Greece and Italy Tours

Greece and Italy tours cover Greece and the south of Italy. Greek settlers built cities in southern Italy from the 8th century BC. Paestum, Syracuse, the Valley of the Temples, Selinunte, Segesta and Taranto hold that Greek past. So do Cumae, Locri, Metapontum, Velia, Taormina and Crotone. Otranto, Brindisi, the Griko people and the Venetian Ionian Islands carry the ties into later ages. Linked pages deal with a classical Greece tour, Corfu tours and a 10 day Greece itinerary. More ideas sit under Greece tours.

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What are Greece and Italy tours?

Greece and Italy tours are trips through Greece and southern Italy, two lands linked by ancient Greek settlers. Those settlers made Magna Graecia, the old Greek-speaking area of southern Italy. It took in five modern Italian regions: Calabria, Apulia, Basilicata, Campania and Sicily.

Magna Graecia is the Latin form of the Greek phrase Megálē Hellás, or “Greater Greece”. Polybius, a Greek historian, first wrote the term down in the 2nd century BC. In the story behind Greece and Italy tours, Greek expansion began around 750 BC. It went on for 250 years, with new colonies in every direction.

A colony here means a new city that Greek settlers built far from home. Each Greek colony stood as an independent city-state, while Roman colonies depended on their mother city. In architecture and town planning, the colonies sometimes outdid the Greek motherland. The ancient people behind Greece and Italy tours are known as Italiotes and Siceliotes.

The settlers also shaped native peoples of the south, such as the Sicels and the Oenotrians. Those who took on Greek culture are called Hellenized. Rome won Sicily during the First Punic War, though Syracuse stayed free until 212 BC. The independence of the Greek cities ended in 205 BC, during the Second Punic War.

• Oldest settlement: Pithecusae, on the island of Ischia, counts as the oldest Greek settlement in Italy.
• Achaean wave: Achaean Greeks settled the Ionian coast shortly before 720 BC, at Metapontion, Poseidonia, Sybaris and Kroton.
• Largest city: Sybaris, now Sibari, had the largest population, estimated at 300,000 to 500,000 people.

Ruins of Greek cities remain today at Naples, Syracuse, Agrigento, Taranto, Reggio Calabria and Crotone. Their ancient Greek names were Syrakousai, Akragas, Taras, Rhegion and Kroton. Naples, part of the story of Greece and Italy tours, began as Neàpolis, Greek for “New City”.

How does Paestum, once called Poseidonia, fit into Greece and Italy tours?

Greece and Italy tours connect with Paestum, a major ancient Greek city, through its founders. Settlers from Sybaris, a Greek colony in southern Italy, built it around 600 BCE. Their name for the new city on the Tyrrhenian Sea coast was Poseidonia.

Three Doric temples, built in a Greek style, give Paestum its fame. They date from about 550 to 450 BCE and remain in excellent condition. Their columns swell toward the base and carry wide capitals, or column tops, shaped like upturned mushrooms. They honoured Hera and Athena, known to Romans as Juno and Minerva.

The first Temple of Hera, built around 550 BCE, is the oldest surviving temple at Paestum. In the 18th century it was named “the Basilica”, a Roman hall type, by mistake. Greece and Italy tours recall the second Temple of Hera, from 460 to 450 BCE. Its columns have 24 flutes, or grooves, instead of the usual 20.

The Greek city thrived for about two centuries, and Greece and Italy tours trace that era. Democracy, or rule by the citizens, took shape there. In 400 BCE the local Lucanians seized it and renamed it Paistos. Romans took over in 273 BCE, set up a Latin colony and named the town Paestum.

• Tomb of the Diver: Its painted lid pictures a youth diving into a stream.
• City walls: The defensive walls, largely intact, run for about 4.75 km around the ancient city.
• Etchings: Giovanni Battista Piranesi published a book of etchings, or engraved prints, of the site in 1778.

Paestum lay abandoned from the Early Middle Ages and largely forgotten until the eighteenth century. Its simple, complete temples influenced early Greek Revival architecture, which copied ancient Greek forms. Greece and Italy tours trace a city of about 120 hectares, of which only 25 are excavated.

Which Corinthian founding story does Syracuse bring to Greece and Italy tours?

Greece and Italy tours tie Syracuse to Corinth, the Greek city whose settlers founded it in 733 BC. Their leader Archias landed on the island of Ortygia, now the historic centre. In its classical age, Syracuse rivalled Athens in power and splendour.

The founders drove out the Sicels, the earlier people of Ortygia. Greek Syracuse then knew a long line of tyrants, meaning rulers who took power alone. Gelon, Dionysius, Agathocles and two rulers named Hiero stood out among them. Greece and Italy tours also recall Timoleon, a Corinthian general whose moderate rule lasted about a decade.

The Syracusan court hosted famous Greek names, among them Aeschylus, Pindar and Plato. Plato called the local playwright Epicharmus “the founder of comedy”. Comedy is a kind of drama that amuses and mocks. Greece and Italy tours touch on its Greek Theatre, one of the largest theatres of antiquity. Aeschylus was among the great names on its stage.

The oldest temple in Syracuse, raised in the 6th century BC, honours Apollo, the sun god. It stands on Ortygia and is the oldest Doric temple to Apollo in Sicily. Old Syracusan coins carried the face of Arethusa, a nymph, ringed by dolphins. A nymph in Greek myth is a female nature spirit.

