Category Archive: Greece Travel

First Impressions of Knossos: Memory, Myth, and the Making of a Minoan Landscape I first visited Knossos in the late 1990s, arriving to stay at the Villa Ariadne, which at that time still formed part of the British School at Athens estate. I ... Read More

The Palace of Nestor in the Peloponnese, Greece   On Tuesday April 4th of 1939, while ‘a dark and threatening weather’ was coming, Carl Blegen with his Greek and American colleagues broke ground on a hill in western ... Read More

Macedonia in Greece: Visiting Alexander the Great at Home The fascination of Alexander the Great and his life endures more than 2,000 years after his death. We have long been following the route of his campaigns through Asia Minor ... Read More

Tiryns: A Mycenaean fortress in the Peloponnese, Greece   Tiryns lies at the southern end of the plain of Argos, just 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the beautiful town of Nafplio, one of the most popular destinations for ... Read More

Aiani - A Revelation in Upper Macedonia, Greece   Aiani is not a well-known site, even among ancient historians. It’s in a region anciently called Elimia or Elimiotis, part of what’s known as Upper Macedonia. The latter isn’t ... Read More

The Medieval Castle at Platamon in Macedonia, Greece   It would almost take an act of will to miss Platamon Castle as you drive south out of Macedonia towards Thessaly, so prominent is it on its rocky eminence, ... Read More

Gamopilafo: Goat meat and Turkey with rice. A Cretan recipe Crete, the largest and one of the most distinguished of the Greek islands, is well known to many of our guests who have explored Crete with us since we started ... Read More

The History of Crete: One island - Three Golden Ages Crete, the largest of the Greek islands and a place very close to our heart, has appeared on Peter Sommer Travels' blog before. Of course it has: Exploring Crete, the ... Read More

Rhodes and the Knights - Some of the most magnificent defensive walls in the Mediterranean Rhodes now is a place of sun-bleached streets, t-shirted visitors ambling past brightly-painted houses thinking glad thoughts, rightly congratulating themselves they made the decision to come to a place that’s ... Read More

The City of Stageira, home of Aristotle in Macedonia, Northern Greece Stageira’s not one of the first rank cities of the ancient Greek world and doesn’t trouble the histories of the period too much, but it did have the lure of ... Read More

Rethymno and its Venetian fortress, the Fortezza, on the island of Crete   Rethymno’s Fortezza crowns a great craggy rock over the town on the northern shore of Crete, sure to draw the eye whether you’re immediately under its towering thick and ... Read More

The island of Crete in Greece: what do you see from here? Have you been to Crete? Have you explored the remarkable Minoan places, explored the dramatic mountains and coastline and savoured the wonderful cuisine, often considered the best in Greece? Oh ... Read More

Patmos in the Dodecanese islands of Greece: A Feast Day During a number of our gulet vacations in the Greek islands, we visit Patmos, which is the holy island of the Apocalypse, at least as seen from the Greek Orthodox ... Read More

The Monastery of the Chozoviotissa on Amorgos in Greece During our 2-week Cyclades tour by gulet, we visit the tiny and beautiful island of Amorgos. Our day on Amorgos has two wonderful highlights. The first is the Chora, the ... Read More

The Bronze Age site of Akrotiri on Santorini in Greece Thera is by no means the largest of the Greek islands, nor even of the Cyclades, the spill of central Aegean islands of which it marks the fringe. But in ... Read More