The heart of Hellenism beats in the heart of culture. The 1st ‘Greek Panorama’ exhibition opens its doors on May 11-13 in Manhattan, New York, with the sole purpose of successfully promoting and advertising Greece abroad.

Incorporating the elements of Tourism, Culture and Gastronomy into one successful recipe will bring out the aroma of Greece inside one of the most impressive and historical railway stations in the world, the Grand Central Terminal in New York, reaching out to over 750,000 daily passersbys.

A firm supporter for promoting Greece’s most important business sectors in tourism and exporting of food products, the Greek Embassy in Washington has invited Hellas North American Events Inc., organizer of the Greek Panorama, to supply the embassy with tourism-related brochure material and Greek products on the annual EU Open House event on Saturday, May 13th (10.00-16.00), along with the Manhattan exhibition. Further enhancing and strengthening Greece’s tourism destination identity and market positioning of Greek products in the U.S. capital is the basis of the above-mentioned agreement as both parties share common goals.

The 1st Greek Panorama exhibition will be held under the auspices of the Greek Tourism Confederation (SETE), the Federation of Hellenic Associations of Travel & Tourist Agencies (FedHATTA) and the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels (HCH).

We should not forget that Athens and New York are directly connected with three airlines, among which the recent daily flight of Emirates is included. The exhibition takes a further step to bring Greece closer to the American public.

Not only the Greek expatriates but the entire Greek American community stands side-by-side on this important initiative. Among them the ultramarathon Konstantinos (Dean) Karnazes who will attend the exhibition and sign copies of his latest book “The Road To Sparta” while many more surprises will await the visitors. Mr. Karnazes is internationally recognized as an endurance athlete and bestselling author, he has run 350 continuous miles, foregoing sleep for three nights and has participated in 50 marathons, in 50 US states, in 50 consecutive days.

It should be noted that the exhibition will be free and open to the public on May 12-13.

The interest of many professionals in the US travel market is intrigued by the b2b event being held on Thursday, May 11th on the occasion of the exhibition, as it offers a unique opportunity to carry out individual business meetings with Greek tourist companies and destinations.

Greek Panorama exhibition and its parallel events are the basis of Hellas North American Events’ marketing strategy for the Northern American market, including a number of targeted campaigns and events taking place throughout the year.

North Events – a strategic partner of Hellas North American Events in Europe, has been organizing tourism exhibitions for Greece with great success in major markets including Grecka Panorama in Poland and Grekland Panorama & Mediterranean Panorama in Sweden, since 2014.

For more information, please visit: Greek Panorama

Photo Credit: Grand Central Terminal 

Running and swimming through breathtaking routes, for the 3rd year in a row!

The preparations for the 3rd Santorini Experience, which will take place on October 6th - 8th 2017, are finally coming to an end. Following the two, highly successful, previous years, Greece’s biggest tourist sporting event, is opening its gates to professional and amateur athletes, challenging them to try out their running and swimming skills. As before, the event’s beauty is largely based on the magnificent routes that the athletes will follow. The course that the runners will take will go through villages, such as Imerovigli, Firostefani and Oia, with its breathtaking view of the Caldera. For those who choose to take part in the swimming event, the starting point of the race will be the volcano, and will end at the old port in Fira, thus giving the athletes the opportunity to swim through Santorini’s black waters.

Santorini Experience is a collaboration between the Municipality of Thira of the Municipal Sports Cultural Environmental Organization of Santorini (D.A.P.P.O.S.) and Active Media Group.

The Mayor of Thira, Mr. Anastasios Nikolaos Zorzos commented on the event, “It is with great pleasure that we welcome the 3rd Santorini Experience, on our island! Another unique life experience filled with energy and volcanic aura. The event has been established, becoming a tradition, while the partaking of the locals, as well as the visitors, each year, proves this more than anything else.”

“Santorini, which is a tourist destination throughout the year, offers alternative experiences and the Santorini Experience is no exception. We continue this effort, we support and participate actively, so that our island can continue being a tourist favorite.”