• Ear of Dionysius: Caravaggio gave it this name, and it is believed to have served as a Greek prison.
• Neapolis Archaeological Park: It covers 240,000 square metres and holds remains of Greek and Roman Syracuse.
• Galermi Aqueduct: The tyrant Gelon built this water channel in 480 BC, the oldest of its kind in Sicily.

UNESCO named Syracuse a World Heritage Site in 2005, together with the Necropolis of Pantalica. Pantalica is a necropolis, meaning a large ancient cemetery. Greece and Italy tours place Syracuse on the southeastern coast of Sicily.

What does the Valley of the Temples at Agrigento add to Greece and Italy tours?

Greece and Italy tours link the Valley of the Temples to Akragas, the Greek name of Agrigento. Colonists from Gela, in eastern Sicily, founded the city around 582 BC. The site ranks among the outstanding examples of Greek art and architecture in Magna Graecia.

Further colonists from Crete and Rhodes joined the settlers from Gela. The founders, or oikistai, were Aristonous and Pystilus. The city took its first name from the Acragas, one of two nearby rivers. For Greece and Italy tours, Akragas stands as the last of the major Greek colonies founded in Sicily.

The Valley holds remains of seven temples, all in the Doric style. The Temple of Concordia dates from the 5th century BC. A Latin inscription discovered close by gave it its name. It served as a church from the 6th century AD and survives in good condition. The UNESCO symbol echoes its six-column front.

Greece and Italy tours recall the Temple of Olympian Zeus, built in 480 BC. It celebrated the victory of the city-state over Carthage. Large carved figures called atlases, made to carry the structure, mark its design. The Temple of Castor and Pollux keeps only four columns but serves as the symbol of modern Agrigento.

• World Heritage: UNESCO added the whole area to its World Heritage List in 1997.
• Park size: At 1300 hectares, it is the largest archaeological park in Europe and the Mediterranean.
• Empedocles: Empedocles, a Greek thinker active before Socrates, was a citizen of ancient Akragas.

The name “valley” is misleading, as the site lies on a ridge outside Agrigento. Under Theron, in the 5th century BC, Akragas flourished and raised renowned temples. Greece and Italy tours also recall Alexander Hardcastle, who funded digs there in the 20th century.

Where does Selinunte, the city of wild celery, sit in Greece and Italy tours?

Greece and Italy tours place Selinunte on the south-western coast of Sicily. In ancient times it was a rich, extensive Greek city of Magna Graecia. Settlers from Megara Hyblaea, a Sicilian city, founded it with help from Megara in Greece.

The Greek historian Thucydides names the leader of the settlers as Pammilus. The founding can be placed around 628 BC. Wild celery, selinon in Ancient Greek, grew on the spot and is believed to have given the name. For Greece and Italy tours, the celery leaf also served as the symbol on the city’s coins.

At its peak before 409 BC, the city had an estimated 30,000 inhabitants, slaves aside. Hermocrates rebuilt two acropolis quarters after the attack. The acropolis, or fortified upper town, sits on a limestone mass above a sea cliff. Greece and Italy tours mark its end: destroyed and abandoned in 250 BC, it was never reoccupied.

Temple G, the largest at Selinunte, ranked with the greatest temples of the Greek world. Work on it ran from 530 to 409 BC, yet it stayed unfinished. Temple C, from 550 BC, is the oldest in its area. Temple E was raised again between 1956 and 1959 by anastylosis, or rebuilding with original stones.

• Cave di Cusa: These quarries supplied stone for Selinunte, and work stopped suddenly with the attack of 409 BC.
• Ephebe of Selinus: This bronze youth, shown pouring an offering, dates to 470 BC.
• Sanctuary of the Malophoros: Around 12,000 clay figurines, left as gifts at this shrine of Demeter, came to light.

Since 2020, digs have uncovered the largest agora, or public square, of the ancient world. It covers 33,000 square metres at the centre of the city. Greece and Italy tours note an empty tomb in its middle, possibly the founder’s.

How does Segesta, a city of the Elymians, relate to Greece and Italy tours?

Greece and Italy tours link Segesta to Greek culture, though it was not a Greek colony. Its people were Elymians, one of three native peoples of Sicily. Hellenization, the taking on of Greek ways, happened here very early. The city lay in north-western Sicily.

A Greek tradition, which Thucydides adopted, credited Trojan refugees with founding the city. The Romans welcomed this and claimed kinship with the Segestans. In the Aeneid, a long Roman poem by Virgil, King Acestes founds it with followers of Aeneas. Greece and Italy tours also cite Strabo: Trojan settlers named two streams there Simois and Scamander.

Segesta’s coins bore Greek letters and showed clear Greek artistry. In 426 BC the city made an alliance with Athens. Helping Segesta was the original aim of the great Athenian expedition to Sicily in 415 to 413 BC. The Segestans reportedly fooled Athenian envoys, or official messengers, with a false show of wealth.

Greece and Italy tours recall a well-preserved Doric temple on a hill just outside the old city. One view dates it to the 420s BC and credits an Athenian architect. The prevailing view holds that the Elymians built it. Its columns stand six across and fourteen along, on a base of 21 by 56 metres.

• Unfinished temple: Its columns were never fluted, and the building never received a roof.
• Monte Bàrbaro: The ruins of the city lie on top of this height, 305 metres above sea level.
• Dicaeopolis: Back from Africa in 307 BC, Agathocles of Syracuse renamed the city Dicaeopolis.

