The archaeologist investigating an ancient Greek tomb from the era of Alexander the Great has suggested it was a funeral shrine for his closest friend Hephaestion.

Greeks have been enthralled for months by the mystery surrounding the Amphipolis monument. Now, Katerina Peristeri has revealed that fragmentary inscriptions link the tomb to Hephaestion.

Hephaestion died less than a year before the Macedonian leader. After his death in 325BC, Alexander was said to have ordered that shrines be constructed throughout the empire.

Ms Peristeri's team believe the site at Amphipolis may have been designed by one of two architects, Dinocrates or Stesicrates, and built by Antigonus, another of Alexander's generals.

They also believe that tiny inscriptions found at the site show Hephaestion's monogram (two initials from his name).

However, not everyone was convinced by the team's revelations. 

Prof Panayiotis Faklaris of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki told Greek radio on Thursday that there was no indication that the tomb had any connection to Hephaestion or that Alexander had ordered it to be constructed.

There had earlier been speculation that the tomb may be linked to Alexander the Great's mother Olympias or his wife Roxana.

And earlier this year, bones were recovered at the site that belonged to at least five individuals including an elderly woman, a newborn child and two men, one of whom had been stabbed.

To read more, please visit: The BBC

Warm and generous, Thessaloniki is at the same time historic and avant-garde: the second largest city in Greece, ideal for a city break, a mosaic of cultures and fascinating holiday moments.

Located in Macedonia, Northern Greece, there is a city unlike anywhere else in Greece. Thessaloniki is a sprawling urban centre, a cultural melting pot, where dreams, ideas, visions and trends percolate in an alternative, avant garde scene. Its history is written upon everything you see: the Thermaic Gulf, the White Tower, Nikis Avenue, Aristotelous Square, Mitropoleos Avenue, Tsimiski Avenue, Ladadika, Modiano Market, Bit Bazaar and the Old City.

For thousands of years, this northern port-town has been a meeting point for people of different cultures. Impressive attractions, cafes, bars, traditional tavernas, gourmet restaurants, a lively nightlife – you’ll find everything here in Thessaloniki, the beautiful ‘bride of the Thermaic Gulf’.

Trace the civilizations and peoples that have left their mark on this great city of Thessaloniki. The Palace, the Triumphal Arch and the impressive Rotunda offer an insight into to the reign of emperor Galerius Maximilianos (early 4th century) and formed the city’s administrative and religious centre in Roman times. Or the Jewish Museum, in an elegant listed building of 1904 on Agiou Mina Street, recreating the life of the Jewish community in pre-War Salonica and its subsequent extermination by the Nazis. Finally, don’t forget to visit the former home of Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey.

Or wander the narrow lanes of Ano Poli, one of the oldest districts of Thessaloniki, above the modern town. There you’ll admire the numerous attractions, most of which are castles and religious monuments: the Trigoniou Tower, with its amazing view and the Eptapyrgio fortifications, Ottoman monuments, the Vlatades monastery and the Byzantine churches of Osios David and Agios Nikolaos Orfanos. This is the most unspoilt district of the old city. And let’s not forget, of course, the iconic 16th century White Tower, by Aristotelous Square in the city centre.

To learn more about Thessaloniki, please visit: Discover Greece

Delta Air Lines’ nonstop double daily flights between Athens and New York-JFK are now on sale for travel in summer 2016, an announcement said on Monday 5th October 2015.

Flights will begin five times weekly from March 27, 2016, increasing to a daily service from May 24, 2016 using an Airbus A330-300 aircraft with 292 seats.

From May 27, 2016, an additional flight will be added which will also operate on a daily basis with a Boeing 767-400 aircraft with 245 seats, bringing the weekly total to 14 flights.

During the peak summer months, Delta will offer over 7,500 weekly seats between Greece and the United States.

All services from Athens are operated in conjunction with joint venture partners Air France KLM and Alitalia.

“Our investment in our New York-JFK hub means we offer greater connectivity for customers travelling to the United States and beyond from Greece,” said Nat Pieper, Delta’s senior vice president for Europe, Middle East and Africa."

