Travel Guide - Greece

Modern Greece is the result of extraordinarily diverse influences . Romans, Arabs, Latin Crusaders, Venetians, Slavs, Albanians, Turks, Italians, not to mention the Byzantine Empire, have been and gone since the time of Alexander the Great. All have left their mark: the Byzantines in countless churches and monasteries; the Venetians in impregnable fortifications in the Peloponnese; and other Latin powers

such as the Knights of Saint John and the Genoese, in imposing castles across the northeastern Aegean. Most obvious is the heritage of four centuries of Ottoman Turkish rule which, while universally derided, contributed substantially to Greek music, cuisine, language and way of life. Significant, and still-existing, minorities - Vlachs, Muslims, Catholics, Jews, Gypsies - have also helped to forge the hard-to-define but resilient Hellenic identity , which has kept alive the people's sense of themselves throughout their turbulent history. With no local ruling class or formal Renaissance period to impose superior models of taste or patronize the arts, medieval Greek peasants, fishermen and shepherds created a vigorous and truly popular culture, which found expression in the songs and dances, costumes, embroidery, carved furniture and the white Cubist houses of popular imagination. During the last few decades much of this has disappeared under the impact of Western consumer values, relegated to museums at best, but recently the country's architectural and musical heritage in particular have undergone a renaissance, with buildings rescued from dereliction and performers reviving, to varying degrees, half-forgotten musical traditions.

With well over a hundred inhabited islands and a territory that stretches from the south Aegean to the Balkan countries, Greece offers enough to fill months of travel. The historic sites span four millennia, encompassing both the legendary and the obscure, where a visit can still seem like a personal discovery. Beaches are parcelled out along a convoluted coastline equal to France's in length, and islands range from backwaters where the boat calls twice a week to resorts as cosmopolitan as any in the Mediterranean.

Of course there are formal cultural activities as well: museums that shouldn't be missed, magnificent medieval mansions and castles , as well as the great ancient sites dating from the Neolithic, Bronze Age, Minoan, Classical, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine eras. Greece hosts some excellent summer festivals too, bringing international theatre, dance and musical groups to perform in ancient theatres, as well as castle courtyards and more contemporary venues in coastal and island resorts.

But the call to cultural duty will never be too overwhelming on a Greek holiday. The hedonistic pleasures of languor and warmth - going lightly dressed, swimming in balmy seas at dusk, talking and drinking under the stars - are just as appealing. And despite recent improvements to the tourism "product", Greece is still essentially a land for adaptable sybarites, not for those who crave orthopedic mattresses, faultless plumbing, Cordon-Bleu cuisine and attentive service. Except at the growing number of luxury facilities in new or restored buildings, hotel and pension rooms can be box-like, campsites offer the minimum of facilities, and the food at its best is fresh and uncomplicated.

Greeks spend a lot of time socializing outside their homes, and sharing a meal is one of the chief ways of doing it. The atmosphere is always relaxed and informal, and pretensions (and expense-account prices) are rare outside of the more chi-chi parts of Athens and certain major resorts. Greeks are not prodigious drinkers - tippling is traditionally meant to accompany food - though since the mid-1990s a whole range of bars and pubs has sprung up, both in tourist resorts and as pricey music halls at the outskirts of the major towns

Both estiatória and tavernas will usually offer you a choice of bottled wines , and many still have their own house variety: kept in barrels, sold in bulk by the quarter-, half- or full litre, and served either in glass flagons or the brightly coloured tin "monkey-cups" called kantária . Not as many tavernas stock their own wine as once did, but it's worth asking whether they have wine varelísio (barrelled) or hyma (in bulk). You should expect to pay ?3.50-5 per litre, with smaller measures priced proportionately. Non-resinated wine is almost always more than decent. Retsina - pine-resinated wine, a slightly acquired taste - is also available straight from the barrel, though the bottled brands Yeoryiadhi from Thessaloníki, Malamatina from central Greece (often cut with soda water), and Cambas from near Athens, are all excellent and likely to be more consistent in quality.