Rome treated the Segestans with great distinction and freed them from all public burdens. Even in the time of the Roman orator Cicero, it remained a free and immune city. Greece and Italy tours also recall a 12th-century mosque beside a Norman castle there.

Which Spartan roots make Taranto part of Greece and Italy tours?

Greece and Italy tours trace Taranto, a coastal city of Apulia on the Gulf of Taranto, to Sparta. Dorian Greeks from Sparta founded it in 706 BC. The colonists called it Taras, after the mythical hero Taras, while the Romans named it Tarentum.

Its founders were the Partheniae, or “sons of virgins”. Their mothers were unmarried Spartan women, and their fathers were Perioeci, free men without Spartan citizenship. Sparta had allowed these unions during the Messenian Wars to raise more soldiers. Later the unions were cancelled, and the sons had to leave Greece for good.

By 500 BC Taras ranked among the largest cities in the world, with up to 300,000 people. Greece and Italy tours recall Archytas, a philosopher and mathematician who dominated its politics. The Tarentines elected him strategos, or general, seven years in a row. This broke their own rule against repeat terms.

From the 5th century BC into the 4th, Taras struck its own silver coin, the nomos. Its design showed the hero Taras being saved by a dolphin. The reverse, or back, carried a hippocamp, a horse-fish creature said to pull Poseidon’s chariot. Greece and Italy tours also recall its decorated Greek pottery of the 4th century BC.

• Phalanthus: The leader of the Partheniae, he is named as the founder of the colony.
• Temple of Poseidon: Two Doric columns of a temple to Poseidon survive on Piazza Castello in the old town.
• Pyrrhus: This king of Greek Epirus helped Taranto fight Rome and surprised the Romans with war elephants.

The Cheradi Islands shelter Mar Grande, or Big Sea, the bay of the commercial port. Large numbers of dolphins live near these islands. In Greece and Italy tours, the old city’s peninsula forms a second bay, Mar Piccolo, or Little Sea.

Why does Cumae, the first mainland colony, matter to Greece and Italy tours?

Greece and Italy tours trace Greek life on the Italian mainland to Cumae, the first colony there. Settlers from Euboea in Greece founded it in the 8th century BCE. Its remains lie around modern Cuma, between Pozzuoli and Bacoli, in Campania.

The settlers came from Eretria and Chalcis, two cities of Euboea. Greeks already lived on nearby Pithecusae, today’s Ischia. Two joint founders led them: Megasthenes of Chalcis and Hippocles of Cyme. Greece and Italy tours recall their site, the hill of Monte di Cuma. The sea lay on one side, and rich Campanian farmland on the other.

Cumae spread Greek culture in Italy and brought a Greek dialect, or local form of the language. Its Euboean alphabet passed to the Etruscans, who changed it. The Romans adapted it again, and the result was the Latin alphabet. Cumae is thought to have founded Neapolis, the later Naples, in the late 6th century BCE.

In 524 BCE the Cumaeans under Aristodemus beat an alliance of native tribes led by Etruscans from Capua. Tarquinius, the last of the legendary kings of Rome, died in exile at Cumae in 495 BCE. Greece and Italy tours also recall 474 BCE, when the fleets of Cumae and Syracuse defeated the Etruscans.

• Cumaean Sibyl: Cumae is famed as the seat of this sibyl, a woman believed to speak prophecies.
• Sibylline Books: The temple of Apollo at Cumae sent these revered books to Rome in the 5th century BCE.
• End of Greek rule: The Greek period ended in 421 BC, when Oscans allied to the Samnites took the city.

Rome granted Cumae partial citizenship in 338 BCE. Romans called it civitas sine suffragio, citizenship without the vote. Digs on the acropolis began in 1911 and uncovered the Temple of Apollo. Greece and Italy tours also recall the Sibyl’s cave, built from 505 BC.

Which old laws and goddesses tie Locri to Greece and Italy tours?

Greece and Italy tours link Locri, on the Ionian Sea in Calabria, to Locris in central Greece. Settlers from that region founded the Greek city at the start of the 7th century BC. Its Greek name, Lokroì Epizephúrioi, means “Western Locrians”.

The first settlement rose near Cape Zefirio, now Cape Bruzzano. The colonists then shifted north to the Epopis hill and built the city there. The native Sicels were driven out. Scholars disagree over whether the settlers came from Opuntian or Ozolian Locris. For Greece and Italy tours, Locri stands as the last Greek colony founded in Calabria.

The laws of Locri came from Zaleucus, around 660 BC, and were written down as a code. They used the law of retaliation, which set a fixed penalty for each crime. This aimed to stop family feuds and private revenge. The system also gave women far greater value and social standing.

At the Battle of the Sagra, in 560 to 550 BC, Locri defeated Kroton and halted its growth. After the victory, Locri began to honour the Dioscuri, the twin sons of Zeus. Greece and Italy tours recall the 4th century BC, a time of artistic, economic and cultural splendour. Plato himself visited Locri.

• Nossis: This Locrian poet ranks among the best preserved Greek women poets.
• Theatre: Cut into soft sandstone, the theatre held up to 4,500 spectators.
• Sanctuary of Persephone: Diodorus Siculus called this shrine of the underworld queen the best known in southern Italy.

Rome later made Locri a naval ally that kept its Greek character. The ancient site lies in Mandorleto, about 3 km southwest of the modern town centre. Greece and Italy tours also recall the Ludovisi Throne, which scholars link to the temple of Marasà.

What story does Metapontum give Greece and Italy tours?