To read more, please visit: Greek Travel Pages

Two Greek cities, that have always been a magnet for art and culture, were included on the list of the 25 cities with the greatest impact on the world.

More specifically, the capital of Greece, Athens, ranked in first place in the list that was compiled by List25, the website that gathers and presents lesser-known intriguing information on a variety of subjects, while at  #22 one can find Olympia, in western Peloponnese.

“Birthplace of Western civilization, Athens is the most influential city ever in the fields of philosophy, architecture, politics, science, and free thinking, as well as the original home of what is considered the most ideal system of government: democracy,” the website reads while it continues, referring: “Athens also became the first city to organize the first modern Olympics back in 1896. Some of its most famous citizens include giants such as Socrates, Plato, Solon, and Pericles.”

To read more and see the full list of the 25 cities, please visit: Greek Reporter

Modest wedding dresses that were once in fashion no longer are, apparently. Fashion trends now require that dresses are  not only "heavier" and voluminous, decorated with luxurious lace, pearls, but also long-sleeved.

Popular wedding fashion website ''The Knot'' has presented the 15 most beautiful long-sleeved wedding dresses. Some are the works of world famous designers like Oscar de la Renta and Carolina Herrera and others of their talented but less famous colleagues.

One of them is Greek designer Christos Costarellos, who lives and works in Athens.

The dresses by Christos Costarellos are unique, with a very fresh vision that aims to emphasize the charm and character of every woman who chooses to wear one of them.

In his penultimate collection he uses vapoury tulle, silk organza and other sheer fabrics like muslin and dotted tulle. The dresses are neo-romantic in style with the addition of some discrete and elegant traditional elements. Their main feature is movement.

To see a selection, please visit: Greek Reporter

In the heart of buzzing Athens there are a lot of open markets selling anything from food and spices to vintage clothing, antiques and souvenirs. Even if you don’t want to shop a walk into the flea market is a great way to get the real vibe of Athens.

Here is a list of the top flea markets in the centre of Athens:

Monastiraki flea market starts next to Monastiraki metro station.  It's not an actual flea market, but a collection of small shops.  Here you can buy almost anything, form clothing, jewellery, cheap souvenirs like t-shirts, toy exzone soldiers, marble Greek statues, postcards and quality souvenirs like backgammon sets, Byzantine icons, traditional Greek products, musical instruments and leather goods.  In Monastiraki flea market you will find almost everything.  Near the flea market there ar ea lot of cafes where you can stop for a refreshment and watch the people passing by.  Early in the morning and late at night when the shops are closed, all the shop fronts are covered with street art, which is totally worth checking out.

Every Sunday at Avissynias Square, just off Ifaistou Street, the central street of Monastiraki flea market, there is a bazaar.  There are vendors selling antiques from furniture to old books and recornds to anything you can imagine.  Some have no value at all, but you can also find a lot of bargins.  There are some cozy cafes at the square and Avissynias restaurant with live Greek music and traditional food where you can have a bite and watch all the action of the square.

To read more, please visit: Travel Passionate

A bronze chair arm — possibly the remains of an ancient throne — and a piece of a Greek board game are among the latest treasures raised from the site of the famous shipwreck Antikythera. 

The ship, which went down in 65 B.C., sits off the coast of the Greek island of the same name. It was discovered in 1900 by sponge fishermen and has been periodically studied since.

This year, archaeologists discovered an intact amphora (a vaselike container), a small table jug (known as a lagynos) and a rectangular chiseled stone, probably a statuette base. Digging on the seafloor, they found broken ceramics, a piece of a bone flute, and broken bits of glass, iron and bronze. A section of bronze furniture may be the arm of a throne, according to the Woods Hold Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). A small glass piece looks to be a pawn in a chesslike game. 

"This shipwreck is far from exhausted," project co-director Brendan Foley, a marine archaeologist at WHOI, said in a statement. "Every single dive on it delivers fabulous finds, and reveals how the '1 percent' lived in the time of Caesar."

