DESCRIPTION
Greece, one of the worlds most popular tourist destinations, ranked in the top 20; it received about 17 million visitors from January to mid August. This is an extremely large number of tourists for a small country of only 11 million people. The major reasons for this tremendous amount of tourism, is the beautiful beaches, reliable sunny summer weather, great nightlife, historical sites, and natural beauty of its landscape. Ninety percent of the tourists in Greece come from Europe, visiting only during the tourist season of April-August. Most of these tourists find themselves in the popular cities: Crete, Dodecanese, Cycladic, and The Lonian Islands. Greece's weather is very similar to California with a Mediterranean climate. Summers are hot and dry with seven months of the year experiencing near constant sunshine from April-November. While the rest of the year is relatively cold and rainy, Travolti’s suggestion is to plan your trip between either May-June or September-August. The national language is Greek, but most everyone speaks English fluently as well. Greece is a geographically phenomenal place to visit with many mountainous mainlands and idyllic island beaches. The capital of Greece is Athens. Greece is an ancient wine producing country with the past decade of Greek wines winning many international prizes, which has certainly had something to do with wine becoming the drink of choice for most Greeks. Greece is also known for having excellent local varieties of beer such as mythos and alpha.