Greece and Italy tours locate Metapontum on the Gulf of Tarentum, in what is now Basilicata. It was an Achaean Greek colony of Magna Graecia. Its ruins lie at Metaponto, in the comune, or municipality, of Bernalda in Matera province.

The Greek geographer Strabo traced the city to Pylians who had followed Nestor in the Trojan War. Another tale named Epeius, builder of the Trojan Horse, as founder. The townspeople even showed his tools in a temple of Minerva. The Achaeans of Crotona and Sybaris wanted the empty site, to keep the Tarentines from seizing it.

They sent a colony from the mother country under a leader named Leucippus. Greece and Italy tours date the colony to about 700 to 690 BCE. The city grew rich thanks to the fertility of its land, above all for grain. The Metapontines sent the temple at Delphi an offering called a golden harvest.

Pythagoras, the Greek philosopher, retired to Metapontum, where his teachings took the firmest hold. Greece and Italy tours recall that the Metapontines made his house a temple of Ceres. They gave his street the name of the Museum. His tomb was still shown there in the days of Cicero, the Roman orator.

• Ear of grain: An ear of grain became the typical symbol on the city’s coins.
• Tavole Palatine: Fifteen Doric columns still stand here: ten along one flank and five along the other.
• Founder on coins: In the mid-late 4th century BCE, the head of the hero Leucippus first appeared on coins.

Metapontum lay between the rivers Bradanus and Casuentus, today’s Basento. After the battle of Cannae, its people were among the first to side with Hannibal. Greece and Italy tours also recall the writer Pausanias, who described the city as wholly in ruins.

How is Velia, the home of Parmenides, tied to Greece and Italy tours?

Greece and Italy tours tie Velia to Phocaea, an Ionian Greek city in modern Turkey. Greeks from there founded it around 538 to 535 BCE and named it Hyele. The site lies on the Tyrrhenian coast near Ascea, in the Province of Salerno.

According to Herodotus, these Ionian Greeks fled Phocaea in 545 BC during a Persian siege. After years of wandering at sea, they stopped at Reggio Calabria. Next they sailed north up the coast and established Hyele. Greece and Italy tours recall that the name became Ele, then Elea, and finally Velia under Rome.

Around the 5th century BC, the city was known for flourishing trade. It also gained cultural weight through the Eleatic School, a group of thinkers before Socrates. Parmenides founded the school, and his student Zeno carried it forward. Zeno became famous for his paradoxes, puzzles that seem to prove impossible things.

In the 4th century, Elea joined a league against the Lucanians, who held nearby Poseidonia. It allied with Rome in 273 BC and sent ships for the Punic Wars. In 88 BC it became a Roman municipium, or self-governing town, named Velia. Greece and Italy tours recall its right to keep the Greek language and mint coins.

• Castello a Mare: The acropolis stood on this promontory, whose Italian name means “castle on the sea”.
• Temple of Athena: Digs in 2022 found this early temple on the acropolis, first built in 540-530 BC.
• Palinurus: In Virgil’s telling, the body of Palinurus washed ashore at Velia.

The city walls run for over three miles and date from three periods, all in local limestone. Velia became a holiday and health resort for Roman aristocrats. Greece and Italy tours also recall its decline, as the port silted up.

What Greek past lies behind Taormina for Greece and Italy tours?

Greece and Italy tours connect Taormina to its Greek name, Tauroménion, later Latinized as Tauromenium. The town stands on the east coast of Sicily, in the Metropolitan City of Messina. Its Greek roots go back to nearby Naxos, which Greeks founded in 734 BC.

Sicels lived in the area even before the Greeks came. After Dionysius of Syracuse destroyed Naxos in 403 BC, a new settlement rose on nearby Mount Taurus. In 358 BC Andromachus gathered the scattered Naxian exiles and settled them at Tauromenium. For Greece and Italy tours, the town thus became the heir of ancient Naxos.

In 345 BC the general Timoleon made his first Sicilian landing there, crossing from Rhegium. Andromachus’ mild, fair rule stood apart from the tyrants of other Sicilian cities. Under Rome, Tauromenium was one of three Sicilian cities ranked as a civitas foederata, or allied city. Greece and Italy tours recall that, unlike Messina, it owed Rome no warships.

The ancient theatre of Taormina is a Greek theatre from the third century BC. Romans rebuilt it, it is thought, around the time of Hadrian or Trajan. It measured 107 metres across and held around 10,000 spectators. It counts among the oldest theatres in Magna Graecia with a curved cavea, or seating area.

• Hilltop site: The old town lies about 250 metres above the sea, below a rock crowned by a Norman castle.
• Theatre size: Only the theatre of Syracuse is larger among Sicily’s theatres of this type.
• Isola Bella: This nature reserve lies just south of Taormina, and its beach faces the Ionian Sea.

Tauromenium saw a sea fight between the fleets of Octavian and Sextus Pompeius. Octavian won and later chose the town to receive a Roman colony. For Greece and Italy tours, Taormina has been a tourist destination since the 19th century.

Why does Crotone, the old Kroton, hold a place in Greece and Italy tours?

Greece and Italy tours tie Crotone, a city and comune of Calabria, to its Achaean Greek founders. They set up the colony of Kroton around 710 BC. It became a great Greek city and one of the major centres of Magna Graecia.

The founder, or oikistes, was Myscellus, from Rhypes in Achaea, in the northern Peloponnese. He first consulted the Delphic Oracle, the shrine of Apollo’s prophecies. The oracle told him to cross the vast sea and found Kroton beside the Esaro river. Greece and Italy tours recall the Achaeans’ motive: scarce farmland and population pressure at home.

