Insight Guides Greece

Insight Guides

• Publisher: Insight
• Print ISBN: 9781786715302
• eBook ISBN: 9781786716750
• Edition: 7
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Travel

Insight Guides: Inspiring your next adventure Be inspired to visit by the new edition of Insight Guide Greece, a comprehensive full-colour guide to this fascinating and beautiful country, which is one of the most culturally significant countries on earth.

Inside Insight Guide Greece:

� A fully-overhauled edition by our expert Greece author.

� Stunning, specially-commissioned new photography that brings this breathtaking country and its people to life.

� Highlights of the country's top attractions, including Athens and the Acropolis, and the country's hundreds of islands.

� Descriptive region-by-region accounts cover the whole country from the cultural riches of Athens, to stunning coastline at Santorini.

� Detailed, high-quality maps throughout will help you get around and travel tips give you all the essential information for planning a memorable trip, including our independent selection of the best hotels and restaurants.

About Insight Guides: Insight Guides has over 40 years' experience of publishing high-quality, visual travel guides. We produce around 400 full-colour print guide books and maps as well as picture-packed eBooks to meet different travellers' needs. Insight Guides' unique combination of beautiful travel photography and focus on history and culture together create a unique visual reference and planning tool to inspire your next adventure.

'Insight Guides has spawned many imitators but is still the best of its type.' - Wanderlust Magazine

Understanding the Language

The Greek Language

Modern Greek is the outcome of gradual evolution undergone by the Greek language since the Classical period (5th–4th centuries BC). The language is still relatively close to Ancient Greek: it uses the same alphabet and much of the same vocabulary, though the grammar – other than the retention of the three genders – is considerably streamlined. Many people speak English, some very well, but even attempting a few words in Greek will always be appreciated.

Pronunciation tips

Most of the sounds of Greek aren’t difficult to pronounce for English speakers. There are only six vowel sounds: a, e, i , o, u, and y are consistently pronounced as shown in the table opposite. The letter s is usually pronounced “s”, but “z” before an m or g. The sound represented here as th is always pronounced as in “thin”, not “that”; the first sound in “that” is represented by d. Note that “x” is always pronounced as “ks” at the start of a word, not as “z”. The “r” is slightly rolled, as in Scottish.

The only difficult sounds are h, which is pronounced like the “ch” in Scottish “loch” (we render this as kh after “s” so that you don’t generate “sh”), and g before e or i, which has no equivalent in English – it’s som...

Table of contents

• Greece’s Top 10 Attractions
• Editor’s Choice
• Introduction: An Ancient Story
• A Diverse Land
• Decisive Dates
• Ancient Greece
• Byzantine Greece
• Ottoman Greece
• Independent Greece
• Greeks Today
• People and Identities
• Literature
• Music and Dance
• Insight: Religious Festivals
• Food and Drink
• Art and Architecture
• Flora and Fauna
• Introduction: Places
• Introduction: The Mainland
• Athens
• Insight: A National Treasure Trove
• The Peloponnese
• Central Greece
• Epirus
• Thessaloníki
• Macedonia and Thrace
• Introduction: The Islands
• Islands of the Saronic Gulf
• The Cyclades
• Crete
• Insight: The Palace of Knossos
• Rhodes
• The Dodecanese
• The Northeast Aegean
• Insight: Greece in Bloom
• The Sporades and Évvia
• Corfu
• The Ionian Islands
• Transport
• A-Z: A Handy Summary of Practical Information
• Understanding the Language
• Further Reading