Greece, the cradle of western culture, has long attracted scholars and tourists interested in its classical past; but in recent years it has also been discovered by a wider public who have come to appreciate its many other attractions. The tourists who are now drawn to Greece in such large numbers do not go only to see its ancient sites and
recall the contribution it has made to European cultural and intellectual life, but to enjoy the extraordinary beauty of its scenery, the Mediterranean charm of its islands, the ready hospitality of its people and its beautiful beaches - all combining to form a marvelously seductive holiday land.
No other country is so characteristic of the Mediterranean world as Greece. Slender and intricately articulated, surrounded by a multitude of islands of all shapes and sizes, it pulls away from the more solid structure of south-eastern Europe, reaching far out into the sea to Europe's most southerly outpost, the long island of Crete. It is a land of mountains, deeply penetrated by the ubiquitous sea and wrapped in the mantle of a climate which is everywhere the same. Greek land and the Greek seas - the Ionian Sea in the west, the Aegean in the east - are parts of an indivisible whole, one of which cannot be conceived without the other. No part of the Peloponnese or central Greece is much more than 50km/30 miles from the sea, and even in northern Greece the maximum distance from the sea is not much more than 100km/ 60 miles.
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