Kroton reached a population of 50,000 to 80,000 around 500 BC. Grave goods, objects buried with the dead, show Greek men marrying native women from the first generation. The city walls stretched 12 miles and enclosed a vast area. Its citizens were known for great physical strength and plain, sober living.

From 588 BC, Croton produced generations of winners at the Olympics and other Panhellenic Games. Panhellenic means shared by all Greeks. Its athlete Milo became the best known of them. Greece and Italy tours recall the athlete Phayllos, who sailed in 480 BC to fight at Salamis. His was the only ship from the Italian coast.

• Physicians: Croton’s doctors were thought the best among the Greeks, and Democedes stood out in the 6th century BC.
• Hera Lacinia: The Italiote League met at this sanctuary at Capo Collone, which also held its treasury.
• Olympic record: Athletes from Crotone alone won 18 Olympic titles across 25 Olympiads.

The sculptor Dameas of Croton made the statue of Milo that stood at Olympia, in Greece. The town was called Cotrone from the Middle Ages until 1928, when it took its current name. Greece and Italy tours also recall its National Archaeological Museum, founded in 1968.

How does Roman Greece tie together Greece and Italy tours?

Greece and Italy tours span two lands bound by a long Roman story. The Roman era of Greece began in 146 BC. It opened with the Corinthian defeat at the Battle of Corinth. Corinthian here means belonging to the city of Corinth.

Rome first met Greek political culture in Magna Graecia. That Latin name means Great Greece, the Greek-founded towns of southern Italy and Sicily. Later, under Roman rule, Athens and Sparta remained free cities. A free city ran part of its own affairs. Both cities also escaped direct Roman taxation, meaning tax paid straight to Rome.

On the Greek side of Greece and Italy tours, Augustus once organised grain supplies for the land. Grain supplies meant food stores for the people. In 27 BC, he created the province of Achaea. A province was a region run by a Roman governor. Rome made Corinth the capital city of Achaea.

Roman culture drew heavily on the Greeks. Horace said so in a Latin line, Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit. In English, it reads: captive Greece captured her rude conqueror. Captive means taken by force, and rude here means rough. For Greece and Italy tours, the line names both sides, with Greece as captive and Rome as conqueror.

• Nero: In 66 AD, Emperor Nero came to Greece and performed at the ancient Olympic contests.
• Agora: Julius Caesar began the Roman agora, or market square, in Athens, and Augustus completed it.
• Language: Greek served as a lingua franca, a shared tongue between peoples, in the eastern provinces and Italy.

Greece and Italy tours cross a region with a long record of calm under Rome. Greek history knows no longer peace than the Pax Romana. Pax Romana is Latin for Roman Peace, a time of order across the empire.

Why do the Griko people matter to Greece and Italy tours?

Greece and Italy tours share their story with the Griko people of southern Italy. The Griko are an ethnic Greek community, a group bound by Greek roots and culture. In the region of Calabria, these people also go by the name Grecanici.

The Griko live mainly in two regions of Italy, Calabria and Apulia. In Apulia, their towns lie on the Salento peninsula. Water borders a peninsula on all but one side. Calabria and Apulia both sit on the Italian shore of Greece and Italy tours. Italy divides into regions, and each runs its own local affairs.

Two theories explain where Griko speech began. In 1870, Giuseppe Morosi traced it to Hellenistic Koine, carried by Greek migrants in Byzantine times. Koine is the Greek word for common, and it named a shared form of Greek. In 1892, Georgios Hatzidakis argued for roots straight in Ancient Greek. The German scholar Gerhard Rohlfs held the same view.

Greek settlers reached southern Italy in waves. The first came with the ancient colonies of the 8th century BC. The last were Byzantine Greeks fleeing the Ottoman conquest in the 15th century. Linked to both halves of Greece and Italy tours, the Griko kept their Greek identity and language. Their heritage of customs survived too.

• Genes: A genetic study found Calabrian Greeks from Aspromonte distinct from the populations around them.
• Faith: The Griko of today are mainly Catholics who follow the Latin Rite of the Church.
• Towns: In the early 19th century, thirteen towns of Terra d’Otranto still kept Greek speech.

The name Griko comes from an old ethnonym for Greeks living on the Italian peninsula. An ethnonym is the name by which a people is known. Greece and Italy tours cover that same peninsula, where the Griko name took hold.

What is Grecìa Salentina in the story of Greece and Italy tours?

Greece and Italy tours link to Grecìa Salentina, an area whose Griko name means Salentine Greece. Griko is the Greek dialect of the area. It sits close to the town of Lecce, on the Salento peninsula of southern Italy.

Eleven towns form the Union of the Towns of Grecìa Salentina. The union belongs to the province of Lecce, in the Italian region of Apulia. A union here means a group of towns joined for shared aims. In 1966, the Griko population, Greek speakers on the Italian side of Greece and Italy tours, founded it.

The union aims to promote Griko and preserve its culture. It organises research at the university and teaches the language in schools. It also publishes books and poetry in Griko, an endangered dialect. A dialect is the speech of one area, set apart from the standard tongue. An endangered tongue faces the danger of falling silent.

Seven villages of Grecìa Salentina still speak Griko today. The word Griko names both the people and their Greek dialect. Among the villages are Calimera, Martano, Sternatia and Zollino. The whole area holds around 40,000 people. Those people live within the Italian half of Greece and Italy tours, across Lecce province.

