Greece in Spring

Greece in spring runs from the March equinox to the June solstice. During that season, tour-leader trips for small groups cross the mainland and the islands. Station readings from Kastoria, Chios and Orestiada sit beside Sieber’s crocus and a southern Aegean tulip. Rüppell’s warbler, the martis thread and the Thargelia festival of Athens follow. Related pages cover the best time to visit Greece, Greek Easter traditions and Greece hiking tours. More trips are listed under Greece tours.

Bookings made through the GetYourGuide widgets on this page earn Classical Greece Tours a commission, at no extra cost to the traveller.

What is Greece in spring like?

Greece in spring, by the astronomical count, starts at the vernal equinox, between 19 and 21 March. It then lasts until the summer solstice, around 21 June, which opens summer. Vernal means linked to spring, and the summer solstice is the longest day.

Greece in spring belongs to one of the four temperate seasons, the one after winter and before summer. Temperate means mild, free of both tropical heat and polar cold. Meteorologists, the scientists who study weather, give each season three calendar months. They choose those months from the average temperature of each month.

At the spring equinox, day and night each last about twelve hours. On that date the Sun’s disc rises directly in the east. About 12 hours later, it sets directly in the west. Through Greece in spring, daylight lengthens and night shortens. That change carries on until the summer solstice in June.

Snow on the tops of the highest Greek mountains lasts well into the summer. An alpine Mediterranean climate marks the high Pindus and Rhodope mountain ranges. Alpine describes the cold, snowy conditions found high up on mountains. Mediterranean names the sea between southern Europe, North Africa and western Asia.

• Living signs: The ecological, or nature-based, view dates spring by blossoming plants and animal activity.
• Early bloom: Ecologists also name a pre-spring stage, when only the hardiest flowers, such as the crocus, bloom.
• Word meaning: Rebirth, renewal and regrowth are all ideas tied to the word spring.

For Greece in spring, the March equinox is the vernal or spring equinox, as across the Northern Hemisphere. South of the equator, the same moment is the autumnal equinox. The equator is the imaginary line around Earth, halfway between the two poles.

How does the Kastoria city station describe Greece in spring?

Greece in spring at Kastoria opens with an average daily March high of 14.7 °C. That figure comes from the Kastoria city station, 623 m above sea level. Its table averages the readings of the years 2019 to 2021.

Kastoria has a humid subtropical climate, given the code Cfa. That code belongs to the Köppen system, which groups world climates by warmth and rainfall. Humid subtropical means warm, damp summers and cool winters, with rain spread across the year. During Greece in spring, the city station records an average March low of 3 °C.

March precipitation at the Kastoria city station averages 61 mm. Precipitation means every kind of water dropping out of clouds, as rain, sleet, hail or snow. In the fifth month of Greece in spring, the same gauge collects 81 mm on average. A gauge is the open container that catches and measures that water.

At the close of Greece in spring, June highs at Kastoria average 27.8 °C. The city station puts the average June low at 14.3 °C. A daily low is the coldest reading in each day and night. An average adds the readings together and divides the total by their number.

• Fifth-month high: The Kastoria city station averages 23.3 °C for daily highs in the fifth month.
• Fifth-month low: Nights in the fifth month bring the same station an average low of 10.2 °C.
• June rain: The Kastoria city station records an average of 48 mm of June precipitation.

Greece in spring at Kastoria is measured in degrees Celsius and millimetres. On the Celsius scale, water freezes at zero degrees and boils at one hundred. Rain gauges report precipitation as a depth of water, in millimetres, rather than as a weight.

Which March and June readings does Chios town give Greece in spring?

Greece in spring on Chios begins with an average March high of 17.3 °C. The figure belongs to the Chios town station, which stands 23 m above sea level. Its table rests on the averages for 2019 and 2020.

The island has a warm, moderate climate, classed as temperate Mediterranean, or Csa, in the Köppen scheme. Its first letter, C, points to mild winters. The s adds a dry summer, and the final a means that summer is hot. The surrounding sea steadies the climate of Chios, so its swings stay modest.

