Background: Greece achieved its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1829. During the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, it gradually added neighboring islands and territories, most with Greek-speaking populations. In World War II, Greece was first invaded by Italy (1940) and subsequently occupied by Germany (1941-44); fighting endured in a protracted civil war between royalist supporters of the king and communist rebels. Following the latter's defeat in 1949, Greece was able to join NATO in 1952. A military dictatorship, which in 1967 suspended many political liberties and forced the king to flee the country, lasted seven years. The 1974 democratic elections and a referendum created a parliamentary republic and abolished the monarchy. Greece joined the European Community or EC in 1981 (which became the EU in 1992); it became the 12th member of the euro zone in 2001.
June 28th 2008Europe » Greece » Crete » Heraklion In order to leave Santorini and get to Ios, we had to get ourselves back down to the port. Lucky for us, George, or Mike if you prefer real names, arranges this for you. Unlucky for us, it wasn't Geor ... [full story]
June 21st 2008Europe » Greece » Crete » Heraklion As promised, the Greek Adventure! Part 1. (Jetlagged)
After super Jono (that's pronounced Yono in some countries, ie: whatever country I'm in), made the train and comfortably ate our victory sand ... [full story]
June 19th 2008Europe » Greece » Crete » Heraklion Crete is a really nice place. I would recommend it to anyone. There are places like Malia which is full of English kids (showing my age now) getting pissed everynite but there are so many really nice ... 3 photos[full story]
June 15th 2008Europe » Greece » Crete » Heraklion We've been here just over a week now. The tans have gone from lobster red to a suttle brown now so we are starting to blend in. We've got a hire car and have visited loads of good towns/sites. Visited ... [full story]
June 9th 2008Europe » Greece » Crete » Heraklion Jan and Rodger did a day trip to Agios Nikolaos and here are their comments on their day……..Rodger and I had a sleep in as we had decided that the trip to Chania was too long a day for u ... 4 photos[full story]
June 8th 2008Europe » Greece » Crete » Heraklion We arrived at Heraklion about 8.30 pm and two swish Mercedes took us to the Olympic Hotel in central Heraklion where we booked in and headed off over the reconstructed streets for dinner.
The road ... 27 photos[full story]
June 1st 2008Europe » Greece » Crete » Heraklion An exchange I had with a dirty old Greek man while walking up 25Augustus Way:
Dirty Old Greek Man: How are you?
Me: Good.
Dirty Old Greek Man: Do you speak English?
Me: No implied by shaking head ... [full story]
May 26th 2008Europe » Greece » Crete » Heraklion Greetings from Athens! I promised to keep this blog a bit shorter than the last, so hopefully this won’t be too long. As many of you know, I’ve been in Greece for the last 12 days or so, d ... 37 photos[full story]
May 21st 2008Europe » Greece » Crete » Heraklion Mr. Tountas took us up to the bus stop on the National Road to catch our bus to Iraklio (Heraklion). We thought the bus would come before 10am, so when a bus showing "Iraklio" stopped, we started to b ... 3 photos[full story]
May 20th 2008Europe » Greece » Crete » Heraklion Today we rented a car because Crete is kind of hard to navigate by bus. We drove about 45 minutes to Agios Nikolas, a harbour city. The highways are quite nice here with plenty of signs. We found o ... 5 photos[full story]
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