Talk:Greece

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[edit] Stay healthy

Add a couple health tips.

[edit] Talk

I've reworded the Talk section to state earlier and more explicitly that English speakers won't encounter language problems in Greece, since I've talked to some people who've expressed this concern.

[edit] By car

I've removed the link to http://www.popscar.gr/ for several reasons. This link, with a front-text saying it was "an up to date page on car rental in Crete," originally pointed to http://www.carhireincrete.com/. So it shouldn't have been on the Greece page in the first place. Then today, an anonymous URL from Greece substituted the URL of a nation-wide Greek car rental agency, http://www.popscar.gr/, without changing the front text. There are two things wrong with this: first, although a link to this agency, which is a national one, is now appropriate for the Greece page, the front text, which says it is a Cretan agency, is inaccurate (it has offices in Crete but also elsewhere in Greece.) Second, the original URL, pointing to a Cretan car rental agency, is still valid, so it shouldn't have simply been overlaid by someone else. If these URLs are being added to Wikitravel by someone on the staff of these agencies, those people should read the page Wikitravel:Welcome, business owners, where they will find guidelines explaining among other things that business owners who add links to their businesses should add them only to the appropriate page, and should never delete or overlay competitor's links. Sailsetter 19:03, 17 March 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Vegetarian

I've changed the description on the link to the Porto Club travel agency to reflect the fact that it's an agency offering vegetarian-oriented tours; the previous text implied it was a cookery page. Sailsetter 12:13, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Weblinks

I've deleted the link in this section to http://www.hotels-in-greece.com/ because 1) it's clearly not in compliance with the Wikitravel policy against including external links to "Hotel or travel booking services / aggregators", and 2) the page it links to is in German, making it an inappropriate link to include in the English language Wikitravel.

[edit] Money

I've made two changes to the information on currency exchange. I've substituted "most banks" for "National Bank of Greece," since almost all Greek banks will change money: I've never walked into one that wouldn't. Also I've deleted the statement that Alpha Bank and others will only change money for account holders: I don't have a Greek bank account and I've changed money in Greece for many years, including last summer, at Alpha Bank and others without ever being asked if I were an account holder.

[edit] Antiquities laws

I added a comment to the Stay Safe section about laws regarding the export of antiquities, but I left it vague because I'm not sure what the current laws are. Some older books say simply that an antiquity is anything made before 1830, but I suspect current laws are more complicated than that. Can anyone give a reference to a clear, concise, layperson's-language statement of what a traveler should know about these laws? Sailsetter 12:23, 9 March 2008 (EDT)

For future reference the Wikitravel:CIA World Factbook 2002 import can be found at Talk:Greece/CIA World Factbook 2002 import.

[edit] 69.245.192.52

That was me, doing some edits on the "Drink" section, before I decided to start an account. Unfortunately, it appears there is no way to sign this post automatically -- somebody should fix that. --Jpbrenna 14:06, 14 May 2005 (EDT)

[edit] Region Section

The list of regions needs to be split up. I don't know enough about the country to attempt this. Can someone who does undertake to do this? WindHorse 14 Feb 06

The country's historical and cultural regions are Thrace, Macedonia, Epirus, Thessaly, Central Greece aka Rumely, Peloponnese, Crete, Ionian Islands, and Aegean Islands. These are the country's historical regions and are more relevant to a tourist from a historical and cultural perspective, than the administrative regions or "departments." The histotical/cultural regions do not necessarily correspond with administrative departments, such as West Greece which was recently carved out of Rumely and the Peloponnese region for adminstrative purposes (also, the Mecadonia region can be broken down into smaller adminstrative departments). I will be modifying the region section to clarify between these two types of regions. And I will also change "Western Thrace" to Thrace. Yes, Greece's Thrace region is part of a larger region of the same name (shared by Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey.) However, I'm afraid this might cause confusion as no one in Greece refers to the Greek region as "Western Thrace." It's simply "Thrace." The word Thrace links to the separate article for Western Thrace. skyduster 21:34, 26 December 2006 (EST)

