to the others and asks their pardon. This act is the Ceremony of Mutual Forgiveness, and mutual means shared by both sides.

Orthodox custom bars meat, eggs and dairy foods for the whole of Lent. Dairy foods are those made from milk, such as cheese, butter and yoghurt. The rule starts with Clean Monday itself. Orthodox here refers to the Eastern Orthodox Church and its members. Greece tours for solo travellers move through the land of this old food rule.

• Name: “Clean” refers to purifying the body to get ready for Great Lent.
• Clean Week: The whole first week of Lent carries this name, and a thorough house cleaning is customary.
• Spring: Tradition treats Clean Monday as the beginning of the spring season.

The writer Ivan Bunin used this springtime idea in a well-regarded story with the title Pure Monday. Critics gave the story high praise. Greece tours for solo travellers are journeys across the Greek home of this old springtime custom.

How does the krater give Greece tours for solo travellers a lesson in shared wine?

Greece tours for solo travellers run through the homeland of the krater. This large vase had two handles. Its main use was mixing wine with water before the guests drank. Both ancient Greek potters and metalworkers produced the vessel.

The name itself explains the job. In Greek, krater means mixing vessel. The same idea survives in the modern language. Krasi is the modern Greek word for wine. It grew from krasis, the act of blending wine with water in these vessels. Greece tours for solo travellers run where that word is still spoken.

At a Greek symposium, kraters stood in the centre of the room. They were large and hard to move once filled. The mixture was drawn out with other vessels instead. These included the kyathos, the amphoreus and the kylix. A kylix is a shallow, two-handled cup for drinking wine.

In Homer’s Odyssey, a steward takes wine from a krater during a banquet. He then runs back and forth, filling the drinking cups of all the guests. A steward is a servant in charge of food and drink in a household. Greece tours for solo travellers cross the Greek world of this old poem.

• Column krater: This form began in Corinth in the seventh century BC, before Athenian potters took it up.
• Volute krater: Named for its scroll-shaped handles, it first appeared in Laconia early in the 6th century BC.
• Vix krater: Found in a Celtic tomb in central France, it is the largest known Greek krater.

In ancient Greece, the guests elected a symposiarch at the very start of each symposium. The title means lord of the common drink. Greece tours for solo travellers belong to a land where guests once chose a master of the wine.

Where does plate smashing fit among the customs that Greece tours for solo travellers meet?

Greece tours for solo travellers explore the country of plate smashing. This custom of breaking plates or glasses at celebrations reached its peak in the 1960s and 1970s. Guests break the dishes on purpose, as part of the fun.

The practice belongs above all to the stereotyped image that foreigners hold of Greece. A stereotype is a fixed, simple idea about a group or a place. The custom happens more rarely today. It still appears on certain occasions, such as weddings. At such events, plaster plates tend to be used instead.

The modern habit traces back to one person. An entrepreneur named Babavea began the practice at a cabaret he had opened. An entrepreneur is a person who starts a business. A cabaret is a club offering music, song and dance shows at night. Greece tours for solo travellers cover the land where this nightlife habit grew.

The word junta names a military group that holds power in a country. During the junta period, the law treated plate breaking as a separate offence and banned it. The junta later found no offence when those present accepted the behaviour of the dish breaker. Greece tours for solo travellers cross a country where this ruling once applied.

• Nightclubs: Patrons still release tension by smashing plates and other objects in nightclubs.
• Flowers: Throwing flowers towards the singer on stage seems to have replaced breaking, a habit begun by Marinella.
• Cinema: The Greek film Never on Sunday, released in 1960, shows the practice of smashing dishes.

The only gypsum plate maker still at work in Greece is based in Diavata, Thessaloniki. Gypsum is a soft white mineral used to make plaster. Greece tours for solo travellers move through a country where these breakable plates are still made.

What was proxeny, and why do Greece tours for solo travellers recall it?

Greece tours for solo travellers share a homeland with proxeny, an old Greek form of public hospitality. Under this arrangement, a citizen chosen by his city welcomed foreign ambassadors. He paid the costs of their visit himself. Ambassadors are officials sent by other states.

In return, the state gave the host honorary titles. Honorary titles are names of rank given as a mark of respect. The host himself was known as a proxenos. The word means instead of a foreigner. The plural form of the word is proxenoi. Greece tours for solo travellers are outings in the country where this word arose.