• Law: Law 482 of 1999 recognised the Griko as a Greek minority, set apart by origin and language.
• Status: UNESCO data from 2011 rank both Griko dialects as severely endangered languages.
• Music: Greek artists Dionysis Savvopoulos and Maria Farantouri have both performed in Griko.

The union grew in 2007, when Carpignano Salentino and Cutrofiano joined it. People in these two towns have not spoken Griko for two centuries. Their towns still share the Greek past that Greece and Italy tours trace across the sea.

Which Greek greeting lends Calimera a place in Greece and Italy tours?

Greece and Italy tours share a word with Calimera, a small town in Grecìa Salentina. Its name in Griko means good morning. Griko is a Greek dialect kept alive in this corner of Italy. In Greek letters, the town’s name reads Καλημέρα.

Calimera had 6,753 inhabitants in 2021. Inhabitants are the people who make a place their home. The town lies between Gallipoli and Otranto, in the province of Lecce. A province in Italy is a district made up of a group of towns. That places Calimera in the Italian heartland of Greece and Italy tours.

Calimera’s language, folklore and traditions show strong Greek influences. These influences are thought to date from Byzantine control. An older possible source is the colonisation of Magna Graecia in the 8th century BCE. That Byzantine realm had its capital at Constantinople. Folklore is the stories and customs of ordinary people.

A small monument in the town park holds an ancient burial stone from Attica, around Athens. In 1960, Athens gave it to Calimera, a gift spanning both ends of Greece and Italy tours. A motto on top tells the stone that it is no stranger here in Calimera. A motto is a short saying with a message.

• Speech: People in Calimera speak Griko, a Greek dialect, as well as Italian.
• Legend: A legend says the name began when immigrants from Greece first settled in the town.
• Mix-up: A visitor asked the town’s name, and a Greek speaker replied with the greeting Calimera.

Every year since 2020, a marathon named after Grecìa Salentina has begun in Piazza del Sole. The square sits in central Calimera. A marathon is a long running race. Greece and Italy tours join two countries, and this Greek-named town belongs to the Italian one.

What Greek past does Otranto bring to Greece and Italy tours?

Greece and Italy tours connect with Otranto, a coastal town with Greek roots. It stands on the site of Hydrus, an ancient Greek city of Magna Graecia. Magna Graecia, Latin for Great Greece, named the Greek-settled lands of southern Italy.

Otranto, a town on the Italian rim of Greece and Italy tours, keeps Greek in its names. In Griko, the Greek dialect of the Salento, the town is Derentò. In Ancient Greek, it was Hudroûs, and in Latin, Hydruntum. Locals who speak Salentino, the local Italian dialect, say Oṭṛàntu. Latin was the tongue of ancient Rome.

Near Otranto, the Palascìa lighthouse marks the point of mainland Italy that lies farthest east. Such a tower shines a light to warn passing ships. Further south, the cape of Santa Maria di Leuca takes its name from white cliffs. Leukos is the Greek word for white. Capes push out from the coast into open water.

Roman emperors used Otranto, a port on the Italian coast of Greece and Italy tours, for sailing east. Byzantine emperors later held the town. In 1068, it gave in to the Norman leader Robert Guiscard. It was one of the final Apulian cities to do so. Constantinople was the seat of those Byzantine rulers.

• Cathedral: Otranto Cathedral was consecrated, or blessed for worship, in 1088, and its mosaic floor dates from 1166.
• Monastery: Count Roger founded a Basilian monastery, named after Saint Basil, which became a place of study.
• Frescoes: The church of San Pietro holds Byzantine frescoes, paintings made on wet plaster.

Greece and Italy tours join two shores, and Otranto stands on the Italian one. The town is a coastal port on the eastern side of the Salento peninsula. A port is a place where vessels dock to take on goods and people.

How does Calabrian Greek link Greece and Italy tours to Calabria?

Greece and Italy tours span a land with a second Greek dialect, spoken in Calabria. Called Grecanico in Italian, it is the Italiot Greek of the Griko people there. Italiot Greek means the Greek spoken by Greeks living in Italy.

Calabrian Greek and the Griko of Salento share one origin. Both are remnants of Greek settlement in the region, first ancient and later Byzantine. A remnant is a part left over from something larger. Calabria was a Byzantine territory from 536 AD. It stayed so until the Normans conquered it in 1071 AD.

Today, Calabrian Greek lives on in nine towns of Bovesìa, among them Bova Superiore, Roghudi and Gallicianò. Reggio di Calabria, a city in the Italian part of Greece and Italy tours, has speakers too. Its districts of San Giorgio Extra and Rione Modena stand out. A district is a named part of a city.

The dialect keeps old words from Doric Greek. Doric counts among the chief branches of Ancient Greek. These words have gone from use in Greece, except in the Tsakonian dialect. Speakers on the Calabrian shore of Greece and Italy tours also drop a final s from words. So gaidaros, meaning donkey, becomes gadaro.

• Status: Calabrian Greek appears in the UNESCO Red Book, a list of endangered languages.
• Grammar: The dialect has no future tense, so speakers use the present tense instead.
• Script: Speakers write Calabrian Greek in the Latin alphabet rather than the Greek one.

Reggio Calabria’s Arangea and Sbarre neighbourhoods are home to hundreds more speakers. A neighbourhood is a small area within a city. Greece and Italy tours join Greece to an Italy where such Greek speech has lasted to this day.

