For starters, Greece is the birthplace of most of the athletic endeavours we pursue today. Horse racing, boxing, sprinting, wrestling, javelin throwing - the lot. These all can be traced back to ancient Greece. Myths and Legends abound in Greece, the Greeks have gods coming out of their ears, and also lay claim to classic poets, mathematicians, playwrights, and one of the greatest military geniuses the world has ever seen (that’s Alexandra the Great, not Captain Corelli by the way). It’s not even that big a country. Have you seen it? It’s dwarfed by Turkey, which is to the right, or the East if you want to be technical. Got that map the right way up? Good.

Your Greek holiday – Greece overview

There’s plenty to do or see in Greece of course, and whether your thing is walking in forests, or exploring mountains, discovering caves and waterfalls, or clubbing, dancing, drinking and, errr… making friends, you’re in business. How about something in-between? There are marine wildlife parks to visit that give homes to the protected Mediterranean monk seal and the Mediterranean green loggerhead turtle, which might be misinterpreted as a suggestion that you go dancing with loggerhead turtles. They are a protected species and dancing with them at any time is frowned upon, so best just let sleeping loggerhead turtles lie okay.

Were the wildlife parks sounding a little bit too sedate for you anyway? Did you have a different kind of wild life in mind? Then, sir or madam, there are extreme sports for you. Try kayaking, rafting on a monoraft or a hydrospeed, which is a highly buoyant half-surfboard kind of weirdo thing (for total nutters only), or there’s canyoning. Now this seems to involve dangling from a rope over treacherous precipices. So surely you wouldn’t want to do that. Mountain biking, that sounds more like it (as long as no actual mountains are involved) and there’s more where all that came from. Still not your thing? There are ecologically sensitive areas to visit and ecotourism projects to participate in. And we haven’t even got to the beaches yet!

To reach its total of a massive 380+ beaches, Greece, we have to report, has cheated. While its own coastline provides a huge variety offering everything from sheltered bays, stretches of fine golden sand, pebbly beaches, or coastal caves with steep rocks and black volcanic soil, Greece also has its islands and their many beaches as well. But wait, just how many islands has Greece got? Have a guess, go on. Greece has about 6000 islands. Yes, 6000. About 227 of which are inhabited. Were you even close?

Skiathos, Mykonos, Kos, Rhodes, and Crete are some of the more popular Greek islands and some of the most ancient and successful European civilisations flourished amid them. Many archaeological sites remain. Let’s just sneak in a tiny historical fact: The first cookbook in History was written in Greece by Archestratos in 330 BC. Greece has a history of culinary experimentation stretching back even further though. In short, there’s more to food in Greece than kebabs.

Athens, Greece’s capital of course, is widely recognised to be the birthplace of civilization. The Acropolis is among Europe’s top most archaeological sites. The 2004 Olympics were held here and most successful they were too. Not for Great Britain of course, we came in 10th on the medals table. Oh the shame. Too much fish and chips probably. Athens by night should help you recover from that Olympic poor result though, with its many tavernas complete with bouzouki playing that stand shoulder to shoulder with theatres, rock clubs, and even jazz clubs, yes, jazz clubs.

The list of historic monuments, museums and other attractions is immense for Athens alone. The Acropolis is one of the most recognizable monuments in the world and dates back to the golden age for Athens, some 1500 years ago.

The Roman Agora of Athens is even older - built between around 11 BC. Partly funded by a donation from Julius Caesar it has nothing to do with Romans, it was just built during Roman times. It’s a complex of a big rectangular court, surrounded by colonnades and allsorts of shops.

Still in Athens there’s the Olympieion, while further a field there’s The Sanctuary of Poseidon at Sounion, the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, also known as the Herodeion. There are the islands: Kos, Zante and its turtles. On Rhodes there’s famous Faliraki and its great nightlife, Rhodes being the largest Greek island and most southerly European island there is.

Flights to Greece – Clever people from  ages ago

Gosh, some of the ancient Greeks had phenomenal intellects. People have lived and thrived in Greece for more than five millennia and there are clear signs of the ancient Greeks’ influence wherever you go. You can almost taste the history. Many people choose flights to Greece simply to visit the Greek islands. There are more than 3,000 of them, most of which are completely deserted. Wonderful places to explore by boat and sail. The Greek mainland is equally lovely and fascinating, mostly made up of harsh mountain country with sprinklings of rich green forest.  Flights to Greece are firm favourites with history, archaeology and anthropology buffs as well as caving fanatics. The country boasts 7,000+ caves containing almost 15,000 miles of underground caverns and galleries.

Greece Flights – There’s none of that flat earth nonsense here

You might think that flights to Greece will land you in the lap of the traffic gods, putting your life at risk every time you approach the kerb. Not so… Greek driving is absolutely fine. In fact there are fewer fatal traffic accidents there per head of population than anywhere else in the EU. Choose flights to Greece and immerse yourself in the land of intelligent intellectual exploration, logic and unsurpassed artistic creativity. Take the Greek philosopher Anaximander. He wasn’t daft. He decided way back in 560 BC that the earth wasn’t flat. The rest of us ignored him, though, and the idea didn’t catch on until 1800 years later when crazily brave explorer Magellan sailed all the way round, proving earth’s roundness once and for all.

Flights to Greece – A country with three climates

Flights to Greece let you sample three very distinct climates; classic Mediterranean, cooler Temperate and downright chilly Alpine. Logic prevails… you’ll find an alpine climate up in the mountains on the mainland. Head for temperate Thrace, East Macedonia and Central Macedonia for very hot, dry summers and chilly wet winters. Or stick to the coastal areas and Greek islands if, for you, flights to Greece are synonymous with the Mediterranean climate and all the lovely sunshine it brings.

Chill. Book your flights to Greece here.

Or take a tour round our flights pages for Flights to Athens, Flights to Crete, Flights to Faliraki, Flights to Kos, Flights to Rhodes and Flights to Zante

There are great views from the Acropolis, which means ‘high or upper city’. Lots of Greek towns had an acropolis, a high bit. The building that’s so famous here is The Parthenon.

Olympieion -  Attractions in Greece

You’ll spot this from the Acropolis. Its building began 2500 years ago, stalled, and was eventually completed about 340 years later by Hadrian, the Roman Emperor. There used to be a statue of Zeus in here, possibly similar to the one at Olympia 150km away that was one of the Seven Wonders of the World. This one was supposedly all gold and ivory. Ooooh it must have been lovely.

Poseidon Temple - Greece Attractions

The sanctuary of Poseidon at Sounion was built to honour Poseidon the sea god. It’s an amazing building or amazing ruins at least. It’s surrounded by sea in the distance almost 200 feet below, and is very evocative in a ‘Jason and the Argonauts’ way, which was actually filmed – seeing as how you asked – mainly in Italy, but also in Shepperton, which – Pinewood Studios aside - is a slightly less evocative place.

Herodeion - Attractions in Greece

The Odeon of Herodes Atticus, also known as the Herodeion is almost 2000 years old. It’s still a theatre with concerts and recreations of historic performances in the summer.