“𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕝𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥 𝕠𝕗 𝔾𝕣𝕖𝕖𝕔𝕖 𝕠𝕡𝕖𝕟𝕖𝕕 𝕞𝕪 𝕖𝕪𝕖𝕤, 𝕡𝕖𝕟𝕖𝕥𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕕 𝕞𝕪 𝕡𝕠𝕣𝕖𝕤, 𝕖𝕩𝕡𝕒𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕕 𝕞𝕪 𝕨𝕙𝕠𝕝𝕖 𝕓𝕖𝕚𝕟𝕘.” -ℍ𝕖𝕟𝕣𝕪 𝕄𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕖𝕣 #summervacation2022 #summer #vacation #summervibes #travel #summertime #naturegram #travelgram #travelphotography #summerdays #photographyoftheday #summerday #vacationmode #greece #greekvillage #peloponese #underthesun #olivetree #greeksummer #greeknature #picturesqueview #picturesque (at Aristoménis, Messinia, Greece) https://www.instagram.com/p/ChfKGcOIDc8/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

I know this is obnoxious and very nitpicky but athens is neither the hottest nor the driest place in greece lmao, parts of the Cyclades islands are the driest by far and as for the hottest, if you consider highest temperatures in the summer or the summer average highest temperature a good pick would be sparta/southern peloponese in general or if you consider the yearly average temperature then it would be a southern Dodecanese island maybe kastelorizo, or southern crete and gavdos due to the very mild winters

Sincerely a person who spents way too much time on wikipedia

See, while a lot of this should make sense, it is not exactly correct. South doesn't always equate hotter and drier. Besides, I was not talking about annual averages, as I was saying Athens is not good for summer in specific.

Regarding Athens versus Sparta - Athens has higher average highs for summer (though Sparta is pretty hot too) and Sparta has more precipitation than Athens throughout the year and also a little more in the summer as well. The differences are small but the conclusion is the same: Athens is hotter and drier than Sparta in the far-south. Here are the full climate reports for Athens and Sparta from the same website to avoid scewed data. In case you are wondering why, it's probably because Sparta is built on the foot of Mt Taygetus, which brings it a little more rainfall and coolness. Athens has Parnitha but it is a smaller mountain. Athens also dried up and built over all its rivers, turning its once semi-humid microclimate to a very dry one. All these things affect the real and even more so the felt weather. If you add to that the extreme urbanisation of Athens, the gasses produced by the traffic and its alarming lack in vegetation, it makes summer there an extremely difficult business.

As for the islands, the south of Athens' region (and a bit of Corinth next to it) are the only mainland regions which belong to the same hot semi-arid zone as the Cycladic islands you mentioned. I can't tell you which of all these places is the absolute hottest and driest without looking it up, but some of Attica belongs to that zone and the part that doesn't has all the aforementioned conditions that make the felt climate very similar. Furthermore, I was also talking about main destinations - if there is somewhere a village of 10 people that is hotter and drier than Athens, well, I might have not taken it into account in my travel guide post lol

The map is from the Wikipedia page “Climate of Greece”. In orange is the hot semi-arid zone.

Then I searched Kastelorizo island in the Dodecanese and Elounda in South Crete; both of those are colder in the summer than Athens, with an average high 2-3 degrees below Athens, although they are drier (like, 2 days of rain in Elounda versus 4 days of rain in Athens). Search them up in the same website. (Kastelorizo is with the name "Megisti".)

It is not a mystery that those islands have lower average highs than Athens, because they have something Athens lacks. They are surrounded by the sea, which always makes the climate milder and they have much stronger winds, the Aegean sea breezes. For example, when travelling to the Cyclades, you will need to have a jacket with you for the evenings. If you put a jacket in Athens in July, it's probably a suicide attempt.

See, there's a lot of stuff that makes environmental conditions what they are. I can confidently repeat that the summer heatwave in Athens - both in terms of numbers and experience - will be more unpleasant than in Gavdos or any other arid southern island.

Fun fact: Wanna know another place that gets extreme highs, more than Sparta and most of these islands we mentioned, and is the true heat archenemy of Athens?

And Lamia too, which is between Larisa and Athens. But those are clearly more humid and rainy than Athens so.. 🤷🏻‍♀️ (I didn’t edit the map with the arrow btw, it was like that on its own and for some reason I find this very funny.)

