Traveler Information

Visa Requirements

Greece is part of the Shengen treaty so European Union travelers from other countries members of the treaty do not need a passport. All Citizens of European Union countries have free access. A visa is not needed for visitors from USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand staying of up to three months. Visitors from all other countries have to obtain a visa from the Greek Embassy or the Consulate in their residence country. For duration of stay longer than 3 months, they have to obtain permission from the Aliens Bureau in Athens.

Currency Regulations

The Euro is the official currency in Greece. There is free and unlimited importing of foreign currency in Greece either in traveler’s cheques or cash. But on departure, any remaining amount that is worth more than 1.760€, in any currency, has to be declared. Money can be exchanged in any bank, exchange bureaus, some travel agencies or in some hotels. Credit cards are used almost anywhere in Greece for paying hotel or restaurant bills. You can also use them to withdraw cash from ATMs. Smart card credit cards have not been introduced yet by the local banks so take into account credit card readers are not very advanced.

Amenities

Electricity Supply

220 volts a.c. at 50 Hz. The wall sockets have two or three round holes as in continental Europe.

Telephone dialing systems

Tone and Pulse, wherever the telephone sets are able to interchange between systems.

Television systems

PAL – SECAM – M.

Water Quality

Overall, the water quality is excellent. But you have to be aware that in a few regions and on certain islands, the water is not drinkable. Then, it is preferable to ask for mineral water, even for your coffee.

Communications

GSM access networks, similar to the ones in Europe, cover the whole of Greece. Mobile phones are very popular and cheap so to avoid roaming charges could purchase local prepaid SIMs to use. You can easily find a public telephone, property of the Hellenic Telecommunications Organization (OTE), that work with a telephone card. Cards for mobile phones and for telephone booths can be purchased from kiosks, local post offices, local OTE offices, or tourists’ shops.

Country dialing code : +30

Health care and Medical Assistance

Tourists requiring urgent medical care should go to the nearest hospital emergency ward (airports and many train stations also have medical teams and first aid facilities). Those with serious illnesses or allergies should always carry a special note from their physicians giving detailed information on the treatments they are following or that may be necessary. Pharmacies (ΦΑΡΜΑΚΕΙΟ), generally follow shop opening times (approx. from 8.30am to 12.30pm and from 3 to 7pm, Monday to Saturday, but in large cities many are open throughout the day. Night time service is provided on a shift basis. Business hours and night shifts are displayed outside each pharmacy and are published in local papers. It is advisable to procure a document certifying coverage by the national health care service before departure.

Maps

There are a number of maps of the island on the market and most of them are provided free of charge by Hotels, and Travel Agents.

Newspapers and magazines

Most western European newspapers and magazines arrive in Athens on a daily basis and they are available in many places.

Time zone

Greece is seven hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time in the USA and Canada. Daylight saving time in Greece goes into effect each year usually from the end of March to the middle of October.

The weather

» in Athens
» Snow forcast in Greece, for ski holidays

Currency exchange

» The Universal Currency Converter

Post Offices

All Post Offices are open from 8am-2pm Monday to Friday.

Shopping

Greece is an interesting place to shop. Greece has at least 2000 years of manufacturing unique and skilful handicraft gold jewelry. Many shops sell classic and modern gold and silver jewelry as well as antique reproduction jewelry, in 14k and 18k with diamonds and precious stones. Antique carpets and hand made silk on silk rugs, furniture, paintings and porcelain can also be found. Greece is also famous for the leather and fur, bottles, leather coats, fur coats, and mink. Other kinds of goods such as souvenirs, sponges, clothes, shoes, books, and more can be found in the many shops of Greece. And the traditional art workshops for the world famous hand made pottery’s-ceramics.

Shops opening times

Although shops are normally open from 9am to 1pm and from 3.30/4pm to 7.30/8pm, in some tourist areas they tend to stay open uninterruptedly from 9.30am to 7.30pm, allowing for slight variations from town to town. Large department stores are open throughout the country from 9.30am to 7.30pm.

Holidays and Feasts

The following is a list of official holidays, during which all departments of public services are closed:

January 1- New Year’s Day
January 6 – Epiphany
First day of Lent (movable) – in Greek is known as ‘Clean Monday’
March 25 – anniversary of the revolution for freedom against the Turkish invaders
Good Friday (movable)
Easter Sunday, Easter Monday (movable)
May 1- May Day
Of the Holy Spirit (movable)
August 15 – Dormition of Virgin Mary
October 28 – anniversary of Greece’s revolution

  • Time table and entrance fees for the archaeological sites and museums | Read more…
Splendid Greece Tours
We use cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners.
Cookies settings
Accept
Decline
Privacy & Cookie policy
Privacy & Cookies policy
Cookie name Active

Privacy Policy

What information do we collect?

