Greetings from sunny Greece. This is the first post of Grecomap’s Treasures blog. Our goal is to entertain, inform, and generally help your prospective Greek vacation become a memory-making event that you can savour for years to come.
Greece is unique is so many ways. The name itself conjures up a tremendous variety of images: a perfect climate shared by less than 2% of the world’s land mass, an unparalleled, rich history placing this land as the founding nation of Western Civilization, the breathtaking Golden Age accomplishments in architecture, philosophy, drama, science, engineering and a whole range of additional disciplines.
Greece is unique in the modern age, as well. It is unique in its rise in popularity as one of the most coveted tourist destination in the world, unique for its famous, salubrious Mediterranean diet, unique for the unforgettable natural beauty of its islands and mainland, unique for its fascinating ruins and museums, and unique for its remarkable clarity of light desired by artists and photographers the world over.
But most of all, Greece is unique for its people: their physical beauty, their open-hearted hospitality and generous spirit, their exuberant love of life and of the outdoors, their willingness to discuss, for hours, anything and everything under the sun, and their fierce loyalty to those they love. It’s a well-know axiom that if you make a friend of a Greek, you have a friend for life.
We want to encourage you to make full use of the Grecomap travel guide, in which we have compiled a trove of easily accessible, readable information. We like to call these bits of information “Greek Treasures,” in that they are always informative and enlightening.
We chose to call this blog “Treasures,” as well, because one of the word origins of treasures is the Greek word “thesaurus,” pronounced “thee-sav-ros” (soft ‘th,’ as in ‘theology’’, soft ‘a,’ as in ‘ah,’ long ‘o’ as in ‘rose’), which, of course, in its English form, is also the word for that book you use to look up word synonyms. While we don’t claim to be on a level with Mr. Portokalis from the film My Big Fat Greek Wedding, who found a Greek origin in every word in the English vocabularly, you’ll still be amazed at how many of our words are of Greek or of partly Greek origin. For a prime example, read on to the next paragraph.
The treasures of this blog fit hand in glove with the articles within Grecomap. By the way, the word “blog” itself is partly of Greek origin. It’s an Anglo-Saxon hybrid. The proper name of course is “web log,” with the “web” bit coming from old Anglo Saxon for woven cloth, and “log” coming from the Greek “logos,” meaning “word.”
In this blog you can come for all things Greek. For such a small country, it’s a huge topic, but we write about a land and a people we love deeply, and our ambition is to share this love, and a treasure trove of information, with you.
Within the Grecomap guide, you will be able to find:
- Best activities and things to see- archeological sites and museums, beaches, mountains, outdoor activities, and sports.
- Hand-selected hotels, complete with short guides of what to see and do in their immediate area and further afield.
- You can book directly from Grecomap and get the best rates. Many hotels offer discounts exclusively for our readers.
- Suggestions for a whole range of fine dining experiences; from multi-starred restaurants to tavernas, café/bars, street food shops, sweetshops and delicatessens in each region of Greece.
You’ll also be able to find:
- Stories and real-life lessons drawn from the writings and accounts of ancient Greek heroes, rulers, writers, philosophers. You’ll learn from reading about such figures as Aristotle, Alexander the Great, Leonidas the Spartan, Pericles, Homer, and a whole host of other people that the human character can create masterpieces of art, warfare, and politics and in some cases suffer catastrophic reversals. You’ll gain fresh insight into the maxim that people are the same throughout the ages.
- Top ten lists of best places to go and best activities to involve yourselves in whilst in Greece.
The bottom line is that, as this blog grows, you’ll find a treasure trove of information and of fascinating stories and local colour. We hope that your use of this guide whilst in Greece enhances your enjoyment as you discover the many facets of this incredible land and its storied people.