The Rough Guide to Greece

by Mark Ellingham, John Fisher

INTRODUCTION With well over a hundred inhabited islands and a territory that stretches from the south Aegean to the Balkan countries, Greece offers enough to fill months of travel. The historic sites span four millennia, encompassing both the legendary and the obscure, where a visit can still seem like a personal discovery. Beaches are parcelled out along a convoluted coastline equal to France’s in length, and islands range from backwaters where the boat calls twice a week to resorts as cosmopolitan as any in the Mediterranean. Modern Greece is the result of extraordinarily diverse influences. Romans, Arabs, Latin Crusaders, Venetians, Slavs, Albanians, Turks, Italians, not to mention the Byzantine Empire, have been and gone since the time of Alexander the Great. All have left their the Byzantines in countless churches and monasteries; the Venetians in impregnable fortifications in the Peloponnese; and other Latin powers, such as the Knights of Saint John and the Genoese, in imposing castles across the northeastern Aegean. Most obvious is the heritage of four centuries of Ottoman Turkish rule which, while universally derided, contributed substantially to Greek music, cuisine, language and way of life. Significant, and still-existing, minorities – Vlachs, Muslims, Catholics, Jews, Gypsies – have also helped to forge the hard-to-define but resilient Hellenic identity, which has kept alive the people’s sense of themselves throughout their turbulent history. With no local ruling class or formal Renaissance period to impose superior models of taste or patronize the arts, medieval Greek peasants, fishermen and shepherds created a vigorous and truly popular culture, which found expression in the songs and dances, costumes, embroidery, carved furniture and the white Cubist houses of popular imagination. During the last few decades much of this has disappeared under the impact of Western consumer values, relegated to museums at best, but recently the country’s architectural and musical heritage in particular have undergone a renaissance, with buildings rescued from dereliction and performers reviving, to varying degrees, half-forgotten musical traditions. Of course there are formal cultural activities as museums that shouldn’t be missed, magnificent medieval mansions and castles, as well as the great ancient sites dating from the Neolithic, Bronze Age, Minoan, Classical, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine eras. Greece hosts some excellent summer festivals too, bringing international theatre, dance and musical groups to perform in ancient theatres, as well as castle courtyards and more contemporary venues in coastal and island resorts. But the call to cultural duty will never be too overwhelming on a Greek holiday. The hedonistic pleasures of languor and warmth – going lightly dressed, swimming in balmy seas at dusk, talking and drinking under the stars – are just as appealing. And despite recent improvements to the tourism "product", Greece is still essentially a land for adaptable sybarites, not for those who crave orthopedic mattresses, faultless plumbing, Cordon-Bleu cuisine and attentive service. Except at the growing number of luxury facilities in new or restored buildings, hotel and pension rooms can be box-like, campsites offer the minimum of facilities, and the food at its best is fresh and uncomplicated.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Reference

1152 pages, Paperback

First published January 27, 1982

About the author

Mark Ellingham was born in Wiltshire, UK, in 1959. After leaving Bristol University in 1981, he was unable to find an interesting job and decided to create his own, writing the first Rough Guide (to Greece). He secured a publishing contract – Routledge paying an advance of £900 ($1800) – midway through writing it. The book was an immediate success and Mark and various friends set to work turning the Rough Guides into a series, producing a dozen further titles over the next five years.

In 1985, Mark and a group of Rough Guide writers and editors, including current travel publisher Martin Dunford, bought the series from Routledge and became independent publishers. They developed more than 200 titles, covering travel and reference subjects as diverse as world music and pregnancy, before selling the company to Penguin Books, in 2002.

Mark (and Martin) continued to run Rough Guides’ publishing at Penguin, 25 years on from that first title, and created a new one-off “ultimate travel experience” series – 25s – to mark the anniversary.

Mark is also a contributing editor for the world music magazine, Songlines, a director of the travel magazine, Wanderlust, and co-publisher of Sort Of Books, which have published bestselling books by Chris Stewart and Tove Jansson, among others. He lives in North London with his wife, Natania Jansz, who co-wrote the first Greece book and now runs Sort Of Books, and their son, Miles. Mark says his interests and passions are charted by the titles on the Rough Guide list, ranging through music, film, football, literature and science. He is currently involved in campaigns to raise awareness of the impact of aviation on Climate Change.

Mark left Rough Guides in 2007 but continues to work as a co-editor on the encyclopedic Rough Guide to World Music. He is also a contributing editor at Songlines World Music magazine, and runs a green and ethical publishing list for Profile Books.

Reviews

[Shavon · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Rough Guides are among my least favorite travel books: too much info, too small print, too heavy to carry around as reference material in country, too few pictures, no removable map. They do have one pro: there’s something for every price point - or maybe that’s another con. Their books are not targeted at any particular audience.

[Kiron Reid · Rating 5 out of 5]

We used the 2018 15th edition of the Greece Rough Guide for our first trip to mainland Greece, a city holiday in Thessaloniki (Thessalonica to the British) in October 2021. We used the guide (in paper and electronic format) every day. Very readable. The information in it was almost all accurate (the location of the city buses near the central square had moved slightly) and was all useful. Restaurant recommendations in the city and on the coast were good, including for vegetarian food. It made our holiday easier. Useful historical context on the city. Not much information on the nearest beach to the city but good on Halkidhiki and Kassandhra peninsular. Only we tried to visit the town of Sani and found you basically couldn't get in without paying a fortune to park at the marina so we gave up. I have used the book for general information on subsequent travel to Greece, to Thessaloniki and also less well known locations in central Greece.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't read the whole thing--just the parts that involved the 6 islands I visited. The Rough Guide isn't as I remember when I first discovered it back in 1997 or so. I used it to find lots of out-of-the-way places for various travels, but there are so many people on the planet now that those secret, special places are pretty much non-existent and Rough Guide has to tell us about all of the normal places that everyone goes to. Still, I was disappointed in the book.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This guide book does a good job being honest. For instance, it described Omonia Square in Athens as being filled with homeless people and junkies. I went to check it out. Sure enough: homeless people and junkies. This is useful and refreshing compared to the local, cloudy-eyed tourist trap-bait that is sold in the city itself. It's index, however, is weak, and that is important because it is not particularly well or logically laid out and organized. Many of its urban maps are vague, but it does give enough historical and cultural info to make carrying the hefty volume around with you.

[Danielle Mccormick · Rating 5 out of 5]

The amount of travel guides in print is too immense for me to ever review them all... but I just want to put it out there that in my humble opinion Rough Guides are the best. In my experience, they have never faltered or steered me incorrectly and best of all, they are written FOR budget travelers who are (most probably) going solo. If that is your style of travel then rough guides can and will save your skin when you land in a foreign country with no plans, no knowledge of the language, no connections, and a limited amount of dollars and resources.... Just open up your rough guide.

[Patti (baconater) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting bits of info but awkward to use as an ebook.