Greece in spring on Chios gives the town station a mean March low of 10 °C. March precipitation there averages 41.8 mm. That total covers rain and every other form of falling water, such as hail. In the fifth month, daily highs at the station average 24.5 °C.

When Greece in spring ends, the Chios town station puts the June high at 29.4 °C. The average June low there sits at 20.9 °C. Its June precipitation averages 10.9 mm. A daily high is the warmest reading taken during each day. Each monthly figure averages those daily readings across the record.

• Fifth-month low: The station’s average low for the fifth month is 15.5 °C.
• Fifth-month rain: Precipitation in the fifth month averages 27.6 mm at the Chios town station.
• Setting: Chios sits in the northern Aegean Sea, the stretch of Mediterranean water dividing Greece from Turkey.

Greece in spring on Chios is described by averages of past readings, not by forecasts. A forecast predicts coming weather, while an average sums past readings and divides them. Any single year can differ from these figures, running warmer, cooler, wetter or drier.

Where does Orestiada, in the far north-east, fit Greece in spring?

Greece in spring at Orestiada starts with March highs that average 14.6 °C. Orestiada is the northernmost, north-easternmost and newest city of Greece. It lies on the plain of the river Evros, 40 m above sea level.

Orestiada has relatively mild winters and hot summers. Rain there falls chiefly during the winter. The Evros river, 6 km east of the town, forms a natural border between Greece and Turkey. A plain is broad, level, low-lying country. A natural border is a frontier that follows a river, coast or mountain ridge.

March lows at Orestiada average 3.6 °C during Greece in spring. Freezing point, the temperature at which water turns to ice, is zero degrees Celsius. March rain at the station averages 44.0 mm. A millimetre of rain means a layer of water one millimetre deep on flat ground.

As Greece in spring gives way to summer, Orestiada’s June high averages 30.4 °C. The average June low at the station is 16.1 °C. The gap between the two is the daily range. That range shows how far temperature swings between night and day. Both June figures rest on the station record from 2006 to 2023.

• June total: Rain in June at the Orestiada station averages 46.2 mm.
• Mid-season rain: The fifth month brings the Orestiada station an average rainfall of 39.0 mm.
• Mid-season high: Orestiada’s mean daily high for the fifth month is 25.9 °C.

Greece in spring at Orestiada centres on a town of about 20,000 people. Greek refugees from Edirne founded it in 1923. A refugee is someone who has fled home and resettled elsewhere. Edirne, once named Adrianople, lies east of the Evros.

What does Sieber’s crocus bring to Greece in spring?

Greece in spring holds Sieber’s crocus, a small and early blooming plant. It is also called the Cretan crocus or the snow crocus. It grows wild in Greece, above all on Crete, and in Bulgaria, Albania and North Macedonia.

The plant is a crocus of the iris family, Iridaceae. In Greece in spring, its brilliant orange sits mainly on the stamens and the style. That colour fades through the lowest third of each tepal. A tepal is a petal-like part of the flower. Stamens carry pollen, and the style is the stalk that receives it.

Four subspecies exist: sieberi, atticus, nivalis and sublimis. Each subspecies is a regional variety within the species, with steady features of its own. On Crete, subspecies sieberi flowers in April during Greece in spring. Its white flowers with yellow throats stand up to 8 cm tall. Their outer faces carry varying marks of purple.

Subspecies atticus is native to Attica, the region around Athens. Its flowers are lilac-blue or violet, with yellow throats. It grows in stony mountain ground and in woods and scrub, mainly above 1000 m. For Greece in spring, its flowering runs from March to June. Scrub means low, dense bushes and small trees.

• Peloponnese form: Subspecies nivalis, native to the Peloponnese, bears lilac-blue flowers with yellow throats.
• Mount Chelmos: A three-coloured form, tricolor, of subspecies sublimis comes from Mount Chelmos in the northern Peloponnese.
• Food use: In Greece the corms are eaten raw, with a flavour said to resemble hazelnuts.