Along the same lines were the comments made by President of D.A.P.P.O.S., Mr. Eleftherios Tzouros, stating, “We are waiting for you to visit us at the 3rd Santorini Experience, which will take place between 6th-8th October. A unique sporting event that has, from day one, with the participation of athletes from all over the world, shown us that it has the potential to become a global sporting event. The Santorini Experience is considered a tradition, but we choose to evolve it and it is of outmost importance that every year we try to improve the organizing, we include innovation and safety measures above all. We are waiting for you on October 6th-8th on our island.”

 

 

Photo Credit: Elias Lefas @Santorini Experience

‘What happened next? What happened to the boys?'

Once upon a lifetime, twenty-five years ago or more, I wrote a book called A Foreign Wife. In it I recorded my experiences during my first five years in the Peloponnesian village to which I had unexpectedly migrated in 1980.’

Life in the Peloponnese continues to delight and challenge Gillian Bouras. Seeing and Believing resumes the narrative as her sons create their own families and time delivers a fresh crop of joys and heartaches, to which she tries to adjust.

Acutely responsive to what she calls ‘the conspiracy of beauty in Greece,’ she celebrates the natural world in prose that indicates a lifelong engagement with words. Global events send her to historians for enlightenment, while tragedy closer to home —fire, unexpected death— prompts reflection on the solace of contrasting creeds. In between she observes the human comedy with dry humour.

Gillian Bouras was born in Melbourne in 1945. She worked as a teacher in Australia before moving to Greece with her husband and children in 1980. Her first books were about this experience. She lives in the Peloponnese, Greece, as well as maintaining ties with Australia. Her journalism has been published in six countries.

For more information, please visit: Gillian Bouras.

 

This is a great story from WindyCity Greek about an American woman, who after having met and married her husband in Chicago, returned to his family’s homeland of Kavala in Greece. It was there that she began down a path much different from her corporate career in the US. Staci Wagner learned the art of traditional soap making and founded the successful Vilia Soap Company.

American Staci Wagner Hamalis met her husband in Chicago, where she lived for four years. The city was especially romantic for him because that is where his own parents met. Since he proposed to her in 2012 at The Bean (a sculpture in Chicago’s Millennium Park), she began visiting his homeland. Gradually, she fell more and more in love with Greece — and his family — while also learning about traditional soap making. Her life changed dramatically when she settled in her husband’s hometown of Kavala.

Her high-flying career had her traveling around the world and living in cities such as Brussels and London, but she found her true path upon settling in northern Greece in 2015. She moved soon after her marriage, and was immediately inspired by the fertile Greek landscape and its cornucopia of natural products — most of which have curative and cosmetic properties. Above all, she became fascinated by what her father-in-law, a retired chemist, began teaching her in 2012: traditional soap-making. Using the purest of nature’s bounty and employing old school artisanal methods, she is now running the successful Vilia Soap Company. Her use of old methods is most impressive, especially in a world of mass produced, chemically-laden products.

Vilia Soap Company uses Greek organic olive oil from Kavala combined with almond oil from Volos in central Greece. Inspired from local flora and fauna, they use lavender from the local market, and various other indigenous herbs like rosemary. Ingredients like Tea Tree oil and lemongrass are sourced from foreign suppliers.

Their soaps have already proven a great success among customers in 11 countries across the world. Their largest demographic is women, from late 20s and up, who seek pure, handmade, high-quality, chemical-free and uniquely fragranced soaps. But they aren’t stopping there.

To read this article in full, please visit: WindyCity Greek

 

Photo Credit: Vilia Soap Company

The National Library of Greece, under the direction of Dr. Filippos Tsimpoglou, General Director, is methodically preparing for a historic relocation that will enable its transition into a new digital era of innovation and extroversion. From the Vallianeio historic neoclassical building in the center of Athens, which together with the University of Athens and the Academy form the Athens Trilogy, the National Library is moving its headquarters to a state-of-the-art building erected by architect Renzo Piano for the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC).

The entrance to the Library leads into a large open lobby that provides an immediate visual orientation to all the organization’s functions. The natural light creates an open hospitable environment for individual and collaborative learning. Within its new premises, the National Library of Greece will thus be able to strengthen its role in the field of Research, while expanding its focus from an exclusive research facility to an inclusive public resource, an active hub for knowledge, enterprise and innovation.

