1.
Vehicle registration plates of Greece
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Greek vehicle registration plates are composed of three letters and four digits per plate. The letters represent the district that issues the plates while the numbers begin from 1000 to 9999, similar plates with digits beginning from 1 to 999 are issued for motorcycles which exceed 50 cc. With the exception of Athens and Thessaloniki, all districts are represented by the first 2 letters, the final letter in the sequence changes in Greek alphabetical order after 9,000 issued plates. For example, Patras plates are ΑΧΑ-1000, where ΑΧ represents the Achaia prefecture of which Patras is the capital, when ΑΧΑ-9999 is reached the plates turn to ΑΧΒ-1000 and this continues until ΑΧΧ is finished. Only the letters from the intersection between the Latin and Greek alphabets by glyph appearance are used, namely Α, Β, Ε, Ζ, Η, Ι, Κ, Μ, Ν, Ο, Ρ, Τ, Υ, Χ. This is because Greece is a party to the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic. The rule applies in a way in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Combinations used for residents are L-NNNN and are limited. Until 2003, taxis used L-NNNN, the plate was aligned with the prefecture, when number plates were introduced to Greece, they were numbered and in the late 1950s the system was L-NNN and LL-NNN. The letters were Greek letters and Latin letters, respectively, in 1956, the system was NNNNNN. In 1972, they became lettered and the system was LL-NNNN while trucks used L-NNNN, in 1983, the system was LLL-NNNN and the first two letters are prefecture letters. In 2004, the euroband was added, the first 2 of 3 letters of a licence plate usually represent the prefecture where the car was registered. Π. — Disabled in war ΔΟΚ — Test plates ΔΣ — Corps Diplomatique or foreign delegation Ε. Α. or ΕΛ. ΑΣ. — Hellenic Police ΛΣ — Coast Guard ΞΑ — Foreign missions ΕΣ — Hellenic Army ΠΑ — Hellenic Air Force ΠΝ — Hellenic Navy ΠΣ — Fire Guard ΠΚ — President of the Government, i. e
2.
Greece
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Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, historically also known as Hellas, is a country in southeastern Europe, with a population of approximately 11 million as of 2015. Athens is the capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki. Greece is strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, situated on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the northeast. Greece consists of nine regions, Macedonia, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, Epirus, the Aegean Islands, Thrace, Crete. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, the Cretan Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin and the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km in length, featuring a vast number of islands, eighty percent of Greece is mountainous, with Mount Olympus being the highest peak at 2,918 metres. From the eighth century BC, the Greeks were organised into various independent city-states, known as polis, which spanned the entire Mediterranean region and the Black Sea. Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century BC, becoming a part of the Roman Empire and its successor. The Greek Orthodox Church also shaped modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox World, falling under Ottoman dominion in the mid-15th century, the modern nation state of Greece emerged in 1830 following a war of independence. Greeces rich historical legacy is reflected by its 18 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, among the most in Europe, Greece is a democratic and developed country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life, and a very high standard of living. A founding member of the United Nations, Greece was the member to join the European Communities and has been part of the Eurozone since 2001. Greeces unique cultural heritage, large industry, prominent shipping sector. It is the largest economy in the Balkans, where it is an important regional investor, the names for the nation of Greece and the Greek people differ from the names used in other languages, locations and cultures. The earliest evidence of the presence of human ancestors in the southern Balkans, dated to 270,000 BC, is to be found in the Petralona cave, all three stages of the stone age are represented in Greece, for example in the Franchthi Cave. Neolithic settlements in Greece, dating from the 7th millennium BC, are the oldest in Europe by several centuries and these civilizations possessed writing, the Minoans writing in an undeciphered script known as Linear A, and the Mycenaeans in Linear B, an early form of Greek. The Mycenaeans gradually absorbed the Minoans, but collapsed violently around 1200 BC and this ushered in a period known as the Greek Dark Ages, from which written records are absent. The end of the Dark Ages is traditionally dated to 776 BC, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundational texts of Western literature, are believed to have been composed by Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC. With the end of the Dark Ages, there emerged various kingdoms and city-states across the Greek peninsula, in 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the worlds first democratic system of government in Athens
3.
