Greece Bus Tours

Greece bus tours are sightseeing trips by bus or coach on the Greek mainland and the larger islands. On the mainland, sections turn to the Katara Pass, the Aktio-Preveza Undersea Tunnel, Almyros and Tyrnavos. Lake Plastiras, Zagora and Amfilochia follow. Island sections cover the Castle of Santa Maura, Falasarna and the Kahal Shalom Synagogue. The De Bosset Bridge, Mon Repos and Itanos come next. For wider plans, compare Greece tour packages, day trips from Athens and Greece tours for seniors. More options appear under Greece tours.

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What are Greece bus tours?

Greece bus tours are sightseeing trips by road across the Greek mainland and islands. A tour bus service takes visitors on routes around tourist attractions. Sightseeing means travelling to look at well-known places, from ancient ruins to old harbour towns.

On Greece bus tours, the phrase hop-on hop-off names a service that runs to a regular schedule. Riders leave at one stop and board a later bus, moving between attractions at their own pace. Tour buses are bigger than regular transit buses. They stand on 2 to 4 axles, the rods that join pairs of wheels.

A motor coach is almost always a high-floor bus. Its seats sit above a separate luggage hold, a storage space below the passengers. The English word coach comes from Kocs, a town in Hungary. Horse-drawn mail coaches set out from there, and the vehicle took its name from that place.

Greece bus tours use roads built over hard country. The Greek mainland is extremely mountainous. Its topography, along with care for local flora and fauna, shaped the final routes of the motorways. Topography is the shape of the land surface. Flora means plant life, and fauna means animal life.

• Coach: Coaches are made for longer distance service than the buses on short city routes.
• Comfort: Virtually every modern coach comes with air conditioning, which keeps the air inside cool.
• Tunnels: About 150 tunnels stand along the six major Greek motorways; a tunnel is an underground road passage.

Greece bus tours take place on roads marked by two sign colours. Signs on Greek motorways are always green, while signs on national roads are blue. A national road is a main route built to lower standards than a motorway, with slower traffic.

Why does the Katara Pass matter in the road story of Greece bus tours?

Greece bus tours operate amid steep mountain country. The Katara Pass, also called the Metsovo Pass, cuts through the Pindus in northern Greece. A mountain pass is a gap between peaks that lets a route cross a range.

In the geography of Greece bus tours, the Katara Pass forms a divide between two river basins. Each basin is the whole area whose rainwater runs off into one river. The Aoos basin lies to the southwest. The Pineios basin lies to the east. Rain on each slope of the pass ends up in a different river.

Greece bus tours travel a country of high roads, and Katara ranks among its highest passes. The pass climbs to about 1,705 m in elevation. Elevation is the height of a place measured from sea level. Here m stands for metres and km for kilometres. The pass lies 5 km northeast of the town of Metsovo.

Greek National Road 6 crosses the Katara Pass. On Greece bus tours, a national road means a main road with a number for a name. The A2 motorway later opened further south, running through tunnels. Since that opening, traffic over the pass has fallen sharply. Motorways are high-speed roads that keep the two flows of traffic apart.

• Old road: West of Trikala, National Road 6 turns particularly mountainous as it climbs into the Pindus.
• New motorway: The A2 crosses the Pindus and Vermio ranges, which gave engineers very hard problems to solve.
• Brown bear: Worry over the habitat of the brown bear, an endangered animal, delayed the A2 stretch through the Pindus.

Greece bus tours take place across the regions of Greece. The Katara Pass sits on the border of two of them, Epirus and Thessaly. Greece is split into regions, its largest units of local government. A border is the line where two regions meet.

Which engineering record links the Aktio-Preveza Undersea Tunnel to Greece bus tours?

Greece bus tours run by road, and in western Greece one road runs under water. The Aktio-Preveza Undersea Tunnel takes that road below the opening of the Ambracian Gulf. A gulf is a wide inlet where the sea reaches far into the land.

The tunnel links Preveza, on the gulf’s north shore, with the cape of Aktio. A cape is a headland, a piece of coast that pushes out into the water. In ancient times, Aktio went by the name Actium. The word ancient refers to the era of the early Greeks and Romans, long before the Middle Ages.

