Hellas / Eλλάς
GREECE’S ECONOMIC AND OTHER CHALLENGES
Slip a coaster under that rickety table leg, take a sip of wine, and watch the sun extinguish itself in the sea. You’ve arrived in Greece.
Greece offers sunshine, seafood, whitewashed houses with bright-blue shutters, and a relaxed, Zorba-the-Greek lifestyle. As the cradle of Western civilization, it has some of the world’s greatest ancient monuments. While it’s a late bloomer in the modern age and retains echoes of a simpler time-passed world, contemporary Greece has one of Europe’s fastest-changing cultural landscapes. With its classical past, hang-loose present, and edgy future, Greece offers something for every traveler.
Start in Athens, a microcosm of the country. By day, tour the Acropolis, the Agora, and the history-packed museums. Light a candle alongside black-clad widows at an icon-filled church. Haggle with a sandal maker at the busy market stalls, or have coffee with the locals in a Plaka café. At night, Athens becomes a pan-European party of eating, drinking, and dancing in open-air tavernas. In the colorful Thissio or rickety-chic Psyrri neighborhoods, rub elbows with trendy Athenians to get a taste of today’s urban Greece.
With its central location, Athens is the perfect launch pad for farther-flung Greek destinations. Commune with ancient spirits at the center of the world: the oracle near the picturesque mountain hamlet of Delphi. Take a vacation from your busy vacation on one of the best and easiest-to-reach Greek isles, traffic-free Hydra. For longer island getaways, the picture-perfect, whitewashed village of Mykonos and the dramatically situated towns overlooking the flooded volcano crater at Santorini are tops.
An hour’s drive west of Athens, the Peloponnese is the large peninsula that hangs from the rest of the Greek mainland by the narrow Isthmus of Corinth. Its name, which means “the Island of Pelops,” derives from the mythical hero Pelops. This wild, mountainous landscape is dotted with the ruins of Mycenaean palaces, ancient temples, frescoed churches, and countless medieval hilltop castles built by the Crusaders and the Venetians. At Mycenae, visit the hub of a civilization that dominated Greece from 1600 to 1200 B.C. Hike up the stone rows of the world’s best-preserved ancient theater, at Epidavros. Run a lap at Olympia, site of the first Olympic Games. To round things out, enjoy the stunning landscapes of the wild Mani Peninsula and the charming old Venetian towns of Monemvasia (a fortified, village-topped giant rock hovering just offshore) and Nafplio (the first capital of independent Greece). As you hop from town to town, compare Greek salads and mountains-and-olive-grove views.
Greece possesses a huge hunk of human history. It’s the place that birthed the Olympics; the mischievous gods (Zeus, Hermes, Dionysius); the tall tales of Achilles, Odysseus, and the Trojan War; the rational philosophies of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; democracy, theater, mathematics...and the gyro sandwich.
Besides viewing impressive remnants of its Golden Age (450-400 B.C.), you’ll see Byzantine churches, Ottoman mosques, and Neoclassical buildings marking the War of Independence—all part of Greece’s 3,000-year history.
Greece is easy on travelers. Tourism makes up 18 percent of the gross domestic product, and the people are welcoming and accommodating. Greeks pride themselves on a concept called filotimo (“love of honor”), roughly translated as openness, friendliness, and hospitality. Social faux pas by unwary foreigners are easily overlooked by Greeks. The food is uncomplicated, the weather is good, and the transportation infrastructure is sufficient.
Greece’s geography of mountains, peninsulas, and 3,000 islands divides the Greek people into many regions, each with its distinct cultural differences. “Where are you from?” is a common conversation-starter among Greeks.
Greece is also divided by a severe generation gap. Up until late 1974 (when the military junta was ousted), Greek society was traditional, economically backward, and politically repressed. Then the floodgates opened, and Greece has gone overboard trying to catch up with the modern world.