Where does Bova fit into the history of Greece and Italy tours?

Greece and Italy tours share a Greek thread with Bova, a village in the Bovesia area of Calabria. Bovesia is one of the two areas of southern Italy where Griko, the local Greek speech, survives. Bova is among its Greek-speaking villages.

Bova, a Calabrian town tied to Greece and Italy tours, carries Greek in its names. In Calabrian Greek, it is Chòra tu Vùa, and in Ancient Greek, ho Boúas. Today, Bova is a comune in the Province of Reggio Calabria. A comune is an Italian municipality, the basic unit of local rule.

Before Rome, a people called the Ausones lived in the area. Later, Greek colonists founded a city there, known as Delia or Deri. Its site lies in what is now the borough of San Pasquale. A colonist is a settler who builds a new town far from home. A borough is one district of a town.

Delia was drawn into wars among the leading Greek centres nearby. These were Reggio, Locri and Syracuse. In time, Syracuse subjected Delia, which means it took control of the city. Such rivalry between Greek cities shaped the Calabrian story behind Greece and Italy tours. Rivalry means a contest for power.

• Rome: After the Roman conquest, Delia became a town with citizenship rights, a legal standing under Rome.
• Vandals: In 440, the Vandals, a Germanic people, ravaged the city of Delia.
• Church: Under the Normans, Bova was a church fief, or estate, of the Archbishop of Reggio until 1806.

Settlers from Delia later built today’s Bova high on the Aspromonte, at about 900 metres. The Aspromonte is a mountain range in Calabria. Greece and Italy tours span two lands, and Bova’s mountain site lies in the Italian one.

Why was Brindisi a gateway in the history of Greece and Italy tours?

Greece and Italy tours share a long sea story with Brindisi. This city lies in the southern region of Apulia, on the Adriatic coast. It serves as capital of Brindisi province. A capital here is the seat of a local district government.

In the long past behind Greece and Italy tours, Brindisi’s name passed through Greek. It began as Brention in Messapic, a local ancient tongue, meaning head of a stag. A stag is a male deer. The Greeks made it Brentesion, and the Romans, in Latin, made it Brundisium.

On the Punta peninsula, a Bronze Age village yielded fragments of Mycenaean pottery. The Bronze Age was the time when tools were made of bronze. Mycenaean means from the early Greek world centred on the city of Mycenae. Herodotus, a Greek writer of history, spoke of a Mycenaean origin for the local peoples.

At the Tor Pisana necropolis, digs found Corinthian jars from the first half of the 7th century BC. A necropolis is a burial ground. Corinthian here means from Corinth, a Greek city. Messapian Brindisi kept strong trade ties with the Greek peoples of the Aegean Sea. That sea lies at the eastern end of Greece and Italy tours.

• Virgil: The poet Virgil died at Brindisi in the year 19 BC.
• Church: Brindisi has an Eastern Orthodox parish of the Byzantine Rite, named after Saint Nicholas of Myra.
• Trade: Trade with Greece has always run through the port of Brindisi.

Brindisi’s name points to its natural harbour, shaped like the head or antlers of a stag. Antlers are the branched horns of a deer. The same deep harbour opens onto the Adriatic waters of Greece and Italy tours.

How does the Appian Way lead into Greece and Italy tours?

Greece and Italy tours share a road story with the Appian Way, or Via Appia. This Roman road connected the city of Rome to Brindisi, in the south-east of Italy. In Latin, via means road or way.

Appius Claudius Caecus gave the road its name. He was a Roman censor, an official who kept the list of citizens. He built it first as a military road leading south. A military road is one made to move soldiers and supplies. Its main part was begun and finished in the same year, 312 BC.

Neapolis, a Greek city, lay a short way south of Capua. Neapolis means new city in Greek. After his wars in Italy, Pyrrhus withdrew to Greece. He died in 272 BC in a street fight in the city of Argos. Argos stands in the Greek part of Greece and Italy tours.

After beating Pyrrhus nearby, the Romans renamed the town of Maleventum. Its old name meant site of bad events. The new name, Beneventum, means site of good events. In Latin, bene means well and male means badly. The tale runs from Beneventum to Argos, across both lands of Greece and Italy tours.

• Name: Statius recorded its common name: the queen of the long roads.
• Brundisium: In 264 BC, the Romans extended the Via Appia as far as the port of Brundisium.
• Straight: The Via Appia holds Europe’s longest straight stretch of road, a run of 62 km.

At the road’s far end, Brundisium was Rome’s main port for Greece and the East. Brundisium is the old Latin name of Brindisi. Ships left from its harbour to cross the sea. Greece and Italy tours span both shores of that ancient crossing.

What does the Adriatic Sea mean for Greece and Italy tours?

Greece and Italy tours span the Adriatic Sea. This stretch of water divides the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan Peninsula. The Balkan Peninsula is the large landmass of south-eastern Europe that holds mainland Greece. Italy lies on the western shore.

Of all the arms of the Mediterranean Sea, the Adriatic reaches farthest north. An arm of a sea is a long inlet that branches from it. More than 1,300 islands lie in the Adriatic. They sit mainly along the eastern coast, facing the Italian coastline of Greece and Italy tours.

The name Adriatic is linked to Adria, a settlement of the Etruscans. The Etruscans were an ancient people of central Italy. In Greek, the sea is called Adriatikí thálassa. Thálassa is the Greek word for sea. In Italian it is Mare Adriatico, so both lands of Greece and Italy tours use one root name.

