Greece Fun Facts to Know Before Your Trip

Did you know the frappé, the cold foam coffee you'll end up ordering every single afternoon, was invented in Greece? That's a decent hint that this country has more going on than white houses and blue domes. Here are a few more Greece facts we think you'll want to know before you go.

Islands, Sunshine and Mountains

Greece looks small on a map and then refuses to behave that way once you're actually there. Between the sea, the peaks and the sheer number of places to land a boat, here are a few of the more interesting facts about Greece that explain why trips here take longer than people plan for.

Roughly 6,000 Islands, and Almost None of Them Inhabited

Greece has around 6,000 islands and islets scattered across its waters, and only about 227 of them have people living on them. That leaves thousands of rocks, coves and empty stretches of coastline sitting out there doing nothing in particular, which is a large part of the appeal. It also means "the Greek islands" is not one destination but several hundred, each with its own ferry timetable and its own opinion of itself.

A Country That Is Mostly Mountain

Roughly 80 percent of Greece is mountainous, dominated by the Pindus range running down the mainland. People arrive expecting beaches and are genuinely surprised by how much of the country is high, steep and green. Add one of the longest coastlines in Europe to all that vertical terrain and you get a place where two towns can be close on the map and nowhere near each other in practice.

More Than 250 Sunny Days a Year

Greece averages over 250 sunny days a year, and some islands sit closer to 300. It's the kind of statistic that sounds like marketing until you're squinting at a whitewashed wall in September wondering why you didn't pack a hat.

Guided tip: don't try to island-hop across three different island groups in one week. We'd always rather pick one group and go deep than spend half a holiday in port waiting rooms.

A Language Older Than Almost Everything Around It

Greek is one of the oldest living languages in the world, and you'll see it before you hear it, stamped across every sign, menu and ferry ticket in an alphabet you half recognise.

Twenty-Four Letters, Thousands of Years Old

The Greek alphabet has 24 letters and developed roughly 2,500 to 3,000 years ago. If you ever sat through a maths or physics class, you already know a decent chunk of it. Alpha, beta, delta, sigma and omega all turn up on street signs, and being able to sound out a place name makes navigating small towns far less stressful than it looks on day one.

A Language Still Being Spoken After All That Time

Greek has been continuously recorded and spoken for a very long stretch of history, which puts it in a very short list of languages worldwide. Most of what you'll actually need is small: a greeting, a thank you, and the confidence to butcher a village name in front of the person selling you a bus ticket. They've heard worse.

Ancient History You Can Walk Straight Into

This is the part that gets people booking flights. Greece doesn't keep its history behind glass so much as build cafés around it, and some of the most famous sites in the world are a short walk from a metro stop.

The Olympics Started Here, Twice

The ancient Olympic Games began at Olympia around 776 BC, held in honour of Zeus. The modern Olympics were then revived in Athens in 1896, which means Greece effectively launched the thing twice, nearly three thousand years apart. Not many countries get a second go at inventing something.

Democracy, With a Very Short Guest List

Athenian democracy developed across the 6th and 5th centuries BC, and it's the ancestor of a fairly large amount of how the world runs today. Worth remembering while you're admiring it: only free men could vote, so the version that started here was considerably narrower than the word suggests now.

The Acropolis and a Civilisation That Came Long Before It

The Acropolis and the Parthenon in Athens date to the 5th century BC, which already feels impossibly old until you learn the Minoan civilisation on Crete was flourishing from roughly 3000 to 1100 BC — centuries earlier. Alexander the Great turns up much later still, born in Pella in 356 BC, and had built one of the largest empires in history by the time he died.

Guided tip: get to the big Athens sites early or late. The middle of the day is hot, crowded and the worst possible time to be standing on bare marble.

Food, Coffee and 4,000 Dances

Greek culture happens at the table, and then usually continues standing up somewhere near the table.

Olive Oil, Taken Seriously

Olives and olive oil sit at the centre of Greek cooking, alongside feta, lamb and seafood, and Greeks are frequently cited as the world's biggest per-capita consumers of olive oil. This is not a subtle habit. It goes on the salad, in the pan, over the finished dish and then a little more on top just in case. Moussaka, souvlaki and baklava are the names most people arrive knowing, and they're a fine place to start.

The Frappé Was a Greek Invention

That cold, foamy iced coffee you'll see on every café table was invented in Greece, and ordering one is less about caffeine than about buying yourself a seat for the next hour. Coffee here is a unit of time, not a drink.

Over 4,000 Traditional Dances

Greece has more than 4,000 traditional dances documented, varying by region, island and occasion. It's the sort of number that explains why a village festival can look completely different from the one two islands over.

More Archaeological Museums Than Anywhere Else

Greece has more archaeological museums than any other country. Even the small ones tend to be worth twenty minutes, and they're a genuinely good move on the sort of blazing afternoon when the outdoor sites become punishment.

Wildlife You Won't Find Anywhere Else

Between the mountains and all that empty coastline, Greece hangs on to a few species that exist almost nowhere else on Earth.

The Kri-Kri of Crete

The Kri-Kri, the Cretan wild goat, is endemic to Crete, where it lives in the island's rugged mountain country. That alone makes it the sort of animal worth putting your boots on for.

One of the World's Rarest Seals

The Mediterranean monk seal, one of the most endangered marine mammals on the planet, lives in Greek waters. We wouldn't build a trip around seeing one, but it's a good thing to know is out there while you're staring at all that empty blue.

Tourism Is a Huge Part of the Picture

Tourism makes up somewhere around 20 percent of Greece's economy, and visitor arrivals comfortably outnumber the people who actually live there each year. That's worth knowing when you're choosing dates. Shoulder season isn't just cheaper, it's a noticeably different country.

How to experience these Greece facts for yourself

Reading about 6,000 islands, 776 BC and 4,000 dances is one thing, but almost all of it is stuff you can go and stand in front of. You can watch the sun set behind the Acropolis, drink a frappé for an hour without anyone rushing you, hike a Cretan gorge looking for a goat that may not appear, and eat far more olive oil than you meant to. Greece makes its facts easy to reach, which is more than most places manage.

Once you've got a few favourites, add them to the Guided app and start building your Greece trip around them. You can save the places you want to visit, see where they are on the map and turn all those islands, ruins and long lunches into a smooth trip.

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