You’ll find two Greeces: the traditional/old/rural Greece and the modern/young/urban one. In the countryside, you’ll still see men on donkeys, women at the well, and people whose career choice was to herd goats across a busy highway. In the bigger cities, it’s a concrete world of honking horns and buzzing mobile phones. Well-dressed, educated Greeks listen to hip-hop music and Instagram their exotic vacations. As the rural exodus continues, the urban environment is now home to a majority of Greeks. Young Greeks seem to overcompensate for their country’s conservative past with excessive consumerism, trendiness, and antiauthoritarianism.
Still, Greece is unified by language and religion. The Greek Orthodox Church—a rallying point for Greeks during centuries of foreign occupation—remains part of everyday life. Ninety-five percent of all Greeks declare themselves Orthodox, even if they rarely go to church. The constitution gives the Orthodox Church special privileges, blurring church-state separation.
Orthodox elements appear everywhere. Icon shrines dot the highways. Orthodox priests—with their Old Testament beards, black robes, necklaces, cake-shaped hats, and families in tow—mingle with parishioners on street corners and chat on their mobile phones. During the course of the day, Greeks routinely pop into churches to light a candle, asking for favors. Even the young celebrate feast days with their families and make the sign of the cross when passing a church. Greek lives are marked by the age-old rituals of baptism, marriage, and funeral.
It seems like every man in Greece shares the same few names: Georgios, Kostas, Nikos, Vassilis, Dimitris, Constantinos, and Yiannis. That’s because many still follow the custom of naming boys after their grandfathers, using the names of Orthodox saints. Most surnames seem to have the same endings: -polous, -aikis, or -idis; all mean “son of.” Names ending in -ous or -os are usually male; -ou names are female.
Despite modern changes, men and women still live in somewhat different spheres. Women rule the home and socialize at open-air marketplaces. Fewer women join the workforce than in other European countries.
Men rule the public arena. You’ll see them hanging out endlessly at coffee shops, playing backgammon, watching soccer games on TV (basketball is also popular), and arguing politics with loud voices and dramatic gestures.
Greeks are family-oriented, with large extended families. Kids live at home until they’re married, and then they might just move into a flat upstairs in the same apartment building. The “family” extends to the large diaspora of emigrants. Three million Greek-Americans (including George Stephanopoulos, Pete Sampras, and Tina Fey) keep ties to the home country through their Orthodox faith and their Big Fat Greek Weddings.
The pace of life in Greece remains relaxed. People work in the mornings, then take a midafternoon siesta, when they gather with their families to eat the main meal of the day. On warm summer nights, even the kids stay up very late. Families spill into the streets to greet their neighbors on the evening stroll. For entertainment, they go out to eat (even poor people), where they order large amounts and share it family-style.
Official Name: It’s the Hellenic Republic (Elliniki Dhimokratia in Greek). In shorthand, that’s Hellas—or Greece in English.
Population: Greece is home to 10.8 million people (similar to the state of Ohio). About 93 percent are Greek citizens, and 7 percent are citizens of other countries—mainly Albania, Bulgaria, and Romania. Greece does not collect ethnic data. More than 95 percent are Greek Orthodox, the state religion. A little more than 1 percent are Muslim. The dominant language is Greek.
Latitude and Longitude: 39°N and 22°E. The latitude is the same as Maryland.
Area: With 51,485 square miles, Greece is a bit smaller than Alabama.
Geography: Greece is a mountainous peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea between Albania and Turkey in southern Europe. It includes the Peloponnesian Peninsula—separated from the mainland by a canal—and 3,000 rugged islands (227 are inhabited). Nearly four-fifths of the country’s landscape is covered by mountains, the highest of which is Mount Olympus (9,570 feet). About 30 percent of the land is forested. Flat, arable plains are centered in Macedonia, Thrace, and Thessaly. Greece’s coastline is the 10th longest in the world at 9,246 miles.