Measured from end to end, the whole tunnel runs for 1,570 metres. Of that length, 909 metres form the underwater section, the stretch below the gulf. On Greece bus tours, undersea describes anything set below the surface of the sea. A section is one part of a longer whole, such as a road.

The tunnel lies in a zone of severe seismic activity. Seismic activity means the shaking of the ground by earthquakes. For that reason, stone columns sit underneath the tunnel. They help it resist soil liquefaction when an earthquake strikes. Liquefaction happens when shaken wet soil loses its strength and starts to act like a liquid.

• Record: Greece bus tours run in a land with just one undersea tunnel, and this is it.
• Layout: Traffic in both directions shares one carriageway, the road surface that carries vehicles.
• Completion: Builders finished the tunnel in 2002, at the start of the new century.

Before the tunnel, the only way across the gulf was by ferry. A ferry is a boat that carries people and vehicles across water. On Greece bus tours, the word crossing means a trip from one shore to the other.

What past does Almyros bring to Greece bus tours in Thessaly?

Greece bus tours are road trips across a country divided into regions, and Thessaly is one of them. Almyros is a town and municipality in the Magnesia regional unit of Thessaly. A municipality here means a council area with a mayor at its head.

The town lies in the centre of a fertile plain called Krokio Pedio. Torrents cross the plain. A torrent is a fast stream that fills with water after heavy rain. Fertile soil feeds plants well and gives strong harvests. The main crops are wheat, cotton and tomatoes, with almonds, peanuts and pistachio nuts.

For Greece bus tours, the story of Almyros begins with ancient Halos. Halos was known for its harbour and for the part it played in the Persian Wars. In the Middle Ages its name was Halmyros. Italian merchant groups from Venice, Pisa and Genoa brought it much of its wealth.

In 1980 a catastrophic earthquake of magnitude 6.5 destroyed the greater part of the town. Earthquakes happen when rock deep underground shifts without warning. Magnitude is a scale number that rates the energy an earthquake releases. For anyone on Greece bus tours, catastrophic is the word for damage on a huge scale.

• Archaeological Museum: The town museum holds local finds from Roman times back to the Neolithic, the late Stone Age.
• Kouri forest: Close to the town, the Kouri forest covers 108 ha, or hectares, of lowland oak woods.
• Monastery: Built in the 12th century, the Panagia Xenia monastery in the Othrys holds wall paintings and a library.

Greece bus tours travel a country whose borders grew in stages. In 1881 Almyros and the greater part of Thessaly were ceded to Greece. To cede land means to hand it over from one state to another by agreement.

How do carnival customs shape the Tyrnavos chapter of Greece bus tours?

Greece bus tours are trips through Greece, and in Thessaly the town of Tyrnavos keeps an old carnival. The first written records of its celebration date from 1898. A carnival is a festive season of parades and fun before the fast of Lent.

The Tyrnavos carnival reaches its peak on the last Sunday of the season. That day brings the big Parade of Chariots. For Greece bus tours, chariot here means a decorated float, not an ancient war cart. A float is a vehicle or cart dressed up with scenes and figures for a street parade.

On the Greek calendar that Greece bus tours follow, Clean Monday opens Lent. Lent is the season of fasting before Easter. In Tyrnavos, the Bourani custom falls on that day, in the first days of the fast. Townspeople first head out to the Prophet Elijah country church, north of the town.

Slavs founded Tyrnavos as a pastoral settlement of huts during the 7th or 8th century AD. Pastoral means based on keeping sheep, goats and other grazing animals. The Turkish general Turahan Bey took control of Thessaly in 1423. He gave the town a new start as a formal urban centre, a properly organised town.

• Faiths: In 1770 the town held 16 churches and 6 mosques, the prayer halls of Islam.
• Union with Greece: Greece took over Tyrnavos and the rest of Thessaly after an 1881 treaty, the Convention of Constantinople.
• Bath house: Of the Ottoman-era buildings that survive, the best known is the hammam, a Turkish bath.

