Me and my girlfriend are going to Kos (Greece) this summer, we're going to do several things:
- Vulcano walk
- 1 day to Bodrun (Turkey)
- See the ruins of the various cultures that had cities on Kos
- A Jeepsafari
- Snorkeling
I was wondering if anyone has any other tips/hints on things to do.
fab
Your lucky !
I never went to Greece, I think I should one day !
Akoni
I've never been to Greece as well and after half a year of studying Ancient Greek politics in college I decided it was time to take a look. It took about 0.5 seconds to convince my girlfriend to go with me.
Fredrik
You are very brave who dares to go to Greece, or Hellas, as we like to say in Norwegian. I would have been so afraid that my idealized image of the cradle of western civilization should be ruined. What if the light isn't as ethereal as the light that once banished the dark demons of the theocracies of Persia, Babylonia and Egypt, leaving only man in all his splendour and weakness as the prime measure of the world? Oh, Hellas, it sure was a sharp, brutal light with no promise of salvation that you lighted, but it was nonetheless a shining light that for the first time let us see ourselves and our world with clear, objective eyes without fear.
Benjamin [inactive]
Lol, Fredrik.
I went to Corfu for the day a few years ago. We went into one of the churches, and noticed that there was a queue of people waiting to go into a small chapel off the side. We joined the queue, went into the chapel, and found a glass cabinet containing the embalmed body of the patron saint of the island. Everyone else was kissing the glass, but we didn't.
Porthos
Sometimes I think of Greece as almost being a third-world country having more in common with Middle East and eastern mediterranean countries like Lebanon and Israel than with Europe. I picture a bunch of overly religous, loud, passionate, hot headed, swarthy Greeks running around at the base of a cliff on the Aegean coast, drinking and being marry. Lol
Benjamin [inactive]
Porthos wrote:
Sometimes I think of Greece as almost being a third-world country having more in common with Middle East and eastern mediterranean countries like Lebanon and Israel than with Europe. I picture a bunch of overly religous, loud, passionate, hot headed, swarthy Greeks running around at the base of a cliff on the Aegean coast, drinking and being marry. Lol
Greece is definitely not a third world country. Its GDP per capita in purchasing power parity is $23,518 — about the same as Wales, not much lower than Scotland, and higher than either Northern Ireland or Portugal. I realise, however, that that would seem quite low compared to the United States, which is about $43,555.
You're right that Greece is one of the more religious European countries (although perhaps not as religious as Poland), but then, the Southern US is very religious as well.
Fredrik
Although Greece is rather religious, don't you too look somewhat condescending on current Greek Orthodoxy? I mean, their present churches are like little dark pagan caves compared to the aerial and beautiful ancient temples.
Benjamin [inactive]
Fredrik wrote:
Although Greece is rather religious, don't you too look somewhat condescending on current Greek Orthodoxy? I mean, their present churches are like little dark pagan caves compared to the aerial and beautiful ancient temples.
The churches in Corfu were all very dark and rather ornate, and there were priests sitting their in black robes and black headdresses, reading the Bible in a kind of engrossed silence. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's certainly rather different from my ultra-Reformed style (although I suppose that the calm and quietness is similar).
One of my parents' friends has a Greek father, and speaks fluent Greek, but is essentially English herself. She's not religious, but she was in Greece with her husband and two children, and they visited an abbey. One of the nuns was talking to her in Greek, and asked her whether or not her children had been baptised in the Greek Orthodox Church. She said that, since they were living in England, and since her husband was not Greek, she'd thought that maybe the Church of England would be sufficient, and had thus had her children baptised there. The nun responded by saying that her children would be damned to Hell on the Judgement Day because they had not been baptised in the Greek Orthodox Church. So, clearly the Ecumenical Movement has not reached there!
Uriel
Yes, but we've all read the Inferno -- it's one of the outer circles of hell. The nicer suburbs. So don't sweat it....
Quote:
Greece is definitely not a third world country. Its GDP per capita in purchasing power parity is $23,518 — about the same as Wales, not much lower than Scotland, and higher than either Northern Ireland or Portugal.
Not much of a recommendation -- I've always considered Portugal a third-world country!
