Prudie Pratt, an English cat, learns that there is more to life than just being a pampered pet

Prudie Finds Out

Jansz, Natania

Children's Books

Pandora Pr

This travel guide reveals the everyday concerns, issues and pleasures that are unique to women but are rarely even touched upon in guides written by men. The subjects of harassment and safety are dealt with - women are told if they are likely to treated as an honoured guest, an honorary man, or an easy lay. Country-by-country introductions and travel notes detail special problems, laws and customs of relevance to women. Listings are provided for women's organizations, venues and specialist provisions. Introductory background and recent historical and political updates give pointers about the issues important to women in each country. 15 new countries are covered in this edition, including Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Denmark, Guatamala, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Laos, Malaysia, Russia, Thailand, Tibet, Uganda and Ukraine.

Women Travel: The Rough Guide, First Edition

Travel

Davies, Miranda

Travel Writing

Rough Guides

More Women Travel: The Rough Guide, Second Edition

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Greece: The Rough Guide, Sixth Edition

DUBIN, Marc

Ellingham, Mark

Europe

The Greek Islands: The Rough Guide, First Edition

FISHER, JOHN

Book by Ellingham, Mark, Dubin, Marc, Jansz, Natania

Greece: The Rough Guide, Seventh Edition

Provides information for travelers to Crete and other Aegean and Ionian islands

Greek Islands: A Rough Guide, Second Edition

Asia

Presents anecdotes from women who collectively traveled to over 60 countries around the world, including India, Peru, Japan, Ghana, France, Albania, and Bhutan.

The Rough Guide Women Travel 4: A Rough Guide Special (Rough Guide Travel Guides)

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 mark: 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 well: 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.

The Rough Guide to Greece

INTRODUCTION 
It would take a lifetime of island-hopping to really get to know the more than 160 permanently inhabited Greek islands, let alone the countless smaller gull-roosts which dot the Aegean and Ionian seas. At the right time of year or day, they conform remarkably well to their fantastic travel-poster image; any tourist board would give its eye-teeth for the commonplace vision of purple-shadowed island silhouettes floating on a cobalt-and-rose horizon. 
Closer to hand, island beaches come in all shapes, sizes and consistencies, from discrete crescents framed by tree-fringed cliffs straight out of a Japanese screen painting, to deserted, mile-long gifts deposited by small streams, where you could imagine enacting Crusoe scenarios among the dunes. But inland there is always civilization, whether the tiny cubist villages of the remoter outposts or burgeoning resorts as cosmopolitan – and brazen – as any in the Mediterranean. 
What amazes most first-time visitors is the islands’ relative lack of pollution. If you’re used to the murky waters of the open Mediterranean as sampled in Spain, Israel or southern France, the Aegean will come as a revelation, with forty-foot visibility the norm, and all manner of sea creatures visible, from starfish and octopuses on the bottom to vast schools of fish. 
The sea is also a watersports paradise: the joys of snorkelling and kayaking are on offer to novices, and some of the best windsurfing areas in the world beckon. Yacht charter, whether bare-boat or skippered, is big business, particularly out of Rhodes, Kálymnos, Lefkádha, Póros and Pireás; indeed, the Greek islands are rated on a par with the Caribbean for quality sailing itineraries. And during the months when the sea is too cold or the weather too blustery, many islands – not necessarily the largest ones – offer superb hiking on surviving mule-trails between hill villages, or up the highest summits. 
Although more protected than the Greek mainland from invasions, the various archipelagos have been subject to a staggering variety of foreign influences. Romans, Arabs, Byzantines, crusading Knights of Saint John, Genoese, Venetians, French, English, Italians and Ottomans have all controlled different islands since the time of Alexander the Great. The high tide of empire has left behind countless monuments: frescoed Byzantine churches and monasteries, the fortified Venetian towns of the Cyclades and the Ionians, the more conventional castles of the Genoese and Knights in the northeast Aegean and Dodecanese, Ottoman bridges and mosques, and the Art Deco or mock-Renaissance edifices of the Italian Fascist administration. 
Constructions from many of these eras are often juxtaposed with – or even superimposed on – the cities and temples of ancient Greece, which provide the foundation in all senses for claims of an enduring Hellenic cultural identity down the centuries; museums, particularly on Crete, Rhodes, Sámos, Híos, Lésvos and Límnos, amply document the archeological evidence. But it was medieval Greek peasants, fishermen and shepherds, working without an indigenous ruling class or formal Renaissance to impose models of taste or patronize the arts, who most tangibly contributed to our idea of Greekness with their songs and dances, costumes, weaving and vernacular architecture. Much of this has vanished in recent decades, replaced by an avalanche of bouzoúki-instrumental cassettes, "genuine museum copies" and tacky souvenir shops, but enough remains in isolated pockets for visitors to marvel at Greek popular culture’s combination of form and function. 
Of course, most Greek-island visits are devoted to more hedonistic pursuits: going lightly dressed, swimming in balmy waters at dusk, talking and drinking under the stars until 3am. Such pleasures amply compensate for certain enduring weaknesses in the Greek tourism "product": don’t go expecting orthopedic mattresses, state-of-the-art plumbing, Cordon-Bleu cuisine or attentive service. Except at a limited number of upmarket facilities in new or restored buildings, hotel and pension rooms can be box-like, campsites tend to be of the rough-and-ready sort, and the food at its best is fresh and simply presented.

The Rough Guide to The Greek Islands

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