For Greece bus tours, Bourani is the dish behind the Tyrnavos custom of the same name. Over an open fire, people prepare the Bourani, a spinach soup. Spinach is a leafy green vegetable, and a soup is a liquid dish served warm.

What story lies behind Lake Plastiras for Greece bus tours?

Greece bus tours run through a mountain country, and Lake Plastiras lies behind a concrete arch dam. The Plastiras Dam holds back the Tavropos River to form the lake. An arch dam is a curved wall that pushes water pressure into the valley sides.

Within Greece, this double arched design belongs to the Plastiras Dam alone. It blocks a narrow point called Kakavakia. Double arched means the wall curves both across the valley and from top to bottom. The dam is set 795 m higher than the sea. Here m stands for metres.

The Tavropos was known locally for frequent floods. A flood is water that spreads over land that is normally dry. Today the dam and the lake protect East Agrafa from flooding, along with the plains of Karditsa. On Greece bus tours, Agrafa names a mountain region, while a plain is broad, level ground.

Since the 1980s, visitors have lifted the local economy. Abandoned villages in the area have come back to life. For Greece bus tours, the word economy means the work, trade and money of a place. Abandoned means left empty by the people who once lived there. Local means belonging to the area itself.

• Size: The dam rises 83 m, and its crest, or top edge, is 220 m wide.
• Power: Two hydroelectric turbines, machines that turn moving water into electricity, give a capacity of 130 megawatts.
• Namesake: Nikolaos Plastiras, whose name the dam carries, died before builders raised it.

On Greece bus tours, a reservoir means a body of water held back and saved by a dam. This reservoir matters so much to tourism that the authorities limit its use for irrigation and electricity. Irrigation means bringing water to crops through channels or pipes.

Which history gives the Pelion village of Zagora a place in Greece bus tours?

Greece bus tours are road trips through Greece, and Zagora has a long human story. Finds such as Greek ruins and coins suggest people have lived there since the Homeric era. That era is the early age of Greece linked with the poet Homer.

For Greece bus tours, the name Zagora has two explanations. One account ties it to the Greek words for an animal market. A large yearly market once traded animals brought from as far as Mongolia. A second account sees a Slavic root, with the sense of land behind the mountain. Slavic languages include Russian, Serbian and Bulgarian.

Zagora first appears in records under its present name in the 13th century. A century is a span of a hundred years. During the 14th century, Venice and the Catalans took control of Magnesia, the area around Zagora. Venice was a trading republic in northern Italy. The Catalans came from Catalonia, a region of Spain.

In the mid-1850s the Kassavetio Girls’ School opened in Zagora. It was the first school for girls founded in Ottoman Thessaly. Ottoman Thessaly means the region during its rule by the Ottoman Empire. Its rulers were Turkish, and its lands were wide. A girls’ school teaches pupils who are girls only.

• Uprising: In January 1878 Zagora hosted the revolutionary government of the Pelion uprising, a revolt against Ottoman rule.
• Road to Volos: Builders completed the road from Zagora to the city of Volos in 1938.
• National roads: Greece bus tours take place on numbered roads, and EO34 and EO34a both pass through Zagora.

Local crafts of woollen cloth and silk thrived in Zagora up to the mid-19th century. Silk is a fine, smooth thread spun by silkworms. Wool comes from sheep. For Greece bus tours, the mid-19th century means the years around the 1850s.

How does Amfilochia on the Ambracian Gulf fit into Greece bus tours?

Greece bus tours move by road between Greek towns, and Amfilochia has a long past behind it. The town, in northwest Aetolia-Acarnania, stands where ancient Amfilochia once stood. Aetolia-Acarnania counts as a regional unit, a division smaller than a region.

According to Pausanias, the settlement takes its name from King Amphilochos, son of Amphiaraus. Pausanias wrote a travel account of Greece in ancient times, place by place. Amphilochos made his home in the area once Troy had fallen. Troy was the city at the heart of the Trojan War in Greek legend.

Under the Ottoman Empire the town was known as Karvasaras. The name echoes Kervansaray, the Turkish word for caravanserai. A caravanserai is a roadside inn for travelling traders. Ali Pasha of Ioannina set up such a motel there to serve passing caravans. On Greece bus tours, the title pasha marks a senior Ottoman governor or official.