Greek colonisation of the Adriatic dates to the 7th and 6th centuries BC. Colonisation means founding new towns in a far-off land. In that age, Greek settlers founded the cities of Epidamnos and Apollonia. These settlers came from the Greek world, the eastern half of Greece and Italy tours.

• Boundary: Early Greek writers set the Adriatic’s southern limit as far off as the Peloponnese’s southern tip.
• Corfu: The official line between the Adriatic and Ionian seas runs to the Karagol Cape on Corfu.
• Trade: Greeks set up an emporium, or trading station, at Adria on the Po River delta.

In Roman times, a sea passage joined Brundisium and Dyrrachium. It was a link in the main route from Rome to the East. Travellers, traders and Roman troops all used it on their journeys. Greece and Italy tours span the coasts that this passage joined.

Which Venetian centuries shaped the Ionian side of Greece and Italy tours?

Greece and Italy tours share a long Venetian past with the Ionian Islands. The Republic of Venice held the islands as an overseas possession from the mid-14th century. That rule lasted until the late 18th century. A possession is land ruled by a distant state.

Venice won the islands step by step. Cythera and the islet of Anticythera came first. Venice held them indirectly from 1238 and directly after 1363. Zante fell to Venice in 1485. Cephalonia followed in 1500, and Ithaca joined in 1503. Italians call Zakynthos by the name Zante, and an islet is a tiny island.

Zante, Cephalonia and Ithaca modelled their rule on Corfu. Each formed its own council, a body of local leaders. To model rule on a place means to copy its way of governing. The conquest ended in 1718 with Lefkada, an island off the Greek coast of Greece and Italy tours.

The governor of the islands bore the title Provveditore generale da Mar. In Italian, this means roughly general overseer of the sea. A governor holds power over a land on behalf of a distant state. His seat was Corfu, a Greek island tied to Greece and Italy tours.

• Exports: The island economy rested on selling raisins, olive oil and wine abroad.
• Money: The Venetian lira, the money of Venice, also served as island currency.
• Culture: Venetian ways still shape local music, cooking and speech on the islands today.

The islands stayed Venetian until 1797. In that year, Napoleon Bonaparte dissolved the Republic of Venice. To dissolve a state means to bring it to an end. Greece and Italy tours span the two shores that this long rule had joined.

Who was Ugo Foscolo, the poet linking Greek roots to Greece and Italy tours?

Greece and Italy tours share a poet with roots on both shores, Ugo Foscolo. Born Niccolò Foscolo, he became an Italian writer, poet and revolutionary. A revolutionary is a person who works to overturn the ruling political order of a state.

His father, Andrea Foscolo, was a poor Venetian nobleman and a medical doctor. A nobleman belongs to a family of high birth and rank. Venetian means from Venice or its lands. His mother, Diamantina Spathis, was Greek. Through his parents, Foscolo had family on both sides of Greece and Italy tours.

Among his teachers at Padua was the abbé Melchiore Cesarotti. An abbé is a French title for a cleric. Cesarotti helped to shape the young Foscolo’s taste in literature. He knew both modern Greek and Ancient Greek. Ancient Greek was the tongue of Homer, while modern Greek is spoken in Greece today.

Later, in the city of Milan, Foscolo published a translation of Callimachus with a commentary. A commentary is a set of notes that explains a text. Foscolo also began his own version of the Iliad. The Iliad is an epic poem in Greek, the language of one half of Greece and Italy tours.

• Venice: After his father died in 1788, the family moved to Venice.
• Novel: His book The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis, from 1798, counts as the first modern Italian novel.
• Ajax: His tragedy Ajace, meaning Ajax, was staged at Milan in 1811; a tragedy is a serious play.

In 1871, the King of Italy asked for Foscolo’s remains to be moved to Florence. Remains here means the body of a person after death. The son of a Greek mother thus rests in Italy, the western land of Greece and Italy tours.

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

The Greece and Italy tours story leads to four questions on links between the two lands. One concerns the Battle of Actium off western Greece. One concerns a Byzantine province in southern Italy. Two concern Venice, its Corfu families and its empire of the sea.

Before Greece and Italy tours, what was the Battle of Actium?

On 2 September 31 BC, the Battle of Actium was fought. It took place in the Ionian Sea, near Actium in Greece. Before the battle, Octavian landed on the Greek mainland, facing Corcyra, the island now called Corfu. After his win, Octavian took the title Princeps, meaning first citizen.

For the past behind Greece and Italy tours, what was the Catepanate of Italy?

The Catepanate of Italy was a province, or theme, of the Byzantine Empire. It lasted from about 965 until 1071. A theme was a Byzantine military district. In Greek, the governor’s title, katepanō, meant the uppermost. The Italian region of Capitanata takes its name from katepanikion, the Greek term for this province.

Which Corfu community ties Venice to Greece and Italy tours?

Corfiot Italians come from the Greek island of Corfu. They have ethnic and language ties to the Republic of Venice. From the Fourth Crusade of 1204 onward, Venice sent Italian families to Corfu. Under Venetian rule, much of the island’s upper class spoke Italian. The common people stayed Greek in origin, speech and faith.

What did the Stato da Màr mean for Greece and Italy tours?

Stato da Màr means State of the Sea. It named the overseas lands that Venice held from about 1000 until 1797. Over time, these lands took in the Ionian Islands, the Peloponnese, Crete and the Cyclades. Euboea and Cyprus belonged to it as well. The historian Fernand Braudel called its islands Venice’s motionless fleet.