We collect information from you when you register on our site or place an order. When ordering or registering on our site, as appropriate, you may be asked to enter your: name, e-mail address or mailing address.

What do we use your information for?

Any of the information we collect from you may be used in one of the following ways: To personalize your experience (your information helps us to better respond to your individual needs) To improve our website (we continually strive to improve our website offerings based on the information and feedback we receive from you) To improve customer service (your information helps us to more effectively respond to your customer service requests and support needs) To process transactions Your information, whether public or private, will not be sold, exchanged, transferred, or given to any other company for any reason whatsoever, without your consent, other than for the express purpose of delivering the purchased product or service requested. To administer a contest, promotion, survey or other site feature To send periodic emails The email address you provide for order processing, will only be used to send you information and updates pertaining to your order.

How do we protect your information?

We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information when you place an order or enter, submit, or access your personal information. We offer the use of a secure server. All supplied sensitive/credit information is transmitted via Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology and then encrypted into our Payment gateway providers database only to be accessible by those authorized with special access rights to such systems, and are required to?keep the information confidential. After a transaction, your private information (credit cards, social security numbers, financials, etc.) will not be kept on file for more than 60 days.

Do we use cookies?

Yes (Cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computers hard drive through your Web browser (if you allow) that enables the sites or service providers systems to recognize your browser and capture and remember certain information We use cookies to help us remember and process the items in your shopping cart, understand and save your preferences for future visits, keep track of advertisements and compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interaction so that we can offer better site experiences and tools in the future. We may contract with third-party service providers to assist us in better understanding our site visitors. These service providers are not permitted to use the information collected on our behalf except to help us conduct and improve our business. If you prefer, you can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being sent, or you can choose to turn off all cookies via your browser settings. Like most websites, if you turn your cookies off, some of our services may not function properly. However, you can still place orders by contacting customer service. Google Analytics We use Google Analytics on our sites for anonymous reporting of site usage and for advertising on the site. If you would like to opt-out of Google Analytics monitoring your behaviour on our sites please use this link (https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/)

Do we disclose any information to outside parties?

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information. This does not include trusted third parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or servicing you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others rights, property, or safety. However, non-personally identifiable visitor information may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.

Registration

The minimum information we need to register you is your name, email address and a password. We will ask you more questions for different services, including sales promotions. Unless we say otherwise, you have to answer all the registration questions. We may also ask some other, voluntary questions during registration for certain services (for example, professional networks) so we can gain a clearer understanding of who you are. This also allows us to personalise services for you. To assist us in our marketing, in addition to the data that you provide to us if you register, we may also obtain data from trusted third parties to help us understand what you might be interested in. This ‘profiling’ information is produced from a variety of sources, including publicly available data (such as the electoral roll) or from sources such as surveys and polls where you have given your permission for your data to be shared. You can choose not to have such data shared with the Guardian from these sources by logging into your account and changing the settings in the privacy section. After you have registered, and with your permission, we may send you emails we think may interest you. Newsletters may be personalised based on what you have been reading on theguardian.com. At any time you can decide not to receive these emails and will be able to ‘unsubscribe’. Logging in using social networking credentials If you log-in to our sites using a Facebook log-in, you are granting permission to Facebook to share your user details with us. This will include your name, email address, date of birth and location which will then be used to form a Guardian identity. You can also use your picture from Facebook as part of your profile. This will also allow us and Facebook to share your, networks, user ID and any other information you choose to share according to your Facebook account settings. If you remove the Guardian app from your Facebook settings, we will no longer have access to this information. If you log-in to our sites using a Google log-in, you grant permission to Google to share your user details with us. This will include your name, email address, date of birth, sex and location which we will then use to form a Guardian identity. You may use your picture from Google as part of your profile. This also allows us to share your networks, user ID and any other information you choose to share according to your Google account settings. If you remove the Guardian from your Google settings, we will no longer have access to this information. If you log-in to our sites using a twitter log-in, we receive your avatar (the small picture that appears next to your tweets) and twitter username.

Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Compliance

We are in compliance with the requirements of COPPA (Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act), we do not collect any information from anyone under 13 years of age. Our website, products and services are all directed to people who are at least 13 years old or older.

Updating your personal information

We offer a ‘My details’ page (also known as Dashboard), where you can update your personal information at any time, and change your marketing preferences. You can get to this page from most pages on the site – simply click on the ‘My details’ link at the top of the screen when you are signed in.

Online Privacy Policy Only

This online privacy policy applies only to information collected through our website and not to information collected offline.

Your Consent

By using our site, you consent to our privacy policy.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page.
Save settings
Cookies settings
-->