The first sponge diver to explore the wreck in 1900, Ilias Stadiatis, managed to bring a bronze arm from a statue up 164 feet (50 metres) to the surgace.  The Greek government quickly sent naval support to the area, and divers brought up to 36 marble statues of heroes and gods, along with other luxury items and skeletons belonging to the crew and passengers.  In 1901, the divers brought up an incredible astronomical calendar, the Antikythera mechanism, which could determine the positions of heavenly bodies like Mercury, Venus and Mars.  It remains the most complex ancient item ever found, according to the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports.

To read more, please visit: NBC News

Here, Passion for Greece shares her experience of this Moroccan restaurant in Glyfada, Athens.

Tagine Restaurant in Glyfada, is a Moroccan dining experience that one should definitely try. When it comes to story telling, great food and an authentic environment, this is the place to be. On Monday night myself and 3 other members of Travel Bloggers Greece - Eleanna of Foodaki, Chrysoula of Travel Passionate and Maria of Maria Carras Creative, were invited on a Moroccan food journey in the heart of the Athenian Riviera.

Our host Kareem welcomed us in his new restaurant and shared with us the little secrets of what makes Tagine so special. Kareem cooks from the heart, and he has a passion for his business, which is something you can tell from the moment you meet Kareem. He is also a very talented story teller which makes the whole dining experience an even greater journey. You learn during the process of your meal experience and when you leave, you feel like you have gained new perspectives that have opened up the horizons of your mind. Meet Kareem and you will mark my words.

We started our dinner with learning about the art of Moroccan tea drinking, which is a much-loved tradition that signifies hospitality and friendship. Kareem let us in on a little secret, offering us a treat that has quite a remarkable story. There is a type of sugar that is actually an alternative to sugar and which only wealthy Arabs can afford to buy because of the price tag on this rare product which is especially used by people with diabetes. This sugar is called “Tears of Life” and it comes from a tree that is found on the borders of Afganistan, that produces 5 different fruit types. What you do is take a piece of this sugar, place it in your mouth and then drink the mint tea in order to get the flavours on your palate. A very unique experience indeed.  

The feast then continued with a selection of salads and dips known as mezze: Mutabal, a spicy dip made from eggplants, Taboule which is originally a Syrian/ Lebanese recipe which is served on lettuce leaves for flavour and digestion purposes, Hummus made from chickpeas, Arabic salad which is marinated with three different spices, pomegranate, lemon, balsamic vinegar and rice vinegar.  

You must also try Kareem’s falafel prepared from 14 ingredients, 7 of which are spices and 7 are fresh ingredients. Kareem only listed a few, not to disclose all his secrets, so what we could make out was that some of the ingredients are: chickpeas, garlic, parsley, onions, small leaf parsley and wild ginger. But the whole secret lies in the spices! The ingredients are marinated for 20 hours before they are served. The falafel is topped with Kareem’s signature tahini sauce. Are you hungry yet?

To read more, please visit: Passion For Greece

Athens features in the top 20 list of hotels giving the best value for money, according to a study by hotel search website Trivago.

Trivago recently released its list of 45 best value popular global cities for the coming year and Athens came in at number 17, scoring 78.36 points.

First on the list was Belgrade in Serbia, followed by St. Petersburg and Moscow in Russia. Santiago in Chile was 4th, Istanbul in Turkey was 5th, Melbourne in Australia was 20th and New York was 45th on Trivago’s list.

The hotel search website also compiled another list with 100 lesser-known destinations that also offer the best value for money. The Greek town of Nafplio in the Peloponnese is ranked 63rd on that list with 93.56 points.

To read more, please visit: Greek Travel Pages

Civil Defense sirens will sound across the country on Tuesday October 6th in the morning. The sirens will be sounded for routine checks and to ensure that they are in good operation; the sirens are part of the large-scale military exercise called “Parmenion 2015”.

As announced, the air raid sirens will ring at 11 am, for sixty (60) seconds and will end at 11:05 with a 60-second constant intense sound. The public is to be assured that this is a routine check and there is no cause for concern.

Source: TaNea

Translated by: XpatAthens