Travel to Greece Is Good This Summer. Three Great Tourist Destinations

New York.- By Vicki James Yiannias

Πηγή:.greeknewsonline.com

“I have several people who are leaving for Greece next week waiting to see me, so I can’t take time to talk,”” said Peter Zissimos of Hellenic Holidays, in Manhattan, today, answering my question, “How is tourism to Greece this summer?” before it was asked. Business is good.

Let’s Go to Greece This Summer!

When visitors patronize businesses and services in Greece their dollars will be funneled back into the country’s economy. This is music to our ears at the Greek News during our 2014 “Let’s Go To Greece” campaign.

This year, Zissimos is promoting the Ionian island of Lefkada (22 miles by 9 milea)–which is not as frequented as the Cycladic islands–to great success. Lefkada’s gorgeous Porto Katsiki beach, noted in 2012 as being one of the most magnificent beaches anywhere, is just one aspect of the island that prompted a friend to refer to Lefkada as “the most beautiful island I have ever seen”, where he looked down the 30 meter high cliffs of Cape Lefkada, to imagine the moment at which the Greek poet, Sappho, leaped to her death.

The Ionian Archipelago which includes many smaller islands as well as the seven principal ones, which are Kerkyra, Paxi, Lefkada Ithaki, Kefalonia, and Zakynthos in the six northern islands off the west coast of Greece, and Kythira, off the southern tip of the Peloponnese, is perfect for island hopping.

Lefkada is the only island to be connected to the mainland. A long causeway and a floating bridge or swing bridge that rises for ships to pass provide a convenient connection to the west coast of Greece, so Lefkada is popular with Greeks and Italians during high summer. There are also ferries to Corfu and Ithaca from the Vasiliki resort (where there is a windsurfing center). According to Traveller magazine, Lefkas Town, which has six hotels, has a “hip atmosphere” particularly during the International Arts Festival in August.

One of the best places for yachting anywhere (which applies to all of Greece!), which has drawn the rich and famous, Lefkada has yacht charter bases to be found in Nidri and Lefkada Town for sailing holidays and cruises in the turquoise Odyssean waters of the Ionian Sea and explore the islands, and specialists for bareboat, flotilla, as well as learn-to-sail courses.

In answer to whether he is booking trips to any destinations in the Peloponnesos Zissimos reported that the Costa Navarino luxury resorts in Messinia, with their five star hotels, restaurants, bars, “the best golf courses in Europe”, all types of water sports, yachting, racquet sports, and beaches are especially popular with American visitors to Greece for the fact that they can enjoy amenities such as hydrotherapy spas, yet still experience Greece outside of the resort environment, like the numerous traditional tavernas and seaside restaurants that surround the area. The resorts, which offer activities for children, as one traveler has noted, “caters to children… without compromising its top luxury aspects”.

Built by the late Greek shipowner Vassilis Constantakopoulos, whose vision was to promote his countryside, Costa Navarino, with its several eco-friendly luxury resorts and golf courses, is a key factor for Messenia’s economy and the biggest tourist development in Greece.

Visitors interested in history are in the right place; they can enjoy the beauty of the landscape as well as explore the magnificent history of Bronze Age Messinia (Mezana), eleven miles north of Pylos (Pylos is also known under its Italian name, Navarino, from the 1200′s), one of the great Mycenean kingdoms. At the top of the hill Epano Englianos, is one of the major Mycenean palaces of the Bronze Age, the so-called Palace of Nestor, which served as the administrative, political, and financial center of Mycenaean Messinia.

From the first day that trial excavations of Epano Englianos began, in 1939, stone walls, fresco fragments, Mycenean pottery and inscribed tablets were found. More than 600 Linear B script tablets were recovered in the first season. With major excavation by the renown American archaeologist Carl Blegen (who also worked on the site of Troy), this is the best preserved Mycenean Greek Palace discovered.

Thirty-seven miles east of Pylos, Greek archeologist Petros Themelis is excavating the site of Archaia Messene (undertaken systematically beginning in1895) which has been awarded the European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage. A museum of the extensive finds beginning from the first excavation has been constructed within the old city walls.

Pausanias describes the Archaia Messene chief temples and statues, its springs, its market-place and gymnasium, its place of sacrifice, the tomb of the hero Aristomenes, and a Temple of Zeus Ithomatas on the summit of the acropolis with a statue of the god, but the buildings that can be identified there are the theatre, the stadium, the council chamber or Bouleuterion, and the propylaeum of the market. And on the shoulder of the mountain, the foundations of a small temple, believed to be that of Artemis Laphria.

The Venetian fortress of Pylos, the Old Navarino castle, built on the site by the Franks in the 1280′s is also to be explored. Pylos came under the control of the Republic of Venice from 1417 until 1500 when it was conquered by the Ottomans.