I think that the ten regions is too much on this country article, see Wikitravel:Geographical hierarchy. Could they be grouped in some understandable way. Maybe Islands, Mainland, Athens area (Attica?). More than five wikitravel-regions seems lika a excess. Compare with the thirteen wikitravel-regions of the huge USA and the six regions of Italy./Johan Jönsson 19:42, 28 July 2007 (EDT)
I think consolidating some of the regions is a geat idea, but I think that three regions is too few. For example, "the islands" groups together both the Ionian and Aegean Islands on opposite sides of the mainland. But consolidating adjacent regions might be a good idea. skyduster 21:44, 18 October 2007 (EDT)
I agree. Looking at the regions, Clearly some of the mainland regions could be combined together (all the Macedonias and Thrace into one for example) - perhaps Attica, Central Greece and Northern Greece. The islands are where the travel action is and that's where most of the regions should be Ionian, Crete, Peloponnese, South and North Aegean. Eight regions in all.--Wandering 22:33, 18 October 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Turkish Stamps from Cyprus

The following is not true and can get people in trouble:

...After Cyprus formally in full became part of the European Union such a denial of entry is according to European Union officials not to be expected any more.

I will be deleting it soon unless someone disagrees.Centarch

It's still there. I'll try to confirm what's really going on right now, and revise it accordingly. skyduster 21:14, 25 August 2006 (EDT)

I deleted it. If anyone confirms it to be true, re-post it. skyduster 01:01, 26 December 2006 (EST)

[edit] drug policy

what about drug policy in Greece?

Please see Wikitravel:Illegal activities policy. Thanks Majnoona 00:31, 20 July 2006 (EDT)

[edit] my contributions

Hi folks,

I've found this article severely lacking in many areas. I have edited and/or made additions to:

  • "Understand" (additions and corrections)
  • "History" (huge addition)
  • "Get in by plane/train/car/bus" (I also plan to revise "by boat" as well as entry requirements)
  • "Getting around by bus/train/car/plane" (I also plan to revise "by ferry")
  • "Talk" (additions and corrections)
  • "Buy - Bargaining" (revision)
  • "Eat - Coffee" (additions and corrections)

skyduster 20:45, 25 August 2006 (EDT)

[edit] Regions and Holidays/Festivals

I am currently expanding the "Destinations" section.

I created subcategories according to each of Greece's REGIONS, and I will list destinations under each of these subcategories. When that's done, I will delete the original 2 paragraphs that were under "Destinations" (For the time being, I kept the original text under "Destinations" pushing it above the unfinished regions subcategories.)

I've also added the "Holidays and Festivals." So far, I've discussed the major national public holidays. I plan on adding text about various regional holidays and festivals around the country.

skyduster 20:45, 25 August 2006 (EDT)

Excellent. You are probably going to get some feedback/edits from others regarding how you structure the regions. You might want to take a look at other country articles to see how we like to organize things. Have you thought about becoming a Wikitravel:Docent for Greece? Majnoona 00:30, 20 July 2006 (EDT)

Yeah, it would be cool to be a docent for Greece. I will also take a look at other country pages, and see how they're structured.

Rather than putting a list of destinations for each region in the main article like this, it would be better to put this kind of detail in the individual articles for those regions. This helps to keep the main article from getting too big. Information about regional holidays would go in the region articles as well. The main article for a country would normally have links to the region articles, a short list of the most popular cities for tourists to visit (with more complete lists in the region articles), and an "other destinations" section for popular destinations that aren't in cities (e.g. national parks, monasteries). We currently have an article (many of them empty) for each of Greece's peripheries, but we can try dividing the country differently if you think it would make more sense. (One warning: Macedonia currently points to the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, since people in English-speaking countries routinely refer to it as simply "Macedonia". So if we're going to have an article for all of Greek Macedonia (instead of breaking it up into the three Macedonian peripheries) we'll have to differentiate between the two articles somehow.) - Todd VerBeek 08:06, 20 July 2006 (EDT)

For Greek Macedonia, I always prefer to use the Greek term for the region, which is Makedonía, in order to differentiate it from the Republic of Macedonia. I'm sure we'll come up with a way to differentiate the two articles. Maybe include a footnote in each to clarifiy what the article is about, and provide a link to the other, in case readers are looking for the other one.