Ios (island)
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Ios is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is an island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is about 18 kilometres long and 10 kilometres wide, with an area of 109.024 square kilometres, Ios is part of the Thira regional unit. Ios was the setting for the movie Ginger and Cinnamon, also, scenes from the film Big Blue were shot in Manganari. The Port of Ios is at the head of the Ormos harbor in the northwest, from there the bus or a 15-minute walk up the steep donkey path takes you to the village, known as Chora. Chora is a white and very picturesque cycladic village, full of stairs, today, the main path through this village is completely taken over by tourism in terms of restaurants, boutiques, bars and discothèques. Apart from the port and the village of Chora, Ios has only a few small settlements, since the 1990s, the island mayor Pousseos has worked on Ios development towards attracting different types of tourists. With the help of European Community funds some roads have been built, all of them paved, unfortunately, cultural events rarely take place up there. Excavations on Skarkos hill unearthed a prehistoric settlement, proving that Ios has been inhabited since the early Cycladic period. The architecture at Skarkos is preserved in places up to a height of almost three meters, with most of the buildings evidently having two storeys, stone-paved floors and a sewage system, numerous well-preserved pottery, tools and utensils made of metal, stone and bone were also discovered. Unfortunately, the Skarkos site remains largely unpublished, in 2008, Ios was among six European locations awarded the European Union Cultural Heritage prize for its exceptional conservation efforts at the archaeological site of Skarkos. During later times, Ios made rather few marks in history, there is no physical evidence connecting this with Homer however. There are signs of Mycenaean settlement, the north end of Ios has a ruined Venetian castle from the 15th century. The island is said to have 365 churches and chapels, like the days of the year, Ios was important enough in the Aegean insular Roman province of Insulae to become a suffragan of its capital Rhodess Metropolitan Archbishopric of Rhodes, but later faded and disappeared as a see. Its territory is now part of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Thera, Amorgos, the Latin diocese was nominally restored by the Roman Catholic Church as a titular bishopric in 1933. Today Mylopotas beach has been developed to an equivalent mass package tourism resort like Platys Gialos, Ios travel guide from Wikivoyage Skarkos 2001 Overview Municipality of Ios Independent Ios Greece travel website GigaCatolic with titular incumbent biography links
4.
Anafi
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Anafi is a Greek island community in the Cyclades. In 2011, it had a population of 271 and its land area is 40.370 square kilometres. It lies east of the island of Thíra, Anafi is part of the Thira regional unit. According to mythology, the island was given the name Anafi because Apollo made it appear to the Argonauts as a shelter from a bad storm, using his bow to shed light upon it. If the name of the island derives from word, and means revelation, then Anafi is linked to Delos. Others say that the name is due to the non-existence of snakes on the island, despite its small size, Anafi offers archaeological as well as mythological interest. At the monastery of Panagia Kalamiotisa there are ruins of a built as an offering to the god Apollo Aegletus. Some of the inscriptions from the island refer to the god Apollo as asgelatos ασγελατος, however, one scholar links this epithet to a Sumerian goddess of healing and to Apollos son Asclepius. Ruins can also be found at Kasteli, and most of the findings, such as the statues, are now located at the Archaeological Museum at the Chora, in Roman times the island was used as a place of exile. After the Fourth Crusade in 1204, when the Cyclades were taken over by Venetians, in 1307 the island was captured by Januli Gozzadini, of Bolognese origin, who established himself as its independent lord. Much later the ruler of Anafi, William Crispo, became regent of the Duchy of the Archipelago, William is said to have built the fortifications above the present village. He is also claimed to have built a fortress, sometimes referred to as Gibitroli, in 1481, the island passed to the Pisani family as part of a dowry. The Pisani ruled it until 1537, when the Ottoman admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa raided it, the island was eventually resettled, and acquired a set of privileges from the Ottoman court in 1700 in exchange for 500 crowns. Thereafter it was largely to fend for itself, except for the annual visit of the Ottoman fleet to collect tribute. The island was visited in 1700 by Joseph Pitton de Tournefort and he describes Mount Kalamos as une des plus effroyables roches qui soit au monde. Some of the ancient remains from the island were acquired by French and British antiquaries, one Hellenistic statue from Kastelli can be found in the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. During the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774, it was held and used as a base by the Russian fleet under Alexey Orlov from 1770 until the wars end, during the Greek War of Independence the Anafiots sent two Caïques of men to join the struggle. Many men left the island to help in the building of Athens as capital city of Greece and they built houses for themselves on the slopes of the Acropolis rock, in an area still known as Anafiotika
5.