Argo's crew cleaning the hull of the galley in the clear waters of Oxbelly Bay, in the Peloponese, 1984. Photo by Kevin Flemming. "The voyage of Odysseus posed one of the most tantalising riddles in history: was Homer's Odyssey entirely imaginary? or did Ulysses make a real voyage home from the siege of Troy to Ithaca? Did Scylla and Charybdis and the Cyclops really exist in any form? Tim Severin uses his replica of a Bronze Age galley to follow the clues which lead to a startling solution to the puzzle. According to legend, Ulysses was nine years on his homeward journey, and over the centuries historians, classicists and archaeologists alike have tried to make sense of his wanderings. Every place that Homer mentions has been identified differently and no two investigators agree on all locations. Ulysses' logical homeward route has been put to the practical test in a faithful replica of the type of ship used in Ulysses' era, and sailed by the rules of navigation of the time. Tim Severin overturns all the orthodox theories, and in a remarkable series of discoveries charts the likely position of the Clashing Rocks, reveals where the cave of the legendary Cyclops would have been, and establishes the origins of Ulysses' adventures." From "The Ulysses voyage: sea search for the Odyssey" by Timothy Severin, 1987. https://www.instagram.com/p/CeZDU3nNB2d/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Single room with dog

I took a recent trip through the Peloponese in Greece. It was a road trip with my new car and dog. This is not a dig, but in my lengthy experience in Greek travel, pets, particularly dogs, are often seen as very amusing, and not necessarily in a good way. For example, in the heart of Chania, Crete (a beautiful huge island) I stayed at the Kydon Hotel in the heart of the city. The staff went absolutely nuts over my dog, Buddy. He is a cutey, but the overwhelming acceptance was quite unexpected. In the Peloponese, the reaction was completely different. Though the hotel welcomed "pets", it seemed at every turn, dogs were not overwhelmingly welcome. I travel with Buddy for many reasons. He is a great travel "buddy", plane, train, autos and motorcycle, is very well behaved, completely housebroken in hotels, cars etc., and just downright good company. But going to the Peloponese, though staying at an exceptional hotel, the APOLLO RESORT ART HOKYPARISSIA ME, which welcomed Buddy with open arms, I found visiting surrounding areas not so accepting. Since this was not my first "rodeo" so to speak, I was prepared. A little planning ahead revealed that "companion" dogs are pretty much welcome everywhere. The "trick" to getting them through the ticket taker at the archaeological site is a translation of the dog's value to the owner in Greek, in this case. Most sites offering certification of pets as companion or therapy dogs offer not only a letter signed by a veterinarian, but a laminated I.D. card and for a couple bucks extra, a therapy dog vest. At the time of these purchases, I was a little aggravated that I had to pay extra, but those purchases were worth their weight in gold. The vest and the card were passes to every location we chose to visit. Only the occasional hotel also wanted to see the letter, but it was more for their protection than anything else.

There are many sites offering certification of "companion",pets but a letter from you local vet will due. Translators, even in Greek, are everywhere, but if you don't want to bother, visit google translate and create your own document for whatever language required. In my case, on this particular trip, I took the translated documented to my local veterinarian. He printed it on his "vet" stationery and signed. Easy-peasy.

That's my travel "buddy".

Mandarin-Oriental ‘Navarino Bay,’ Messinia, Peloponnese, Greece,

Tombazis & Associates Architects and K-Studio.

Spiral villa, Kilada of Argolida, Peloponnese Greece,

Omniview Design

monemvasia

lçaconia (greece)

Till next time

Error 404 BC: Peloponnesian War Not Found

Greece village. Peloponnesus. #watercolor #watercolorpainting #demo #greece_travel #peloponese #cityscape #aquarelle #aquarella #יוון #צבעמים #פלופונס #סדנתציור (at האקדמיה לציור פיגורטיבי - אמיר ניר) https://www.instagram.com/p/B5xRFOfHm_V/?igshid=1d09xfk0aszqf

Patras Carnival Parade 2019 Greece

Aquí un fotón de la Acrópolis de Atenas con el sol luchando para abrirse paso entre las nubes. Si tienes pensado viajar a #grecia y quieres ideas, no te pierdas nuestra serie de vídeos sobre el país heleno. #greece #atenas #athens #history #historia #travel #traveler #travelgram #trip #roadtrip #travelblogger #viaje #viajar #viajeros #turismo #peloponeso #peloponese #ancient #epic (en Acropolis - Ακρόπολη) https://www.instagram.com/p/BpH2rZjlWcc/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1qj82adt7hlq2

#beach #beachvibes #sealovers #sky_captures #landscape #landscapephotography #waves #cloudscape #theodorakalavesis📷 #peloponese (at Káto Samikón, Ilia, Greece) https://www.instagram.com/p/CW2ygOjMpaP/?utm_medium=tumblr

The old town of Monemvasia is a unique wedding destination in the Peloponnese. With the gobble stone streets, the old mansions, the stonewalls and the