Our standard approach is to use the most familiar English spelling, since that's what our readers will be looking for (they'll search for "Vienna" instead of "Wien", "Florence" instead of "Firenze"... kind of like we call it "Greece" instead of "Hellas"). What we'd do in this case would be to title it "Macedonia (Greece)" and put a note at the top of that article and the one for the former Yugoslav republic explaining that there's more than one place that's known by that name. We run into this problem fairly often (but without the political overtones) with North American cities named after European cities, so we're used to it.

Individual articles for each periphery/region sounds good. But I would like to have at least a bulleted list of major destinations (with brief descriptions) under their respective regions in the main Greece article, because -through my experience of giving travel advice on Greece- very very many people are not knowledgeable enough on Greece to seek out an article on, say, "Corfu" or "Meteora." I want to mention places people would not otherwise look up. Athens and possibly Mykonos are the only Greek place-names most non-Europeans can name. Most poeple will just go directly to the main Greece article to see what the country has to offer. I prefer to list several destinations on the main Greece page, with brief descriptions for each of these places and links to their individual articles. And of course, we can have articles on the regions as well.

Likewise, I'd like to mention various local festivals in the main Greece article under the "Holidays and Festivals" section to bring up some cool festivals in towns/regions/islands that people might not otherwise look up.

I want to make the main Greece page into something that would teach potential visitors more about the country, and allow them to discover new destinations and options they would enjoy, but didnt know existed; rather than just a reference page. A LOT of people want to visit Greece, but know nothing about it, and dont know where to start.

What do you guys think?  :-)

skyduster 20:45, 25 August 2006 (EDT)

I'm all in favor of turning this into a tool for teaching potential visitors about Greece, because that's part of why I took an interest in this article (but I did already know more than a couple place-names, so I guess I'm not your typical non-European). How about this: A list of regions at the top of the article where it is now, with a brief description of why each is a good place to visit. For example (just picking a few):
  • Peloponnese - home to the historic city-state of Sparta and the birthplace of the Olympics
  • Attica - includes the ancient – and modern – capital city of Athens
  • Crete - center of the ancient Minoan civilization and an increasigly popular tourism destination
We can do the same sort of thing with a list of less than 10 cities in that section. But the "Destinations" section reallly shouldn't be there at all; it's supposed to be a place to list national parks and monasteries. The idea is that we want to give them a hint of what's interesting about each region and about a few cities, then give them details when they look at those articles. If the main article gets too long, they might be intimidated by it and not read it all. - Todd VerBeek 19:20, 20 July 2006 (EDT)

[edit] Article Needs Pictures

I will try to look for some digital pictures of my own, but if anyone has any to contribute, please feel free to upload them. What I am looking for are pictures that illustrate the country's beauty (remember, this is a travel giude), as well as the diversity of the country's architecture, terrain, and historical monuments. Let's refrain from posting too many pictures that have become cliché...everyone knows the Parthenon is in Greece, and it already is the first picture that readers will see on the Athens article. However, a gorgeous night scene of some sort of event at Herod Atticus theater with the floodlit Parthenon in the background, that would be awesome. Pictures of towering mountains, olive orchards, vineyards, beaches, and/or festivals (Easter, Carnival, wine harvest festivals, etc) are a huge plus. For historical sights, let's try to balance out ancient sights with medieval sights. But, of course, as it says in Image policy let's not be redundant. Let's add some pics and see how it goes. :-) skyduster 20:45, 25 August 2006 (EDT)

[edit] Islands

Skiathos, and the Sporades... needs info! Flotilla cruises.

