Lindos Acropolis: Sanctuary, Harbour and Island City

Lindos Acropolis: Sanctuary, Harbour and Island City The acropolis of Lindos is a high rock on the east coast of Rhodes, about 40 kilometres south of Rhodes town, crowned by the sanctuary of Athena Lindia and ringed by the walls of a castle built by the Knights of St John. Below it, the white village […]

Palace of the Grand Master Rhodes: Hospitallers, Ottomans and Italian Restoration

Palace of the Grand Master Rhodes: Hospitallers, Ottomans and Italian Restoration The Palace of the Grand Master in Rhodes is the great fortified building at the top of the medieval walled town, the residence and headquarters of the Knights of St John during the two centuries they ruled the island, from 1309 to 1522. It […]

Phaistos Palace: Minoan Power in the Mesara Plain

Phaistos Palace: Minoan Power in the Mesara Plain The Minoan palace of Phaistos stands on the eastern end of a ridge in south-central Crete, about 60 kilometres south of Heraklion, looking out over the Mesara Plain, the largest stretch of fertile farmland on the island. It was the second great palace of Minoan Crete after […]

Malia Palace, Crete: Courts, Storage and the Coastal World of Minoan Crete

Malia Palace, Crete: Courts, Storage and the Coastal World of Minoan Crete The Minoan palace of Malia lies on the north coast of Crete, about 35 kilometres east of Heraklion, on a low plain a little over a kilometre from the sea. It was the third largest of the Minoan palaces, a complex of some […]

Assyrtiko Santorini: Volcanic Vines, Basket Training and Island Wine

Assyrtiko Santorini: Volcanic Vines, Basket Training and Island Wine Assyrtiko is the white grape at the heart of Santorini’s wine: a variety native to the island that keeps its sharp, fresh acidity even in a hot, dry climate, and that grows in volcanic soil so poor and sandy that the vine pest phylloxera has never […]

Nea Kameni: Santorini’s Volcanic Caldera and a Landscape Still Forming

Nea Kameni: Santorini’s Volcanic Caldera and a Landscape Still Forming Nea Kameni, “the New Burnt Island”, is the young volcanic island at the centre of Santorini’s flooded caldera, a dark mound of lava about two kilometres across that has grown out of the sea through a series of eruptions over the last few centuries, most […]

Ancient Thera: A Dorian City Above Santorini’s Caldera

Ancient Thera: A Dorian City Above Santorini’s Caldera Ancient Thera is the ruined Greek city that stands on Mesa Vouno, a steep limestone ridge almost 400 metres high on the south-east coast of Santorini, between the beaches of Kamari and Perissa. Founded by Dorian Greeks long after the Bronze Age eruption had emptied the island, […]

Eastern Mediterranean Islands Itinerary: Santorini, Crete, Rhodes and Cyprus in 21 Days

Eastern Mediterranean Islands Itinerary: Santorini, Crete, Rhodes and Cyprus in 21 Days Santorini, Crete, Rhodes and Cyprus are four of the great eastern Mediterranean islands, and taken in that order they tell a single long story: a Bronze Age port buried by a volcano, the palaces of Minoan Crete, a medieval fortress city of crusading […]

Heraklion Archaeological Museum: Reading Minoan Art After the Site Visit

Heraklion Archaeological Museum: Reading Minoan Art After the Site Visit The Heraklion Archaeological Museum, in the centre of Crete’s capital, holds the finest collection of Minoan art in the world: the frescoes, figurines, stone vessels, jewellery, seals and clay tablets excavated at Knossos, Phaistos, Malia, Hagia Triada and dozens of other sites across the island. […]

Akrotiri, Santorini: A Bronze Age Port City Beneath Volcanic Ash

Akrotiri, Santorini: A Bronze Age Port City Beneath Volcanic Ash Akrotiri, on Santorini’s southern peninsula, is a Bronze Age port town that was buried under metres of volcanic ash and pumice some three and a half thousand years ago, and so preserved with its streets, houses, stairways and painted rooms still standing two and three […]