Greece bus tours take place along coasts as well as mountains, and Amfilochia lies by the Ambracian Gulf. The town also features an amphitheatre. An amphitheatre is an open-air space with rows of seats rising in a curve around a central area. The word comes from Greek and means a theatre with seats all around.

• Ancient cities: Within the area lie two ancient cities, Amphilochian Argos and Limnaia.
• Port: The town port is sometimes used to import grain, the seeds of crops such as wheat.
• Music: Kyriakos Sfetsas, a composer, or writer of music, born in 1945, is among its notable people.

Within the municipality, the A5 and A52 motorways meet near Lake Amvrakia. Their meeting point is a junction, the place where two or more roads join. Greece bus tours use roads named by a simple system: the letter A marks a motorway.

What history surrounds the Castle of Santa Maura for Greece bus tours?

Greece bus tours on Lefkada share the island with the Castle of Santa Maura, an old fortress. It stands on a spit, which is a long and thin tongue of land. The spit reaches out towards the nearby mainland coast of Epirus.

For Greece bus tours, the Ottoman story of Lefkada starts with its capture in 1479. Under Ottoman rule, the walled town of Aya Mavra was the island’s capital. A register from 1523–1536 lists 194 households, about 1,000 Greek Christians. A register is an official list kept by a government.

In the history behind Greece bus tours on Lefkada, the castle’s present shape comes from Ottoman rebuilding. Kılıç Ali Pasha rebuilt and enlarged the fortress in 1572–1574. Pasha was a high Ottoman title. The new plan formed an irregular hexagon, a shape with six uneven sides. It measured about 220 metres by 150 metres at its widest.

Evliya Çelebi visited the castle in 1670/71. He found only Muslims living in its roughly 200 stone houses. Christians lived in suburbs, which are districts outside a town’s walls. Every building in those suburbs had been made of wood on purpose. The Venetians captured the castle in 1684, during the Morean War.

• Aqueduct: In 1564 builders added an aqueduct, a raised water channel, running 3 kilometres from the interior.
• Footpath: A footpath along the top of the aqueduct gave the only way onto the island except by sea.
• Bastions: The new fortress had nine large round cannon bastions, which are strong points jutting out from a wall.

British forces seized the castle in 1810. They held it until 1864, when Greece gained the Ionian Islands. In the record behind Greece bus tours, the fortress was later abandoned. In 1938 the bulk of its buildings and walls were pulled down.

Why does Falasarna matter to Greece bus tours in western Crete?

Greece bus tours in western Crete share the area with Falasarna, an ancient harbour town. Its acropolis crowns a cape 90 metres higher than the harbour. An acropolis is the raised, walled heart of a city in ancient Greece.

For Greece bus tours, Falasarna’s harbour was a closed one, with city walls on every side. Stone quays, or landing platforms for ships, ring the basin. Two artificial channels joined the basin to the sea. Near the channel’s mouth, a carved stone found in 2013 still keeps marks of bronze.

Excavators have uncovered five towers from the walls that circled the harbour. Each bears a moulding, which is a carved stone strip, at the point where the base gets thinner. One round tower survives to a height of 4.5 m. From it, a curtain wall, the straight wall between two towers, runs 50 m to a rectangular tower.

In the history behind Greece bus tours, the harbour silted up quickly after the Roman attack. Radiocarbon dating of fossil algae on the cliffs puts a sudden sea level change over sixteen centuries ago. Radiocarbon dating measures the age of once-living material. A probable cause is the quake of 21 July AD 365, which also raised a tsunami.

• Chain: A chain across the channel to the sea allowed the harbour to be closed off.
• Fish tank: A fish tank of ancient date, cut into the rocks with two stairways, is split in half.
• Slipway: A quay 30 m long lines a second basin, with a slipway, or boat ramp, at one end.

Harbour finds include public roads, wells, warehouses, an altar and baths. For Greece bus tours, the digs that revealed these began in 1986. Frank J. Frost shared the work from 1988 to 1990. He came from the University of California at Santa Barbara.

