One of Athens’ inner-city neighborhoods, Eleonas, will get its own metropolitan park in 2019 offering repose and recreation for its residents, according to the Greek capital’s municipal authority.

The project includes landscaping, outdoor sports facilities, including skating, basketball and volleyball courts, walking paths, fountains, and event areas as well as cafes. All areas will be accessible to via ramps.

Future plans include linking pedestrian walkways from the Botanical Garden of the Agricultural University of Athens to its olive groves and with the archaeological site of the Plato Academy.

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

Photo credit: Greek Travel Pages

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) in Athens, Greece, has been nominated for the RIBA International Prize 2018, a biennial architecture award given by the Royal Institute of British Architects.

The RIBA International Prize 2018 will be awarded to a building which exemplifies design excellence, architectural ambition and delivers meaningful social impact. The SNFCC, an international complex for sustainability, culture, education and entertainment, is the only Greek nominee among 62 buildings in 30 countries.

 

Designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop in collaboration with the Greek architectural office BETAPLAN, the SNFCC is one of Greece’s largest infrastructure projects that houses the Greek National Opera, a two-million-book National Library and the 170,000m2 Stavros Niarchos Park on the Faliro Bay shoreline.

Winners will be announced in December 2018.

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

Photo Credit: Greek Travel Pages

The Athens Traders Association in collaboration with the Attica Region and the Municipality of Athens recently announced plans to revamp and use abandoned buildings to house small and medium-sized retailers and entrepreneurs. Their hope is to revive once thriving trade areas and to establish new business neighborhoods.

In view of increasing tourist flows to Athens, the action, initially a pilot program, will create new prospects for trade as well as upgrade the city center. Sights for the first project are set on central Stadiou St.

“Every store window display that’s lit up drives away delinquency and creates jobs,” said Stavros Kafounis, the association’s president. The Attica Region Governor and the municipal authority of Athens will try to devise a plan so small and medium-size retailers can rent out large spaces on privileged terms over a two-year period.

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

Greece rang in the New Year with a record-breaking Vasilopita cake that was 2,500 kilos. The cake was offered to Athens' locals for free as the Greek bakers wanted to send their well wishes for 2018.

 

Greek City Times reports, "the 70-metre-long and 3-metre-wide Vasilopita was cut in 15,000 slices at a Platia (centre square) in Athens’ suburban municipality of Peristeri and is the largest ever made in Greece, according to organisers."

Over fourty people worked non-stop for three days to prepare the record-breaking, delicious cake, said Panagiotis Sachinidis, President of the Association of Athens’ Bakers who took the initiative.

The municipality of Peristeri hid 200 “lucky coins” inside the cake for good luck. Locals were also given small gifts by the Mayor of Peristeri Andreas Pachatouridis who helped slice the cake. “We are cutting the Vassilopita of the love and solidarity,” he said addressing the event.

To read this article in full, please visit: Greek City Times

Greece is beginning the 2018 new year with winter sales starting on January 8 and going through February 28. On January 14, the first Sunday of the sales period, shops will stay open from 11:00-18:00.

Store owners, particularly in Athens, have announced a mere 2.5% hike in their profits in the holiday season and are now anxious to capitalize on it with the almost two-month long winter sales.

If there is a discount on more than 60% of a store’s goods on sale, it is mandatory to show the percentage discount given, which must be displayed in the shop window and all other commercial communication, such as online stores and public advertisements.

For a few ideas on where to shop, read: Athens' Newest Cool Neighborhoods - Koukaki & Makriyianni and Top 5 Places To Go In Kifissia

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

The Athens School of Fine Arts recently celebrated 180 years of cultivating young artists, coinciding with the history of contemporary Greece and three years after the conception of Athens as the capitol.

 

ASFA originally began as a Sunday school for architecture to support the Greek state and after the 1843 Revolution, the school was divided into three divisions. Once the school was divided, this also laid the foundation for the creation of the National Technical University of Athens.

In 1930, ASFA became an independent university and was officially named the Athens School of Fine Arts. This was also when the first annexes, or Art Stations, were created around throughout Greece, which can be used by students and artists for educational purposes and events. During this time, a new style of artistic expression in Greece arose, revisiting Greek tradition and reviving true 'Greekness.'

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

Photo Credit: Greek News Agenda

Beginning April 14th through the 17th, the annual ASTA Destination Expo will take place in Athens, Greece. This is a great opportunity to explore Greece beyond the main destinations like Mykonos, Santorini, and Patmos.

 

During the event, guests will receive destination training from local Greek experts, networking opportunities with travel suppliers, exclusive opportunities for pre- and post- FAM trips to the Greek islands. Participants will also get to experience Greece at an affordable price.

For more information, please visit: ASTA

Starting in February 2018, Piraeus port in Athens will get a direct rail link to the Athens International Airport. Piraeus is Greece's biggest port and one of the largest ports in the Mediterranean. The trip between the port and the airport is expected to take about 1 hour.

Piraeus will also connect to the airport at Spata, which is northeast of Athens, Kiato in northern Corinthia, and Halkida in Evia, all via the Proastiakos suburban railway.

The Proastiakos service will be much more frequent between Piraeus and central Athens, running every 15 to 20 minutes instead of once every hour.

Source: Ekathimerini

This Spring and Summer 2018, the Road Trip Project, a travel experience, will take 8 individuals on 4 routes across Europe. These 4 duos will hop on a minibus and take a road trip across Europe. They will get to meet locals, experience the local vibe, discover projects that change people's lives for the better, and explore unknown places and amazing landscapes.

The road trips will go from the Baltics to the westernmost point of Europe, will span the length of the Danube, travel around the Mediterranean, and even reaching the Atlantic. The road trippers will then have the chance to share what they learn along the way by filming and posting their stories to other millennial across the continent and beyond.

At the end of their journey, their unique experiences will be featured in a road movie and reflected in an online travel guide on Europe's off the beaten paths.

For more information and how to apply, please visit: Road Trip Project

The move started a few weeks ago and after three long years of preparations, the hundreds of thousands of books and other items in the Greek National Library‘s collections are finally making the journey to their new home at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center.

The move is expected to be completed in April 2018, when the library will gradually start to go into full operation.

The transfer to the new building entails moving 750,000 items in the general collection and 40,000 in the lending section (10,000 of which are educational games), as well as 30,000 magazines published in the last five years.

"Within its new premises, at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, the entrance to the Library leads into a large open lobby that provides an immediate visual orientation to all the organization’s functions. The NLG Public Library Section, bolstered by a significant book collection and other media, will include separate areas for adults, teenagers, and children and will offer a wide range of educational and cultural programs. The natural light available throughout the National Library will help create an open hospitable environment for individual and collaborative learning. Events and seminars will be hosted for both children and adults, and classes will incorporate natural learning opportunities originating from collaborative programs at the Stavros Niarchos Park as well."

For more information about the National Library of Greece, please visit: SNFCC

Source: Protothema