Santorini
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Santorini, classically Thera, and officially Thira, is an island in the southern Aegean Sea, about 200 km southeast of Greeces mainland. It is the largest island of a small, circular archipelago which bears the name and is the remnant of a volcanic caldera. It forms the southernmost member of the Cyclades group of islands, with an area of approximately 73 km2, the municipality of Santorini includes the inhabited islands of Santorini and Therasia and the uninhabited islands of Nea Kameni, Palaia Kameni, Aspronisi, and Christiana. The total land area is 90.623 km2, Santorini is part of the Thira regional unit. Santorini is essentially what remains after a volcanic eruption that destroyed the earliest settlements on a formerly single island. A giant central, rectangular lagoon, which measures about 12 by 7 km, is surrounded by 300 m high, the main island slopes downward to the Aegean Sea. On the fourth side, the lagoon is separated from the sea by another smaller island called Therasia. The islands principal port is Athinios, the capital, Fira, clings to the top of the cliff looking down on the lagoon. The volcanic rocks present from the prior eruptions feature olivine, and have a presence of hornblende. It is the most active volcanic centre in the South Aegean Volcanic Arc, the volcanic arc is approximately 500 km long and 20 to 40 km wide. The island is the site of one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history, the Minoan eruption, another popular theory holds that the Thera eruption is the source of the legend of Atlantis. Before then, it was known as Kallístē, Strongýlē, or Thēra, the name Thera was revived in the nineteenth century as the official name of the island and its main city, but the colloquial name Santorini is still in popular use. During the Ottoman Empires domination of the Aegean Sea, the Turkish exonym for the island was Santurin or Santoron, Oia is now called a Κοινότητα, within the municipality of Thera, and it consists of the local subdivisions of Therasia and Oia. The two main sources of wealth in Santorini are agriculture and tourism, in recent years, Santorini has been voted one of the worlds most beautiful islands. Santorini remains the home of a small, but flourishing wine industry, white varieties also include Athiri and Aidani, whereas red varieties include mavrotragano and mandilaria. The Cyclades are part of a complex that is known as the Cycladic Massif. The complex formed during the Miocene and was folded and metamorphosed during the Alpine orogeny around 60 million years ago, Thera is built upon a small, non-volcanic basement that represents the former non-volcanic island, which was approximately 9 by 6 km. The basement rock is composed of metamorphosed limestone and schist
6.
Dorians
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The Dorians were one of the four major ethnic groups among which the Hellenes of Classical Greece considered themselves divided. They are almost always referred to as just the Dorians, as they are called in the earliest literary mention of them in the Odyssey, and yet, all Hellenes knew which localities were Dorian, and which were not. Dorian states at war could more likely, but not always, Dorians were distinguished by the Doric Greek dialect and by characteristic social and historical traditions. In the 5th century BC, Dorians and Ionians were the two most politically important Greek ethne, whose ultimate clash resulted in the Peloponnesian War, the degree to which fifth-century Hellenes self-identified as Ionian or Dorian has itself been disputed. At one extreme Édouard Will concludes that there was no true ethnic component in fifth-century Greek culture, at the other extreme John Alty reinterprets the sources to conclude that ethnicity did motivate fifth-century actions. Moderns viewing these ethnic identifications through the fifth- and fourth-century BC literary tradition have been influenced by their own social politics. Accounts vary as to the Dorians’ place of origin, mythology gave them a Greek origin and eponymous founder, Dorus son of Hellen, the mythological patriarch of the Hellenes. The origin of the Dorians is a multi-faceted concept, in modern scholarship the term often has meant the location of the population disseminating the Doric Greek dialect within a hypothetical Proto-Greek speaking population. This dialect is known from records of classical northwest Greece, the Peloponnesus and Crete, a historical event is associated with the overthrow, called anciently the Return of the Heracleidai and by moderns the Dorian Invasion. This theory of a return or invasion presupposes that West Greek speakers resided in northwest Greece, no other records than Mycenaean are known to have existed in the Bronze Age, so a West Greek of that time and place cannot be proved or disproved. West Greek speakers were in western Greece in classical times, unlike the East Greeks, they are not associated with any evidence of displacement events. This provides circumstantial evidence that the Doric dialect disseminated among the Hellenes of northwest Greece, most scholars doubt that the Dorian invasion was the main cause of the collapse of the Mycenean civilization. The source of the West Greek speakers in the Peloponnesus remains unattested by any solid evidence, though most of the Doric invaders settled in the Peloponnese, they also settled on Rhodes and Sicily, in what is now southern Italy. In Asia Minor existed the Dorian Hexapolis, Halikarnassos and Knidos in Asia Minor, Kos, and Lindos, Kameiros and these six cities would later become rivals with the Ionian cities of Asia Minor. Other such Dorian colonies, originally from Corinth, Megara, a mans name, Dōrieus, occurs in the Linear B tablets at Pylos, one of the regions later invaded and subjugated by the Dorians. Pylos tablet Fn867 records it in the case as do-ri-je-we, *Dōriēwei. An unattested nominative plural, *Dōriēwes, would have become Dōrieis by loss of the w, the tablet records the grain rations issued to the servants of religious dignitaries celebrating a religious festival of Potnia, the mother goddess. The nominative singular, Dōrieus, remained the same in the classical period, many Linear B names of servants were formed from their home territory or the places where they came into Mycenaean ownership
7.