[edit] Accommodation in Greece

I wonder why this section is there at all? It doesn't seem to comform with External Links Policy, as far as I understand it. Opinions? --DenisYurkin 04:16, 12 November 2006 (EST)

It appears that they do follow policy, since they are links to websites that list places of accomodation, and are not competing travel guides. skyduster 22:18, 17 November 2006 (EST)

We don't link to hotel guides either -- see Wikitravel:External links. We do link to hotel chains because they are a primary souce for a chain, but only one of the two entries in that section was for a chain, and it only had a couple of hotels so not really worth listing at the country level. -- Colin 22:48, 17 November 2006 (EST)

[edit] Beer

"Beer is not a tremendously popular drink in Greece, and is hence often overpriced, with prices in bars, cafes and clubs in the more well-to-do parts of Athens and trendy island resorts often running to nearly 10 euros for a half litre bottle."

I'll have to alter this statement. Beer is actually widely popular in Greece. The reason it's expensive is because of a combination of several things:

  • The cost of living in Greece has been rising tremendously for quite sometime now, and the prices of several consumer goods has skyrocketed in recent years
  • Greece has very high sales tax (known in Europe as VAT)
  • higher demand in highly touristy areas has done its part in spiking up prices

skyduster 22:16, 17 November 2006 (EST)

[edit] ferry schedule and routes

Is there any recommended site providing schedule, prices and routes for ferries connecting Greek islands? Googling gives only tons of agencies and hundreds of replicas of partial schedules--and nothing what would seem a reliable online service--at least for information if not for booking. --DenisYurkin 18:27, 23 November 2006 (EST)

> Reverted edits by 194.219.21.133; changed back to last version by 212.203.107.122 [1]

Evan, the link that was submitted by 194.219.21.133 is possibly not the best source, but it's far better than nothing. Do we have a better, possibly non-affiliated official one-stop link to ferries schedules and routes? If not, let's have gtp.gr before we find something better. What do you think? --DenisYurkin 11:10, 8 December 2006 (EST)

In the interest of sanity, if there's no official link, I'd rather not have a link at all. The problem with having a non-official link is that there are so many. I don't think it's worth our time and effort to try to figure out which of the ten-twenty sites that feature Greek ferry schedules is the super-bestest. --Evan 12:39, 8 December 2006 (EST)
I won't argue if you have at least one site that can compete with the above in coverage and amount of data available on ferries. I traveled to Greece myself just a year ago, and it was really a nightmare to find anything close to complete reference that covered routes I needed. I gave up trying at some point, btw--and ultimately emailed an LP-recommended agency that wasn't of much help (if I remember right).
I mean it's really a problem for a non-Greek traveler to find such a site, even if it's not official.
If we don't have serious competitors in mind right now, let's leave GTP until we have any dispute with another information provider--or until someone comes with anything more official, or yet until we have a report that information from GTP is absolutely unreliable.
I understand that thus we create a precedent, but again we are here to be helpful for travelers, even if our current policy is not well-prepared for that in some situations. --DenisYurkin 16:35, 9 December 2006 (EST)
Ping :-) --DenisYurkin 01:49, 30 January 2007 (EST)
Evan, just to be sure I understand your point: the main reason you object on having a link to gtp.gr here is that it's a general policy/creating bad precedent, or that you don't think this site is helpful enough in the context of this specific article? --DenisYurkin 22:08, 8 February 2007 (EST)

[edit] Ferry schedules

I think this whole issue needs to be revisited, since one of the most serious concerns of travelers to Greece is finding out ferry schedules. It's also one of the most confusing issues in planning Greek travel. The above discussion didn't seem to reach any conclusion, so I'd suggest further discussion here. Meanwhile, I propose to add a section to the Greece page giving links to individual Greek ferry companies providing international and domestic service (the latter if for more than one region.) I may also put ferry company links on other pages if a company basically serves just that region. The links I'm talking about are links to the official pages of the individual shipping companies, not links to travel agent or aggregator booking agency sites. (On some of these shipping agency sites you can see schedules and buy tickets, on some only see schedules, and on some do neither but just get a general description of the service.) I assume this will be within policy, since it's comparable to putting links to an airline's official web site, which is common practice. As for a Greece-wide ferry schedule site, for the present I won't tamper with the gtp links referred to above, but there may be a better solution. Comment is welcome. Sailsetter 15:46, 13 April 2008 (EDT)

