How To Plan a Trip to Greece

Among the many temples, theaters, shrines, and ruins now found where ancient cities once stood is something for each modern visitor to Greece to enjoy.  Greece was the first European area with an advanced civilization.  Beginning with the Minoans in Crete, and the Myceneans on the Mainland, several hundred independent city-states sprang up across the Country. These were civilizations of prosperity and cultural booms, especially in drama and architecture.

The ancient ruins of cities like Athens, Sparta, and Thebes, made Greece a popular tourist destination.  The Chalkidiki peninsula, with the famous three fingers of Pollene, Sithonia, and Acte, is well known for its ancient monastaries.  Other popular tourist destinations for people interested in seeing ruins from the ancient Greek world include places like Mycones, Paros, Santorini, and Crete.

You can visit Delphi, which was the location of the Omphalos Stone, considered by ancient Greeks to be the center of the universe.  Other tourist destinations in Delphi include the most important shrine in the Ancient Greek world, that of the Delphi Oracle.

Olympia was the home of the first Olympic Games in 776BC and a sacred ancient Greek site.  Olympia was famous for the Temple of Hera, the Olympic Stadium, the Palaestra, the Nike of Paeonius, and the Hermes of Praxiteles.

Sikyon, the most ancient Greek city-state, was the considered the cradle of art - dramatic and tragic plays, and painting in its present form, began in Sikyon.  The Sikyon Theater, built at the end of the 4th Century BC, was the biggest in ancient Greece; theater performances still occur there today, and are a popular draw for tourists and locals alike. 

No other ancient Greek city contributed more to civilization than Athens.  Humanism and democracy were born there.  The tourist attractions in Athens are too numerous to list; they include the Parthenon, the Temple of Zues, the Acropolis, the National Art Gallery, the National Gardens, the Temple of Poseidon, Plato Academy, the Presidential Mansion, the Benaki Museum (Greece's largest), the Agora (Athens ancient heart of the city), and the old Parliment among many others.