Venice
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Venice is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is situated across a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and these are located in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay that lies between the mouths of the Po and the Piave Rivers. Parts of Venice are renowned for the beauty of their settings, their architecture, the lagoon and a part of the city are listed as a World Heritage Site. In 2014,264,579 people resided in Comune di Venezia, together with Padua and Treviso, the city is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, with a total population of 2.6 million. PATREVE is a metropolitan area without any degree of autonomy. The name is derived from the ancient Veneti people who inhabited the region by the 10th century BC, the city was historically the capital of the Republic of Venice. Venice has been known as the La Dominante, Serenissima, Queen of the Adriatic, City of Water, City of Masks, City of Bridges, The Floating City, and City of Canals. The City State of Venice is considered to have been the first real international financial center which gradually emerged from the 9th century to its peak in the 14th century and this made Venice a wealthy city throughout most of its history. It is also known for its several important artistic movements, especially the Renaissance period, Venice has played an important role in the history of symphonic and operatic music, and it is the birthplace of Antonio Vivaldi. Venice has been ranked the most beautiful city in the world as of 2016, the name Venetia, however, derives from the Roman name for the people known as the Veneti, and called by the Greeks Eneti. The meaning of the word is uncertain, although there are other Indo-European tribes with similar-sounding names, such as the Celtic Veneti, Baltic Veneti, and the Slavic Wends. Linguists suggest that the name is based on an Indo-European root *wen, so that *wenetoi would mean beloved, lovable, a connection with the Latin word venetus, meaning the color sea-blue, is also possible. The alternative obsolete form is Vinegia, some late Roman sources reveal the existence of fishermen on the islands in the original marshy lagoons. They were referred to as incolae lacunae, the traditional founding is identified with the dedication of the first church, that of San Giacomo on the islet of Rialto — said to have taken place at the stroke of noon on 25 March 421. Beginning as early as AD166 to 168, the Quadi and Marcomanni destroyed the center in the area. The Roman defences were again overthrown in the early 5th century by the Visigoths and, some 50 years later, New ports were built, including those at Malamocco and Torcello in the Venetian lagoon. The tribuni maiores, the earliest central standing governing committee of the islands in the Lagoon, the traditional first doge of Venice, Paolo Lucio Anafesto, was actually Exarch Paul, and his successor, Marcello Tegalliano, was Pauls magister militum. In 726 the soldiers and citizens of the Exarchate rose in a rebellion over the controversy at the urging of Pope Gregory II
8.
Ottoman Empire
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After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans the Ottoman Beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror, at the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, while the empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. The empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society, however, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian Empires. While the Empire was able to hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent. Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. The word Ottoman is an anglicisation of the name of Osman I. Osmans name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān, in Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti, the Turkish word for Ottoman originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empires military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term Turk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, the term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. In Western Europe, the two names Ottoman Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favored both in formal and informal situations and this dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. Most scholarly historians avoid the terms Turkey, Turks, and Turkish when referring to the Ottomans, as the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman, osmans early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River and it is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the scarcity of the sources which survive from this period. One school of thought which was popular during the twentieth century argued that the Ottomans achieved success by rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, in the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans. Osmans son, Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 and this conquest meant the loss of Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe
9.