Starting from March 2017, the National Library of Greece has six months to complete the relocation process and two months to conduct pilot operation at the new building. Based on this framework, the library opening is being scheduled for Autumn 2017.

To read this article in full, please visit: Greek News Agenda

Photo Credit: Giorgis Gerolympos, Greek News Agenda

Here are the best Greek islands for families. They’re known for their sandy beaches, water sports, untouched island life, and lots of history and culture.

Best for: fly and flop

If you’re after a bit of R&R, Rhodes’s east coast has a 30-mile stretch of well-maintained golden-sand beaches with warm, shallow water down its eastern coast.

Best for: budget

Make like the Durrells and head to Corfu for a spot of swimming and sunbathing on one of its varied beaches: sandy Glyfada, on the wild west coast; nearby Paleokastritsa, with its sheltered pebble coves; or Sidari on the north coast, with its peculiar rock formations and warm shallow sea.

Best for: sociable teens

If you want to avoid the crowds of an all-inclusive, but have teens who need to mingle, head to the Peligoni Beach Club on Zakynthos. The island’s dramatic coastline will thrill your family by day – Navagio (Shipwreck beach), a blissful cove backed by plummeting limestone cliffs, is unmissable – and Peligoni Club offers families with teenagers round-the- clock activities – and options for socialising in the evenings.

Best for: honeymoon with the kids

Mykonos is famous for its flamboyant nightlife, but the island also makes for a wonderful family destination if you stay in one of the quieter resorts, such as Agios Ioannis, with its lovely sandy beach beach, immortalised in the film Shirley Valentine (1989). Days spent by the sea will ensure that young children are ready for bed come sunset, after which you can head into Mykonos Town for dinner, then round off with either drinks overlooking the harbour in Little Venice.

To read this article in full, please visit: The Telegraph

Eight refugees from Syria and Iraq held a cookout with traditional dishes for visitors and other refugees attending the 19th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.

During the event, called “Food Uniting People #WithRefugees,” the four men from the refugee camps of Volvi and Alexandria cooked and served quzi, falafel and kibbeh.

Speaking to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA), 18-year-old Ahmet Obeyid from Syria said he participated because he wanted to show the culinary wealth and culture of his country, but also to thank the Greeks for their friendly attitude towards them.

To read this article in full, please visit: Greek Reporter

Housed all over the world are some of the greatest art and history collections. The experts at The Telegraph reveal where the best collections exist and the 41 museums never to miss in a lifetime. Lucky for us, two of those museums call Athens home - The Benaki Museum and the New Acropolis Museum.

Listed as number 24, the New Acropolis Museum is described as, ‘this light, airy glass-and-concrete building that was designed by Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi. Archaic and classical finds from the Acropolis site are displayed here – proud statues of the ancients and life-like stone carvings of animals. The top floor is devoted to the marble frieze that once ran around the top of the Parthenon. About half of the pieces are originals, while the remainder are white plaster copies.’

And at 25, the Benaki Museum is oused in a neo-classical building with a lovely roof-terrace cafe, this museum traces Greek art right up the 20th century.

To read this article in full, please visit: The Telegraph

Air France has recently announced new routes from Athens to Nice, Toulouse, and Marseille to keep up with high traveller’s demand. The new routes with start from July 24th through September 3rd.

Nice is a city where life is sweet and living is easy. The capital of the riviera stands out with its colourful architecture and its intense cultural life. Tourists come from all over the world to contemplate it and discover its impressive architectural heritage.

Toulouse is considered the pink city of a thousand flavours. This gourmet destination is brimming with natural and historical attractions. The Saint-Sernin Basilica, the Jacobins Convent, the Saint-Etienne Cathedral, the Roman amphitheater at Purpan, the Roman baths at Ancely: monuments and historic sites abound in Toulouse, the capital of the Visigoth kingdom in the 5th century.

Marseille gives us the sweet fragrance of the Mediterranean. It is the second largest city in France and it possesses a rich and exciting past.

To read this article in full, please visit: Greek Travel Pages