How does the Kahal Shalom Synagogue fit into Greece bus tours on Rhodes?

Greece bus tours on Rhodes share the island with the Kahal Shalom Synagogue. It stands in La Juderia, the old Jewish district of the city of Rhodes. Its full Hebrew name means Synagogue of the Holy Congregation of Peace.

For Greece bus tours, the building dates from 1577, the year 5338 in the Hebrew calendar. A synagogue is a place where Jewish people meet to pray. Jews have lived on Rhodes for 2,300 years. Under Ottoman rule, Sephardim, one branch of the Jewish people, settled on Rhodes after being expelled from elsewhere.

The congregation follows the Eastern Sephardi rite, the order of prayers of that branch. In summer, Jewish visitors and Rhodeslis, meaning Jews from Rhodes, arrive for services. The building also houses the Jewish Museum of Rhodes, which sets out the history of the community. Only 35 Jews live on the island today.

In the history behind Greece bus tours on Rhodes, Italy took over the Dodecanese Islands in 1912. Large numbers of Jews left Rhodes in the 1930s, feeling threatened by the Fascist Italian regime. In 1943 the island came under direct German control. Kahal Shalom alone, of four synagogues in La Juderia, survived the wartime bombing.

• Bimah: The bimah, the podium where the Torah scroll is read, stands in the centre of the hall.
• Arks: Two hekhals, or arks that hold the Torah, flank the door to the inner courtyard.
• Remembrance: A plaque in French honours community members who were murdered during the Holocaust.

Plaques mainly in Ladino and Hebrew honour those who maintained the synagogue. Ladino is the language of the Sephardic community. For Greece bus tours, the courtyard also holds a fountain for washing hands. Kohanim, men from priestly families, use it before reciting the priestly blessings.

Which record does the De Bosset Bridge hold for Greece bus tours on Kefalonia?

Greece bus tours on Kefalonia share the island with the De Bosset Bridge. The bridge spans the bay of Argostoli and was once called the Drapano Bridge. At 689.9 metres, it is the longest stone bridge that crosses the sea.

For Greece bus tours, the bridge belongs to the era of British patronage over the Ionian Islands. Charles Philippe de Bosset, a Swiss-born army officer, served as the island’s governor from 1810. His projects aimed to improve roads and bridges. Bridges over ravines, or deep narrow valleys, shortened a number of links.

In the history behind Greece bus tours, the bridge cut the distance to Lixouri and the north. It also separates the Koutavos lagoon from the bay. A lagoon is shallow water held apart from the open sea by land. De Bosset put his plan to the island council in 1812.

Critics argued that the bridge gave robbers an escape route, as its northern end had no settlement. At one meeting, De Bosset brought a sword down on the table. Builders swapped the original structure, piece by piece, for a sandstone one. Sandstone is a rock made of grains of sand pressed together.

• Arches: The paved deck rests on 16 low stone arches, and one of them is filled in.
• Earthquake: Parts of the bridge collapsed during the Ionian earthquake of 1953.
• Monument: In 1970 the bridge gained official listing as a historical monument.

Renovation ran from 2011 to 2013, and Greece bus tours now share Argostoli with a bridge for walkers. Sandstone replaced the concrete fillings of 1953, and paving replaced the asphalt. Copies of the original lanterns replaced the light poles in the sea.

What past does Mon Repos give Greece bus tours on Corfu?

Greece bus tours on Corfu share the island with Mon Repos, a former royal summer home. The villa stands in the Palaeopolis forest, to the south of Corfu City. Work on its building began in 1828 and ended in 1831.

Colonel George Whitmore drew up the neoclassical design with the civil engineer J. Harper. Neoclassical describes a later style that copies Greek and Roman temple design. Whitmore was also the architect of a palace on Spianada Square in Corfu City. For Greece bus tours, the villa counts among Greece’s early neoclassical buildings.

The estate became home to the School of Fine Arts in 1833, under the Corfiot sculptor Pavlos Prosalentis. A Corfiot is a person from Corfu. Public gardens were laid out on the estate’s farmland in 1834. In 1840 the Theological Seminary, a college for priests, moved in for two years.