Naturism
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Naturism, or nudism, is a cultural and political movement practising, advocating and defending personal and social nudity, most but not all of which takes place on private property. The term may refer to a lifestyle based on personal. Naturism may take a number of forms and it may be practised individually, within a family, socially or in public. Additionally, there is also militant naturism, including campaigning and extreme naturism is sometimes considered a separate category, several other terms have been proposed as alternative terms for naturism, but none has found the same widespread public acceptance as the older terms naturism and nudism. People interested in social nudity can attend clothes-free beaches and other types of ad-hoc nudist events, at these venues, participants generally need not belong to a naturist club. An overlapping term to naturist with a similar definition includes birthday suiter, many contemporary naturists and naturist organisations feel that the practice of social nudity should be asexual. Current research has begun to explore this complex relationship, the usage and definition of these terms varies geographically and historically. Though in the United States, naturism and nudism have the same meaning, in naturist parlance, textile or textilist is a non-naturist person, non-naturist behaviour or non-naturist facilities. E. g. the textile beach starts at the flag, they are a mixed couple – he is naturist, textile is the predominant term used in the UK, although some naturists avoid it due to perceived negative or derogatory connotations. Textilist is said to be used interchangeably, but no dictionary definition to this effect exists, clothing optional and nude optional describe a policy or a venue that allows or encourages nudity but tolerates the wearing of clothes. The opposite is clothing compulsory, that is, prohibiting nudity, adjectival phrases clothes free and clothing free prescribe where naturism is permitted in an otherwise textile environment, or define the preferred state of a naturist. The social nudity movement includes a range of variants including naturism, nudism, Freikörperkultur. There is an amount of shared history and common themes, issues and philosophy. See also, labels, associations and terminology for a discussion and disambiguation. Many people are often nude in the privacy of their home or garden, either alone or with members of the family and this may be occasional nudity or as a naturist lifestyle. This has attracted a deal of academic study. The study found there was no significant difference between what was reported by men and by women with respect to frequency of nudity in the home. Gordon and Schroeder in 1995 reported that parental nudity varies considerably from family to family, barbara Bonner in 1999 cautioned against nudity in the home if children exhibit sexual play of a type that is considered problematic
10.
Amorgos
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Amorgos is the easternmost island of the Greek Cyclades island group, and the nearest island to the neighboring Dodecanese island group. Along with several neighboring islets, the largest of which is Nikouria Island, it comprises the municipality of Amorgos, which has an area of 126.346 square kilometres. Throughout history, Amorgos was also known as Yperia, Patagy, or Platagy, Pagali, Amorgos features a lot of remnants of ancient civilizations. At the time of Archaic Greece, there were three independent city-states there and they are believed to have featured autonomous constitutions but the same currency. Due to the name Minoa we suspect that Amorgos had been colonised by the Cretans from ancient times, almost a dozen separate inhabited centres are known in this period. Amorgos is the origin of many famous Cycladic figurines, ‘Dokathismata style’ figurines were originally found here. Cycladic sculptures had been discovered from the cemeteries at Aghia Paraskevi, Aghios Pavlos, Dokathismata, Kapros, Kapsala, Nikouria, Kapsala Cycladic figurines, dating around 2700 B. C. are named after a find place in Amorgos. This is the earliest of the canonical types – a reclining female with folded arms and they tend to have slender and elongated proportions. At this time, anatomical features such as arms are modeled three-dimensionally, with the later types, sculptors tended to render this feature with incised lines. Dokathismata Cycladic figurines date from a later period of 2400–2100 BC. Part of the island is named Aspis, where the ancient temple of the goddess Aphrodite stood, in approximately 630 BC, the poet Semonides led the foundation of a Samian colony on Amorgos. The Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax mentions it as Tripolis, with the passing of time, the islands name changed to Amolgon and Amourgon. In the 5th century, Bishop Theodore, who attended a synod in Constantinople, signed as Bishop of the Parians, Sifnians and it was known as Yamurgi during Ottoman rule between 1566–1829. On 9 July 1956, a large earthquake occurred that generated a local tsunami of up to 30 m. The shock had a moment magnitude of 7.8 and had a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX, fifty-three people were killed and 100 were injured. The names of the three cities given by Stephanus Byzantinus are Arkesini, Minoa, Aigiali or Melania which, according to inscriptions, are the most correct. The three towns are on the islands west coast because that is where bays and natural ports that could provide the proper positioning for seaside towns and forts exist. Aigiali was on the north East Side of the close to the present day locations of Tholaria and Stroumvos
11.