Sieber’s crocus is also cultivated in gardens as an ornamental plant for its flowers. Ornamental means grown for looks rather than for food or timber. A corm is the swollen underground base of a stem, where the plant stores its food.

Which tulip of the southern Aegean belongs to Greece in spring?

Greece in spring brings Tulipa saxatilis into flower from March to the fifth month. This Greek and Turkish tulip belongs to the lily family, Liliaceae. It grows chiefly on the islands of the southern Aegean. Botanists, or plant scientists, also call it Tulipa bakeri.

Its stems reach up to 25 cm. The plant is a geophyte, which forms bulbs as resting buds. A geophyte survives the hard months underground and grows again from that store. The egg-shaped bulbs measure 2 to 3.5 cm in length. The plant has two or three flat, narrow leaves up to 38 cm long.

In Greece in spring, the flower shows a bright pink perianth with a sharply marked yellow centre. The perianth is the ring of petals and petal-like parts around the flower’s centre. Flowers come singly, and only rarely in pairs on one stem. The three outer petals measure 38 to 53 mm in length.

Beyond the southern Aegean, Greece in spring finds the tulip scattered in the limestone areas of Crete. That range includes the islands of Gavdos and Dia. It also grows on Karpathos, now and then on Rhodes, and on the Datça peninsula of western Turkey. Limestone is a pale stone built up from ancient shells and sea deposits.

• Habitat: Field edges, scree slopes of loose stones and cliff faces up to 900 m suit it.
• Stamens: Its hairy-based stamens end in brown to black anthers, or pollen heads, 4.5 to 7 mm long.
• Capsule: The seed capsule carries coarse cross veins in its upper part.

On the mainland, Greece in spring also has the tulip as a naturalised plant. Naturalised describes a plant from elsewhere that now grows wild and spreads without help. The same status is reported in Italy and on the Scilly Isles in the United Kingdom.

When does Rüppell’s warbler breed in Greece in spring?

Greece in spring is breeding time for Rüppell’s warbler, which nests in Greece, Turkey and neighbouring islands. In Greece, its egg-laying runs from mid-April to the middle of the fifth month. The bird spends winter in north-east Africa.

The bird is a passerine of the warbler genus Curruca. A passerine is a perching bird, with feet built to grip twigs. Its English name and the scientific name ruppeli honour Eduard Rüppell. He was a German zoologist and explorer who lived from 1794 to 1884. Zoologists are scientists of animal life.

In Greece in spring, the striking male shows a black head and, as a rule, a black throat. A white streak, called a moustache, runs between the two. Females have a pale throat and a grey head rather than a black one. The song is a slower, deeper rattle than that of the Sardinian warbler.

Greece in spring finds the warbler breeding in dry, warm country, such as rocky ground and scrub-covered hillsides. It also uses maquis, a dense, evergreen Mediterranean scrub. On Crete it has been seen as high as 1600 m. The nest sits in dense, thorny scrub, 45 to 75 cm above the ground.

• Clutch: A clutch, the set of eggs laid at one time, normally holds four or five eggs.
• Nest: Its nest is a sturdy cup built from grass leaves and stems.
• Range share: Europe holds about 95% of the global population of the species.

Greece in spring hosts a bird that is only a rare vagrant in western Europe. A vagrant is a bird found far outside its normal range. The species is rated least concern on the IUCN Red List, a global scale of extinction risk.

What is the martis, the thread custom of Greece in spring?

Greece in spring keeps the martis, a small token worked in red and white yarn. It is worn from 1 March onward. The wearer takes it off once a stork, swallow or flowering tree first comes into view.

In Bulgaria and North Macedonia, the same custom helps welcome the spring. In their folklore, spring begins in March. Folklore means the old beliefs and stories handed down by a people. Greece in spring shares a similar tradition, as do Albania, Romania and Moldova. The Bulgarian name for it is martenitsa.

The tradition links to the old pagan past of the Balkan Peninsula and to farming cults of nature. Pagan here means the religions that came before Christianity. Tying twisted white and red woollen threads points to Thracian origins, or possibly Hellenic or Roman ones. Thracian means linked to an ancient people of the Balkans. Hellenic means Greek.

