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GREECE: THE BEST OF GREECE
By Clicking in the links below you will
find what Frommer's consider to be the best of
the best.
The Best of Ancient Greece
The Acropolis (Athens): No matter how many photographs you've seen, nothing
can prepare you for watching the light turn the marble of the buildings, still
standing after thousands of years, from honey to rose to deep red to stark white.
If the crowds get you down, remember how crowded the Acropolis was during
religious festivals in antiquity.
Nemea (Peloponnese): This gem of a site has it all: a beautifully restored stadium,
a handsome museum, a romantic temple with three standing columns—and
picnic tables where you can enjoy a quiet lunch.
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Olympia (Peloponnese) & Delphi (Central Greece): Try to visit both Olympia,
where the Olympic Games began, and Delphi, home of the Delphic Oracle.
That's the only way you'll be able to decide whether you think Olympia, with its
massive temples and shady groves of trees, or Delphi, perched on mountain
slopes overlooking (jftve trees and the sea, is the most beautiful ancient site in
Greece.
Palace of Knossos (Crete): A seemingly unending maze of rooms and levels and
stairways and corridors and frescoed walls—the Minoan Palace ofKnossos. It can
be packed at peak hours, but it still exerts its power if you enter into the spirit of
the labyrinth, where King Minos ruled over the richest and most powerful of
Minoan cities and, according to legend, his daughter Ariadne helped Theseus kill
the Minotaur and escape. |
Delos (Cyclades): This temple city, on a tiny isle just 2 miles offshore of
Mikonos, was considered by the ancient Greeks to be the spiritual center of the
Cyclades and its holiest sanctuary. Although in ruins, much of this remarkable
site still remains in testament to its former grandeur. From Mount Kinthos
(really just a hill, but the islands highest point), you can see the whole
archipelago on a clear day. The 3 hours allotted by excursion boats from Mikonos
or Tinos are hardly sufficient to explore this vast archaeological treasure.
Vergina (Northern Greece): In the brilliantly designed museum here, you can
peek into what may have been the tomb of Alexander the Great's father, Philip
of Macedon, and see the more than 300 burial mounds that stretch for miles
across the Macedonian plain.
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