Andros
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Andros is the northernmost island of the Greek Cyclades archipelago, approximately 10 km south east of Euboea, and about 3 km north of Tinos. It is nearly 40 km long, and its greatest breadth is 16 km and its surface is for the most part mountainous, with many fruitful and well-watered valleys. The municipality, which includes the island Andros and several small, the largest towns are Andros, Gavrio, Batsi, and Ormos Korthiou. The island is famous for its Sariza spring at Apoikia where the water out of a lionhead. Palaeopolis, the ancient capital, was built into a hillside. Andros also offers great hiking options for activity diggers, during the Final Neolithic, Andros had a fortified village on its west coast, which archaeologists have named Strofilias, after the plateau on which it was built. Strofilas was related to the Attica-Kephala culture, and predates the Cycladic culture of the Bronze Age and it was an important maritime center and one of the earliest examples of fortification in Greece. It is notable for rock carvings on its walls, which animals such as jackals, goats, deer, fish and dolphins. The island in ancient times contained an Ionian population, perhaps with an admixture of Thracian ancestry, though originally dependent on Eretria, by the 7th century BC it had become sufficiently prosperous to send out several colonies, to Chalcidice. The ruins of Palaeopolis, the ancient capital, are on the west coast, in 480 BC, it supplied ships to Xerxes and was subsequently harried by the Greek fleet. As a member of the second Delian League it was controlled by a garrison. In the Hellenistic period, Andros was contended for as a frontier-post by the two powers of the Aegean Sea, Macedon and Ptolemaic Egypt. In 333, it received a Macedonian garrison from Antipater, in 308 it was freed by Ptolemy I of Egypt, in the Chremonidean War it passed again to Macedon after a battle fought off its shores. During the long centuries of Byzantine rule, Andros was relatively obscure, first part of the Roman province of the Islands, it later became part of the theme of the Aegean Sea. Like other Aegean islands, it suffered from Saracen raids, but during the Komnenian period the island flourished due to its production, exporting gossamer. Andros was captured by the Fourth Crusade on its way to Constantinople in 1203, probably sometime around 1239, Dandolo was expelled from the island by Geremia Ghisi, ruler of Skiathos, Skopelos, and Skyros. Dandolo died soon after and a case was brought before the Venetian courts against Ghisi by Dandolos widow Felisa, Felisa was soon aided by the influential lord of Astypalaia, Jacopo Querini, who became her second husband. Although the Venetian court found in their favour in August 1243 and ordered the Ghisi brothers to give up Andros, the case dragged on until after Geremias death, when Duke Angelo Sanudo took over the island
12.
Antiparos
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Antiparos is a small island in the southern Aegean, at the heart of the Cyclades, which is less than one nautical mile from Paros, the port to which it is connected with a local ferry. Saliagos island is the most ancient settlement in the Cyclades, and Despotiko, the Community of Antiparos was founded in 1914 and was promoted to a municipality in 2010 with the implementation of the Law Kallikrates, under the principle of each island a municipality. It occupies an area of 45.182 square km, including the island of Antiparos and it has, according to the 2011 census,1,211 permanent residents and a density of 27 inhabitants per km². The islands economy is based on tourism, fishing, farming and it is known for its distinctive Cycladic beauty with white houses, cobbled streets and beautiful flowers that thrive in the yards of the houses. It is a popular tourist resort in the summer for Greeks and European visitors, the main settlement lies at the northeastern tip of the island, opposite Pounda on the main island of Paros, whence a ferry sails for Antiparos harbour. The historical center is located in the Venetian castle of Antiparos, the most popular beaches are, Soros, Glyfa, Apantima, Monastiria. The ancient name of the island was Oliaros, a word probably of Phoenician origin meaning wooded mountain, later the island was named Antiparos Situated within walking distance from Paros. The island of Antiparos is located 0.8 nautical mi southwest of Paros, separated by the Strait of Antiparos and it lies 8 kilometres from the port of Parikia from which the passenger ferry runs. The maximum length of the island is 11 kilometres from north to south, the total area is estimated at 37 to 38 km. And the highest peak, St. Elias, in the middle of the island, is at 308 m, the main town is called simply Antiparos. Antiparos is a rock and dry climate with high moisture. The flowers thrive in the region are mainly bougainvillea that adorn the gardens, houses, the morphology of Antiparos is characterised essentially flat, with many small hilly peaks, while the vegetation of the island is low. The island economy is based largely on tourism, the income from visits to the Cave of Antiparos form a big part of the budget of the municipality. The islands economy is helped by agriculture and animal husbandry. Since the 1970s and 1980s, Antiparos has become a holiday destination, particularly for nudists, attracted by the remote. The best known is the Camping, or Theologians beach, at the north of the island, the far end of the town beach is also nudist, as is the Perigiali beach. However most of the beaches on Antiparos are textile. Since the 1990s there has been a steady development due to its proximity to Paros, there are extensive Neolithic remains on the island