Biggest Cities: One in three Greeks lives in the capital of Athens (about 664,000 in the city, 3.1 million including the greater metropolitan area). Thessaloniki has 315,000 (790,000 in its urban area).
Economy: Greece has a GDP of $286 billion, with a GDP per capita of $26,000. A European Union member, Greece has used the euro as its currency since 2002. At first, its economy—based heavily on tourism, shipping, and agriculture—benefited from an infusion of EU cash. But by the end of the decade the country was in a severe recession. In 2010, 2012, and again in 2015, Greece accepted huge bailout packages from the EU and was forced to adopt severe (and controversial) spending cuts and tax increases.
Government: Greece is a parliamentary republic, headed by a largely ceremonial president elected by the parliament. Power resides with the prime minister, chosen from the majority political party. Left-wing coalition leader Alexis Tsipras became prime minister in September 2015.
Flag: A blue square bears a white cross (the symbol of Greek Orthodoxy) in the upper-left corner, against a field of horizontal blue-and-white stripes. The blue is said to stand for the sky and seas, while the white represents the purity of the push for Greek independence. Each of the nine stripes is said to symbolize a syllable in the Greek motto, Eleutheria e Thanatos, which translates as “Freedom or Death.”
The Average Zorba: The average Greek is 43 years old, will live to be 80, and has 1.4 children. About 80 percent of Greeks have mobile phones. A typical local eats over 60 pounds of cheese a year (mostly feta)—the highest per capita cheese consumption in the world.
Later, they might gather to hear folk songs sung to a bouzouki, a long-necked mandolin. These days the music is often amplified, fleshed out with a synthesizer, and tinged with pop influences. People still form a circle to dance the traditional dances, with arms outstretched or thrown across one another’s shoulders. A few might get carried away, “applaud” by throwing plates, napkins, or flowers, and dance on the tables into the wee hours.
While pollution is still problematic for traffic-choked cities and dirty beaches, things have improved following the 2004 Olympics, a source of pride for the Greeks. The country’s capital has traffic-free pedestrian zones, modern public transport, a state-of-the-art airport, a fledgling recycling program, and the stunning Acropolis Museum.
It’s easy to surrender to the Greek way of living. With its long history and simple lifestyle, Greece has a timeless appeal.
In the early 2010s, Greece became infamous as one of the world’s most troubled economies. Embarrassingly high national debt figures prompted foreign investors to abandon Greek bonds; but, after several hefty EU/International Monetary Fund bailouts, the country is putting its economy back together.
In the view of many observers (and many Greeks), the problems started because Greeks had lived beyond their means, worked too little, retired too early, consumed too much, produced too little, enjoyed too much job security, created a real-estate bubble with overvalued properties, and funded too much on a growing deficit. The black market thrived, and many Greeks practiced tax evasion as if it were a fine art (limiting tax revenue).
Also, the government itself was notoriously corrupt and nepotistic. Government employees—with cushy jobs, 100 percent job security, and great benefits—were seen as luxuriating away their work lives in worry-free comfort. Stories of fiscal scandal and fraud filled the news almost daily, sparking public anger and driving Greece’s young people into the streets in constant demonstrations challenging every public institution.
The Greek government scrambled to salvage the economy by raising taxes, cutting back staff, selling off public agencies, and getting more serious about tax collection. As a result, everything people consumed cost more, with a significant chunk of their income going to the government to rescue the economy. Many businesses went bankrupt during the crisis, resulting in less competition—and higher consumer prices.
While Greece’s economy gets back on track, the country is also grappling with other issues. Young, well-educated, multilingual Greeks feel that they’re overqualified for what their country has to offer and are tempted to go abroad for employment. This “brain drain” of bright young people is a threat to Greece’s future.