Certain ethnographers, scholars who study peoples and customs, trace the custom back to the Eleusinian Mysteries. Those Mysteries were secret rites of ancient Greece. The ancient match for the martis of Greece in spring is thought to be the kroke. Kroke is an ancient Greek word for thread. Photios’ Lexicon, an old Greek dictionary, mentions the custom.

• End date: Without a stork, swallow or blossom in sight, the adornment comes off at the end of March.
• Old rite: Priests of the Mysteries were said to wrap a red thread round the right hand and foot.
• Protection: Red or other coloured threads once guarded children and youths against evil spirits and witchcraft.

Beyond Greece in spring, Romania and Moldova keep a very similar custom called Mărțișor. Albania knows it as verorja. The adornment can take the form of two dolls, a white male and a red female. In Bulgaria, 1 March is Baba Marta Day, meaning Grandma March.

How did ancient Athens celebrate Greece in spring at the Thargelia?

Greece in spring, in ancient Athens, brought the Thargelia on the 6th and 7th of the month Thargelion. Those two days were the birthdays of the Delian Apollo and Artemis. They fell around the 24th and 25th of the fifth month.

In Greece in spring, the Thargelia was at its core a farming festival. It also held a ceremony of purification and atonement. Atonement means making up for a wrong. While people thanked the god with the first fruits of the earth, they also sought to calm him. Delian means linked to the island of Delos.

On the 6th, a sheep was offered to Demeter Chloe, Demeter of the green shoots, on the Acropolis. The Athenians had taken the festival from the people of Delos. To it they added Helios, the sun god, and the Horae, who were goddesses of the seasons. In Greek belief, the ripening of summer crops depended on those gods.

The 7th day of this Greece in spring festival had a cheerful character. All kinds of first fruits were carried in a procession to the god. Children fixed branches of olive, bound with wool, to the doors of houses. The branches began as a charm against failed crops. A procession is a group moving forward in an orderly line.

• Music: On the second day, choruses of men and boys competed in music for a tripod prize.
• Families: The same day, adopted people were formally received into the clans of their adoptive parents.
• Inscription: A surviving inscription records offerings to Helios, the Horae and Apollo.

A tripod, the prize of Greece in spring at the Thargelia, was a three-legged bowl or stand. Inscriptions are words carved into stone or metal surfaces. A clan, or genos, was a group of families tracing descent from one ancestor.

What do travellers ask about Greece in spring, and what are the answers?

Greece in spring at Polygyros, in Chalkidiki, falls under the Csa climate type: Mediterranean, with hot summers. That climate closely borders the humid subtropical type, Cfa. Because the town stands high, its winters are fairly cold and its summers fairly hot.

What do Polygyros readings show for Greece in spring?

The Polygyros town station averages a daily March high of 13 °C. In June, its precipitation comes to 77.3 mm on average. Precipitation counts rain together with hail, sleet and snow. A daily high is the top temperature of each day, averaged across the month. Csa and Cfa are codes in the Köppen climate scheme.

Which old song of Rhodes belongs to Greece in spring?

On ancient Rhodes, children dressed as swallows went door to door, begging and singing the Swallow Song. On the Rhodian calendar, Boedromion, the month of the song, appears to have come in early spring. Tradition credits the custom to Cleobulus, a Rhodian lawgiver. A lawgiver is a person who draws up a city’s laws.

During Greece in spring, when does the masked shrike start to sing?

The masked shrike breeds in north-east Greece and on certain Greek islands. Males sing from perches in their territories from early April. A territory is the patch of ground a bird defends. The genus name Lanius is Latin for a butcher. It comes from the shrikes’ habit of impaling, or spearing, their prey.

In Greece in spring, when does Cyclamen creticum flower?

Cyclamen creticum, the Cretan sowbread, blooms around April and the fifth month. Its flowers are strongly fragrant but make no nectar. Nectar is the sweet liquid that draws insects to a flower. Hoverflies and bumblebees count among its insect pollinators. A pollinator carries pollen from one flower to another, so seeds can form.