In the history behind Greece bus tours on Corfu, Empress Elisabeth of Austria stayed here in 1863. She later built the Achilleion Palace in the village of Gastouri. After the union with Greece in 1864, the villa became a gift to King George I. The royal family used it as a summer home until 1967.

• Births: Princess Sophie was born here on 26 June 1914, and Princess Alexia on 10 July 1965.
• Guesthouse: The second building, a guesthouse called Tito, now holds workshops for conserving archaeological finds.
• Staircase: A wooden spiral staircase climbs from the columned main hall to the second floor.

The villa later fell into ruin and was restored in the 1990s. Its main block rises three storeys, laid out with strict symmetry. For Greece bus tours, its style follows the neoclassical fashion of the English Regency years. The Regency was a period in British history.

Where does the name Itanos come from for Greece bus tours in eastern Crete?

Greece bus tours in eastern Crete share the region with Itanos. Itanos is a municipal unit of the Sitia municipality in Lasithi. Each municipal unit forms a section of a larger council area. Its former seat was Palaikastro.

Itanos had no modern city or town to give the unit its name. A promontory called Itanos forms the base of Cape Sidero. The word promontory means a headland, high ground that sticks out into the water. Scholars agree that Itanos is not a Greek word. For that reason, the peninsula is thought to have held the name first.

For Greece bus tours, the ancient city of Itanos spoke Doric Greek, at least in the classical period. Doric was a regional dialect, or local form, of ancient Greek. The city was founded in the 7th or 8th century BC. It was abandoned in the 7th or 8th century, well before modern times.

In the history behind Greece bus tours, the site of ancient Itanos now goes by the name Erimoupolis. The name means deserted city. Digs found a large ancient city spread over the hills beside the beaches. Research showed that Itanos Beach had been a harbour, later filled with sediment. Sediment is sand and mud that water carries and drops.

• Area: The municipal unit covers 197.406 square kilometres of eastern Crete.
• People: The 2021 census counted 2,014 people living in the unit.
• Mitato: Mitato, a group of mountain settlements, was abolished because its population was falling fast.

For Greece bus tours, the Itanos Archaeological Survey found Minoan sites across the whole area. Minoan means of Bronze Age Crete. One idea holds that the Minoan settlement bore the name Utana. No Linear B tablets, an early Greek script, have come from the area.

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

The Greece bus tours of Crete share the island with Frangokastello, a south coast castle and settlement. Plomari ranks as the second largest town on Lesbos. Palaiokastritsa is a village in north-western Corfu. Lato was an ancient city of Crete.

On Greece bus tours in southern Crete, who built Frangokastello, and why?

The Venetians built the castle in 1371–1374 as a garrison, a post for troops. Its job was to calm the rebel region of Sfakia and keep pirates away. St. Nikitas Castle was the Venetian name, taken from a nearby church. Locals called it Frangokastello, meaning Castle of the Franks, or Catholic foreigners.

For Greece bus tours on Lesbos, what is Plomari known for?

Plomari sits south of Mount Olympos, a peak on Lesbos. It is the one sizable coastal settlement along the island’s south. The town has a famous ouzo-distilling industry. That drink, ouzo, is a strong and clear Greek spirit flavoured with aniseed. Distilling means making a drink by boiling and cooling it.

For Greece bus tours on Corfu, what does the name Palaiokastritsa mean?

The Greek name means Old Little Castle. It points to Angelokastro, a castle close to the village. The monastery in Palaiokastritsa dates from 1225 and now houses a museum. A monastery is a community house where monks live and pray. The 2021 census counted 3,389 people in the wider Palaiokastrites municipal unit.

What was Lato, for Greece bus tours near Mirabello Bay?

Lato was a Dorian city-state, a city that ruled itself, built between two peaks above Mirabello Bay. Scholars link the name to the goddess Leto. Lato is the usual Doric form of that name. The city was destroyed around 200 BC. Its port near Agios Nikolaos stayed in use under Roman rule.

Featured photo: Joyofmuseums, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (File:Monastery of St. Stephen at Meteora by Joy of Museums.jpg).