At the same time, Greece’s once-homogeneous populace feels threatened by immigrants happy to take low-paying jobs—the person cleaning your hotel room is likely an immigrant. The culture that gave us the word “xenophobic” is suspicious of threats from abroad. Like other European countries, Greece must figure out how to keep its own cultural identity even as it becomes more of a melting pot. Beyond the cultural issues, Greece is concerned about the financial costs involved. The country bore the brunt of the huge wave of immigrants and refugees who recently fled the Middle East and North Africa, for whom Greece was the most logical stepping stone into the rest of Europe. Meanwhile, the country’s inefficient, underfunded bureaucracy has done a poor job of accommodating the basic needs of the new arrivals.
Still, Greeks are optimistic by nature. They’re quick to point out that, regardless of the challenges, the olives remain just as tasty, the water just as blue, and the sun—like the Greek people—just as warm.
Even though the Greek alphabet presents challenges to foreign visitors, communication is not hard. You’ll find that most people in the tourist industry—and almost all young people—speak fine English. Many signs and menus (especially in Athens and major tourist spots) use both the Greek and our more familiar Latin alphabet. Greeks realize that it’s unreasonable to expect visitors to learn Greek (which has only 14 million speakers worldwide). It’s essential for them to find a common language with the rest of the world—especially their European neighbors to the west—so they learn English early and well.
Of course, not everyone speaks English. You’ll run into the most substantial language barrier when traveling in rural areas and/or dealing with folks over 60, who are more likely to have learned French as a second language. Because signs and maps aren’t always transliterated into our alphabet (i.e., spelled out using a Latin-letter equivalent), a passing familiarity with the basics of the Greek alphabet is helpful for navigating—especially for drivers (see “Greek Alphabet,” below).
There are certain universal English words all Greeks know: hello, please, thank you, OK, pardon, stop, menu, problem, and no problem. While Greeks don’t expect you to be fluent in their tongue, they definitely appreciate it when they can tell you’re making an effort to pronounce Greek words correctly and use the local pleasantries.
It’s nice to learn “Hello” (“Gia sas,” pronounced “yah sahs”), “Please” (“Parakalo,” “pah-rah-kah-LOH”), and “Thank you” (“Efharisto,” “ehf-hah-ree-STOH”). Watch out for this tricky point: The Greek word for “yes” is ne (pronounced “neh”), which sounds a lot like “no” to us. What’s more, the word for “no” is ohi (pronounced “OH-hee”), which sounds enough like “OK” to be potentially confusing. For more Greek words, see the “Greek Survival Phrases” in the Appendix.
Don’t be afraid to interact with locals. You’ll find that doors open a little more quickly when you know a few words of the language. Give it your best shot.
Most visitors find the Greek alphabet daunting, if not indecipherable. At first, all the signs look like...well, Greek to us. However, Greek has more in common with English than may be immediately apparent. Technically the world’s oldest complete alphabet (Phoenician, its predecessor, had no vowel symbols), Greek is the parent of our own Latin alphabet—itself named for the first two Greek letters (alpha and beta). Because it’s used worldwide among mathematicians and scientists (not to mention frats and sororities), you may recognize some letters from your student days—but that doesn’t help much when you’re trying to read a map or a menu.
Transliterating Greek to English is an inexact science, but here is the Greek alphabet, with the most common English counterparts for the Greek letters and letter combinations.
*Gamma is pronounced, roughly speaking, like the English “hard” G only when it comes before consonants, or before the letters a, o, and ou.
Fortunately, with a little effort the alphabet becomes a lot less baffling. Many uppercase Greek letters look just like their Latin counterparts (such as A, B, and M), and a few more look similar with a little imagination (Δ, Ξ, and Σ look a little like D, X, and S, if you squint). A few look nothing like anything in our alphabet, and a couple are particularly confusing (Greek’s P is our R, and Greek’s H is our I).
Getting comfortable with the lowercase letters is more challenging. Just like in our alphabet, most lowercase letters are similar to their uppercase versions, but a few bear no resemblance at all.