I absolutely support your suggestion to add official links of ferry companies to the articles on their respective regions--and to Greece if they operate across regions.
BTW, do you have any good candidate for a Greece-wide ferry schedule site? (I don't insist that gtp is supper-bestest :-) --DenisYurkin 15:42, 20 April 2008 (EDT)

[edit][add listing] Eat

I wrote the first three paragraphs under the Eat section as an introduction to the country's cuisine and restaurant scene. Details about specific dishes should not be included in the intro. They should be included further down along the Eat section. As you see below, someone inserted details about gyros in the 2nd introductory paragraph (in bold):

The cuisine in Greece can be radically different from what is offered in Greek restaurants around the world. Greek restaurants abroad tend to cater more to customer expectations rather than offer a truly authentic Greek dining experience. One example is the famous gyros (yee-ros), a common item on Greek menus outside Greece. While it is a popular fast-food item in Greece today, the is actually a foreign import (based on the Turkish doner kebap)although modified in virtually every aspect except preparation/roasting (bread, sauce, meat, spices, toppings all differ from Doner Kebap).It is considered by Greeks as junk food, there are many delivery chains in Greece that deliver gyros and they are quite popular. It is never served in the home and is generally not found on the menus of non-fast-food restaurants.

I am removing the portions in bold. Feel free to add this further down in the Eat section where we can go further into detail about various dishes. But these details do not belong in the Eat section's intro.

skyduster 22:50, 25 December 2006 (EST)

Once again, I am removing the following excerpt in bold:

The cuisine in Greece can be radically different from what is offered in Greek restaurants around the world. Greek restaurants abroad tend to cater more to customer expectations rather than offer a truly authentic Greek dining experience. One example is the famous gyros (yee-ros), a common item on Greek menus outside Greece. While it is a popular fast-food item in Greece today, it is actually a foreign adaptation (from the Turkish doner kebap) and is considered by Greeks as junk food. The import however, has had a dramatic makeover and now has changed and adapted its unique Greek style, using different bread, spices, meats and sauces. It is never served in the home and is generally not found on the menus of non-fast-food restaurants.

Again, details about certain dishes do not belong in the opening portion of the Eat section. skyduster 22:29, 9 February 2007 (EST)

[edit] Names of Holidays

Under the Holidays and Festivals section, let's please keep the names of holidays under their English names. This is the English-language edition of Wikitravel; readers should not be expected to understand Greek, and should therefore not be expected to understand what "Pascha" and "Theotokos" mean. I am changing "Pascha" back to "Easter," "Theophany" back to "Epiphany," and so on. This article is intended for an English-speaking audience. skyduster 00:24, 2 March 2007 (EST)

[edit] Greece hierarchy

The hierarchy for Greece seems to be in a bit of a mess. I am going to attempt to document it here as it currently stands so we can have a look at improving it. --NJR_ZA 14:12, 25 September 2007 (EDT)

[edit] Regions

There was some discussion above reflecting a feeling that the Greek regions should be fewer and more traveler oriented, but apparently none of the suggestions was implemented: there are still 15 regions, some of which are going to make most people say, "huh?" I propose to cut them down to the following: 1) Athens and Attica, 2) the Aegean Islands, 3) the Peloponnese, 4) Crete, 5) Central Greece (including Delphi and the Ionian Islands,) 6) Northwestern Greece (Epiros, Zagoria, Corfu,) 7) Northern Greece (everything else.) These divisions are open to criticism on geographical, historical, and administrative grounds, and are in ways artificial, but I feel they really do reflect the way most travelers to Greece, especially first time ones, think about their options, so I believe they would make a good put-the-traveler-first overview. Sailsetter 15:57, 13 April 2008 (EDT)

I agree. If anything, I'd want to simplify even further, combining your 5, 6 and 7 at the top level. Pashley 21:46, 13 April 2008 (EDT)
Thanks for the feedback, and the suggestion. I'll probably take it. Sailsetter 10:22, 15 April 2008 (EDT)
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