The role worked like that of an honorary consul. Such an official protects the interests of citizens from another state. The proxenos did this for the people of the city he represented. Decrees in his honour used a common pairing of titles. They named him euergetes, meaning benefactor, and proxenos.

A proxenos used his influence at home to push for friendship or alliance with the city he served. An alliance is a formal agreement between states to support each other. The role was voluntary, which means he took it on by choice. Greece tours for solo travellers today trace the map of such old city friendships.

• Cimon: This Athenian leader served as the proxenos of Sparta in his own city of Athens.
• Lacedaemonius: Cimon gave a son this name, from Lacedaemon, the old name of Sparta.
• Family role: The post of proxenos for a given city frequently passed down within one family.

On Delos, the honours attached to such decrees included freedom from all taxes. Those honoured also gained the right to own land and houses, and front seats at contests. Greece tours for solo travellers explore a land with this record of rewarding hosts.

What story does the kylix cup tell Greece tours for solo travellers about wine?

Greece tours for solo travellers roam the old home of potters who made the kylix. It was the commonest type of cup of its period. Its users linked it above all with the drinking of wine. The plural of kylix is kylikes.

A rounded base holds up a thin stem, with a wide basin on top. Two handles stand on opposite sides of the cup. The floor of the basin carries a painted picture inside. The picture comes into view as the drinker empties the cup. Such a round image, framed inside a cup, is called a tondo.

In Greek, the word kylix means cup. The same word also named the cup shape of a flower. Kylikes were popular exports from Attica, the region around Athens. No pottery import from Attica was more common in Etruscan settlements. The Etruscans were an ancient people of central Italy. Attica remains home ground for Greece tours for solo travellers.

The short, broad cup let guests drink while reclining, with little risk of spilling. Reclining means lying back with the upper body raised, as on a couch. A symposium here means an ancient Greek drinking party. Greece tours for solo travellers run across the land where potters shaped these cups.

• Siana cup: This type takes its name from a site on Rhodes where it was first found.
• Komast cup: Its name comes from the drunken revellers, called komasts, painted on its outside.
• Little-Master cup: This variety is named for the small scale of the details in its decoration.

Ships and other sea scenes were popular images in the late 6th century. Writers of that time compared a symposium to a voyage at sea. Greece tours for solo travellers are trips through the land of these painted ships.

Which cry of joy, opa, fits the vocabulary of Greece tours for solo travellers and their hosts?

Greece tours for solo travellers take place where opa is a familiar word. The cry rings out frequently at weddings, traditional dances and other celebrations. An emotional expression of this kind is a short word that shows strong feeling.

In Greek letters, the word is written όπα or ώπα. The two spellings differ only in the first vowel. Opa does not only mark joy. It can also show enthusiasm, shock or surprise. People say it just after making a mistake too. Enthusiasm means strong eagerness or excitement about something.

Greece tours for solo travellers meet a word that is not Greek alone. It is a common cry across North Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean. South Asia and Latin America use it too. Outside Greece, it is heard in Italy, Spain, Cyprus and Malta. Speakers in Turkey, Bulgaria, Hungary and Ukraine use it too.

In Jewish culture, the word sounds like hopa. There it is used for mazel tov. Mazel tov is a Jewish phrase used to say congratulations. Culture here means the shared customs and beliefs of a people. Greece tours for solo travellers sit within the Greek part of this wide map of opa.

• Arabic: Arabs sometimes say obah, since classical Arabic has no letter p.
• Warning: In Mexico, Peru and Venezuela, the word warns someone of a danger they have not noticed.
• Focus: Romanian and Russian speakers use it during a short moment of concentration on an action.

The word also works as a way to catch someone’s attention. In that use, it matches the English call Hey. Greece tours for solo travellers are set among Greeks for whom the cry opa still marks festive moments.

Who were the Deipnosophists, and what do their banquets show Greece tours for solo travellers about dining?

Greece tours for solo travellers share their Greek roots with the Deipnosophistae. The title of this old book means The Dinner Sophists. Sophists here means sages, thinkers or experts. The Greek word joins deipnon, meaning dinner, with sophistes, meaning expert.