Knossos Palace: Minoan Administration, Archaeology and the Evans Legacy

Knossos Palace: Minoan Administration, Archaeology and the Evans Legacy Five kilometres south of the old harbour of Heraklion, on a low rise called Kephala hill, lie the remains of the largest Bronze Age centre on Crete. Knossos palace is one of the most visited ancient sites in Greece, drawing close to a million people a […]

Ancient Greece Itinerary: A 22-Day Journey from Athens to the Peloponnese and Aegean

Ancient Greece Itinerary: A 22-Day Journey from Athens to the Peloponnese and Aegean Greece rewards travellers who take it in order. Visit the Acropolis on its own, or Delphi as a day trip from Athens, and each site is remarkable but isolated. Follow a route that moves from Bronze Age citadels to classical sanctuaries, Byzantine […]

Corfu Old Town: Venetian Forts, Ionian Routes and European Layers

Corfu Old Town: Venetian Forts, Ionian Routes and European Layers Arrive in Corfu by sea, and the first thing you see is a fortress: a rocky headland crowned by two peaks, walled and bastioned, cut off from the town by a moat of sea water. Behind it rise tall, pastel-coloured houses with green shutters, bell […]

Thermopylae Battle: Landscape, Memory and the Story of Leonidas

Thermopylae Battle: Landscape, Memory and the Story of Leonidas Travellers driving south from Lamia towards Delphi today cross a broad, flat plain between mountains and the sea, cut through by a motorway, with the coast some way off to the east. It is hard to believe that this was once one of the narrowest and […]

Delos, Greece: Sacred Island, Trade Network and Archaeological City

Delos, Greece: Sacred Island, Trade Network and Archaeological City Half an hour by boat from the whitewashed lanes of Mykonos lies a low, dry, rocky island with almost no one living on it. Step ashore, and the ground is covered with ruins: temples, porticoes, markets, streets of houses with mosaic floors, a theatre, and a […]

Meteora Monasteries: Rock Landscapes, Orthodox Communities and Sacred Height

Meteora Monasteries: Rock Landscapes, Orthodox Communities and Sacred Height At the edge of the Thessalian plain, behind the town of Kalambaka, a cluster of grey rock towers rises abruptly from the valley floor, smooth-sided and streaked with dark weathering, as if they had been dropped there from the sky. On their summits sit monasteries: red-roofed […]

Oracle of Delphi: Consultation Ritual and the Sacred Landscape of Apollo

Oracle of Delphi: Consultation Ritual and the Sacred Landscape of Apollo For more than a thousand years, people climbed a steep mountainside in central Greece to put their questions to a god. Kings asked whether to go to war, cities asked where to found colonies, and private individuals asked about marriages, debts and journeys. The […]

Mystras, Greece: Byzantine City on a Spartan Hillside

Mystras, Greece: Byzantine City on a Spartan Hillside About eight kilometres from modern Sparta, a steep spur of the Taygetos mountains is covered from foot to summit with the ruins of a medieval city: domed churches, monastery walls, houses, gates and, near the top, a great palace, all crowned by a castle. This is Mystras, […]

Palace of Nestor: Mycenaean Pylos and the Archaeology of a Bronze Age Kingdom

Palace of Nestor: Mycenaean Pylos and the Archaeology of a Bronze Age Kingdom On a low hill among olive groves in the south-west Peloponnese, under a long modern roof, lie the remains of a Bronze Age palace that has told archaeologists more about how a Mycenaean kingdom actually worked than any other site in Greece. […]

Mycenae Archaeological Site: Lion Gate, Tombs and Bronze Age Power

Mycenae Archaeological Site: Lion Gate, Tombs and Bronze Age Power Mycenae sits on a low, rocky hill in the north-eastern Peloponnese, tucked between two higher peaks and looking out over the plain of Argos towards the sea. From a distance the ruins are easy to miss. Up close, the Mycenae archaeological site is overwhelming: walls […]

Diros Caves: Water Caves and Prehistoric Landscapes of the Mani

Diros Caves: Water Caves and Prehistoric Landscapes of the Mani On the western shore of the Mani, where the bare grey mountains of the southern Peloponnese drop straight into the sea, a small boat slides from daylight into darkness. Inside, still water reflects ranks of stalactites, some hanging just above your head, others continuing far […]