Greece

Greece was the setting for the first flourishing of Western civilisation: the Minoan and Mycenaean Bronze Age palaces, then, after a dark age, the city-states (poleis) of the Archaic and Classical periods. Fifth-century-BC Athens produced democracy, drama, history-writing, and philosophy from Socrates to Aristotle, while Sparta, Thebes, and others contended for dominance. Alexander of Macedon then carried Greek culture across the Near East.

Rome absorbed Greece in the second century BC but was in turn Hellenised, and the eastern Roman — Byzantine — Empire, Greek-speaking and Orthodox Christian, ruled from Constantinople for a thousand years until 1453. Nearly four centuries of Ottoman rule followed.

The Greek War of Independence began in 1821 and won a small kingdom, which expanded over the next century to roughly its present borders. The twentieth century brought a disastrous war with Turkey and a population exchange in 1922–23, occupation and famine in the Second World War, a bitter civil war (1946–49), and a military junta (1967–74). Greece joined the European Community in 1981 and the euro in 2001; a severe debt crisis from 2010 brought years of bailouts and harsh austerity before the economy recovered.

Greek identity rests on the Greek language and the Greek Orthodox Church, whose calendar of saints' days, name-days (often celebrated more than birthdays), and above all Easter — with midnight services, candles, and roast lamb — structures the year. Family ties are strong, and hospitality (filoxenia, "love of the stranger") is a point of pride.

Daily life keeps a Mediterranean rhythm: a late, long lunch, an afternoon lull, and social life outdoors in the evening over coffee — the slow frappé or freddo — and meze. The volta, an unhurried evening stroll, fills seafronts and squares.

Music runs from the bouzouki and rebetiko of the cities to island fiddle tunes, and regional identity is strong — a Cretan, a Cypriot Greek, and a Thessaloniki northerner will each claim their own food, dance, and character. Plate-smashing is now mostly a tourist show; the real tradition is long tables and longer conversations.

About a third of Greeks live in Greater Athens, a sprawling city beneath the Acropolis; Thessaloniki in the north is the vibrant second city, and the rest of the population is spread through smaller mainland towns, the Peloponnese, and the islands, many of which empty out in winter.

The economy leans heavily on tourism — one of the highest shares of GDP in Europe — along with shipping (Greeks control one of the world's largest merchant fleets), agriculture (olives, olive oil, feta, wine), and services. The debt crisis drove high unemployment and a wave of emigration by young graduates; recovery has been real but wages remain low.

Life follows the seasons: the summer exodus to family villages and islands, the autumn olive harvest, and a winter that turns the islands quiet and the mountain villages toward the ski resorts of Parnassos and the Pindus.

Greek cooking is the Mediterranean diet at its source: olive oil, bread, pulses, vegetables, cheese, and modest amounts of meat and fish. A meal is often a spread of meze — tzatziki, taramosalata, melitzanosalata, dolmades, grilled octopus, fried cheese (saganaki), and horiatiki, the "village salad" of tomato, cucumber, onion, olives, and a slab of feta.

Baked dishes are the heart of home cooking: moussaka, pastitsio, gemista (stuffed vegetables), and slow-cooked lamb kleftiko. Grilled meat comes as souvlaki and gyros, wrapped in pita with chips, and every region has its own pies (pita) of greens, cheese, or meat in filo.

Ouzo and the stronger Cretan tsikoudia are the aperitifs, drunk with meze; retsina and a fast-improving range of Greek wines accompany meals; and Greek yoghurt with honey and walnuts, loukoumades, and baklava end them.

Athens is built around the Acropolis and its Parthenon, with the Ancient Agora, the new Acropolis Museum, and the Plaka and Anafiotika old quarters below. Within easy reach are Delphi, the oracle site on the slopes of Parnassos; Cape Sounion's Temple of Poseidon; and the Peloponnese, with Mycenae, Epidaurus's acoustically perfect theatre, Olympia, and the Byzantine ghost town of Mystras.

Central Greece has Meteora, where monasteries perch on sheer rock pillars, and the north adds Thessaloniki's Byzantine churches, the tomb of Philip II at Vergina, and Mount Olympus. Crete, the largest island, has the Minoan palace of Knossos, the Samaria Gorge, and its own cuisine and character.

The islands are the summer draw: the Cyclades (whitewashed Santorini on its volcanic caldera, party-and-design Mykonos, and quieter Naxos, Paros, Milos, and Folegandros), the Dodecanese (medieval Rhodes, volcanic Nisyros, and Patmos of the Apocalypse), the green Ionian islands of Corfu, Kefalonia, and Zakynthos, and the Sporades. Each has its ferry rhythm, its beaches, and its handful of tavernas by the water.