Athenaeus of Naucratis wrote the work in Ancient Greek around 200 AD. The story takes place in Rome. There, Publius Livius Larensis hosts a series of banquets. His guests include grammarians, jurists, musicians and hangers-on. Grammarians are scholars of language, and jurists are experts in law. A hanger-on is someone who follows a host in hope of gain.

In English, the word deipnosophists names people with a gift for dining. It points above all to the polished talk expected at Greek symposia. Translators have given the book other English titles. Among them are The Learned Banqueters and Philosophers at Dinner. Greece tours for solo travellers go out across the land of those symposia.

The guests quote a vast range of older writing. Their talk draws on about 700 earlier Greek authors. In total, it cites 2,500 separate writings. A large number of these works are recorded nowhere else. Greece tours for solo travellers journey through the homeland of these vanished authors.

• Oldest recipe: The book quotes a recipe from the lost cookbook of Mithaecus, the oldest in Greek.
• Wedding feast: It describes in detail the food and festivities at the wedding of Caranos.
• Sybaris: Athenaeus reports yearly cooking contests in this Greek city of southern Italy.

The whole work was first written in fifteen separate books. A book here means one large section of a long ancient work. Greece tours for solo travellers explore the same Greek world whose writers filled those fifteen books.

Why does the psykter, a short-lived wine cooler, interest Greece tours for solo travellers with a taste for history?

Greece tours for solo travellers lead into the history of the psykter, an ancient Greek wine cooler. The vase formed part of the elite set of vessels used at a symposium. Its Greek name simply means cooler. Elite here means belonging to a small upper class.

The vase has a bulbous body, meaning round and swollen. This body sits on a high, narrow foot. Its shape resembles a mushroom. That mushroom form marks it out from other ancient Greek wine coolers. Greece tours for solo travellers now roam the homeland of this pottery shape.

Potters made the psykter for only a short period. Production ran from the late sixth century to the mid-fifth century BCE. Almost every known example dates to between 520 and 480 BCE. Its brief life, and simpler ways to cool wine, suggest the shape was a passing fad. A fad is a fashion with short-lived popularity.

As a rule, people cooled wine by adding chilled water or snow-ice to it in a krater. A krater is the large bowl where wine and water were mixed. This method existed before the psykter and lasted after it. Greece tours for solo travellers unfold across the country of these old cooling habits.

• Floating cooler: The psykter appears to have been made to float inside the krater.
• Rarity: Compared with other wine utensils of its time, the psykter is a rare find.
• Short life: Other ways of cooling wine existed, so the vase soon fell out of use.

The psykter was something of a playful device, a fashionable object of its day. It gave guests a pleasure based on looks. It also won the host kudos, meaning praise, for good taste. Greece tours for solo travellers explore the land where such taste won praise.

What do travellers ask about Greece tours for solo travellers, and what are the answers?

The Greece tours for solo travellers raise questions about Greek eating and festival customs. An ouzeri is a tavern serving ouzo, a Greek spirit, with small dishes. Magiritsa is an Easter soup. A panegyris was an old Greek gathering. Archestratus was a poet of food.

Before Greece tours for solo travellers, what is worth knowing about the ouzeri?

Ouzeris are found in every city and town across Greece. The same kind of place also goes by other names. Among them are tsipouradiko, mezedopolio and ouzopolio. Tsipouro is another Greek spirit, and a meze is a small dish. A plate holding a mix of these small dishes is called a pikilia.

For Greece tours for solo travellers, when is magiritsa eaten and how is it served?

Magiritsa is eaten straight after the midnight Divine Liturgy of Easter. A liturgy is a set form of public worship. On Easter morning, it can come with salad, cheese, tsoureki sweet bread and red eggs. In Thessaly, it comes as a fricassee of inner organs and vegetables, without onions or rice.

What was a panegyris, for Greece tours for solo travellers curious about old festivals?

Each panegyris was dedicated to the worship of one particular god. The word also belongs with saint days and with holy festivals. At these festivals, people made prayers, offered sacrifices and walked in processions. A sacrifice means giving something of value to a god. A procession is a group moving in a set order.

In the history behind Greece tours for solo travellers, who was Archestratus?

Ancient writers called Archestratus the Hesiod or Theognis of gluttons. Hesiod and Theognis were older Greek poets of short, wise sayings. A glutton is a person who overeats. Fish took the largest share of his attention, with lines on appetisers and wine too. Sixty-two fragments of the poem remain, each one quoted by Athenaeus.