Once you’re familiar with the letters, it’s less of a challenge to learn how each is said. Nearly every letter (except P and H) is pronounced roughly like the Latin letter it most resembles. As for the handful of utterly unfamiliar characters, you’ll just have to memorize those.
Most Greek words have one acute accent that marks the stressed vowel (such as ά rather than α, έ rather than ε, ί rather than ι, ό rather than ο, and ύ rather than υ). These accents are worth paying attention to, as a change in emphasis can bring a change in meaning. Also, note the list of letter combinations below—pairs of letters that, when together, sound a little different than expected (similar to our own “th” or “ch” combinations).
Learn to recognize and pronounce each letter, and you’ll be able to sound out the words you see around you: Μάνη = M-a-n-i, Mani (the peninsula, pronounced MAH-nee). Greek is phonetic—it has rules of pronunciation, and it sticks to them. As you stroll the streets, practice reading aloud—you may be surprised how quickly you’ll be able to sound out words.
Certain Greek letter combinations create specific sounds. These include:
| Greek | Transliteration | Pronounced |
| AI αι | e | E as in get |
| AY αυ | av/af | AV as in have, or AF as in after |
| EI ει | i | I as in ski |
| EY ευ | ev/ef | EV as in never, or EF as in left |
| ΟI οι | i | I as in ski |
| OY ου | ou/u | OU as in you |
| ΓΓ γγ | ng | NG as in angle |
| ΓΚ γκ | ng/g | NG as in angle, or G as in go (at start of word) |
| MΠ μπ | mb/b | MB as in amber, or B as in bet (at start of word) |
| NΔ νδ | nd/nt/d | ND as in land, or D as in dog (at start of word) |
| TΣ τσ | ts | TS as in hats |
| TZ τζ | dz | DS as in lands, or DG as in judge |
One Greek word can be transliterated into English in many different ways. For example, the town of Nafplio may appear on a map or road sign as Navplio, Naufplio, or Nauvplio. Even more confusing, there are actually two different versions of Greek: proper Greek, which was used until the 1950s (and now sounds affected to most Greeks); and popular Greek, a simplified version that is the norm today. This means that even Greeks might use different names for the same thing (for example, the city names Nafplio and Patra are popular Greek, while Nafplion and Patras are formal Greek).
The following list includes the most common English spelling and pronunciation for Greek places. If the Greeks use their own differently spelled transliteration, it’s noted in parentheses.
| English | Pronounced | Greek Transliteration |
| Greece (Ellada or Hellas) | eh-LAH-thah, eh-LAHS | Eλλάδα or Eλλάς |
| Athens (Athina) | ah-THEE-nah | Αθήνα |
| Delphi | thell-FEE (or dell-FEE) | Δελφοί |
| Epidavros | eh-PEE-dah-vrohs | Επίδαυρος |
| Hydra | EE-drah | Ύδρα |
| Kardamyli | kar-dah-MEE-lee | Καρδαμύλη |
| Mani | MAH-nee | Μάνη |
| Monemvasia | moh-nehm-vah-SEE-ah | Μονεμβασία |
| Mycenae (Mikenes) | my-SEE-nee (mee-KEE-nehs) | Μυκήνες |
| Mykonos | MEE-koh-nohs | Μύκονοσ |
| Nafplio | NAF-plee-oh | Ναύπλιο |
| Olympia | oh-leem-PEE-ah | Ολυμπία |
| Peloponnese (Peloponnisos) | PEL-oh-poh-neez (pel-oh-POH-nee-sohs) | Πελοπόννησος |
| Piraeus | pee-reh-AHS | Πειραιάς |
| Santorini (Thira) | sahn-toh-REE-nee (THEE-rah) | Θήρα |
Note that these are the pronunciations most commonly used in English. Greeks might put the emphasis on a different syllable—for example, English-speakers call the Olympics birthplace oh-LEEM-pee-ah, while Greeks say oh-leem-PEE-ah.