The Peloponnese, or Morea is a peninsula and geographic region in southern Greece. It is connected to the central part of the country by the Isthmus of Corinth land bridge which separates the Gulf of Corinth from the Saronic Gulf. From the late Middle Ages until the 19th century the peninsula was known as the Morea, a name still in colloquial use in its demotic form.

The peninsula is divided among three administrative regions: most belongs to the Peloponnese region, with smaller parts belonging to the West Greece and Attica regions.

The prosperity brought by the asclepeion enabled Epidaurus to construct civic monuments, including the huge theatre that delighted Pausanias for its symmetry and beauty, used again today for dramatic performances, the ceremonial hestiatoreion (banqueting hall), and a palaestra. The ancient theatre of Epidaurus was designed by Polykleitos the Younger in the 4th century BC. The original 34 rows were extended in Roman times by another 21 rows. As is usual for Greek theatres (and as opposed to Roman ones), the view on a lush landscape behind the skênê is an integral part of the theatre itself and is not to be obscured. It seats up to 14,000 people.

Epidaurus in ancient Greece, on the Argolid Peninsula at the Saronic Gulf. Two modern towns bear the name Epidavros: Palaia Epidavros and Nea Epidavros. Since 2010 they belong to the new municipality of Epidaurus, part of the regional unit of Argolis. The seat of the municipality is the town Lygourio.

Mycenae is an archaeological site near Mykines in Argolis, north-eastern Peloponnese, Greece. It is located about 120 kilometres (75 miles) south-west of Athens; 11 kilometres (7 miles) north of Argos; and 48 kilometres (30 miles) south of Corinth. The site is 19 kilometres (12 miles) inland from the Saronic Gulf and built upon a hill rising 900 feet (274 metres) above sea level.[3]

In the second millennium BC, Mycenae was one of the major centres of Greek civilization, a military stronghold which dominated much of southern Greece, Crete, the Cyclades and parts of southwest Anatolia. The period of Greek history from about 1600 BC to about 1100 BC is called Mycenaean in reference to Mycenae. At its peak in 1350 BC, the citadel and lower town had a population of 30,000 and an area of 32 hectares.

The first correct identification of Mycenae in modern literature was during a survey conducted by Francesco Grimani, commissioned by the Provveditore Generale of the Kingdom of the Morea in 1700, who used Pausanias’s description of the Lion Gate to identify the ruins of Mycenae.

Gytheio (Greek: Γύθειο, [ˈʝiθio]) or Gythio, also the ancient Gythium or Gytheion (Ancient Greek: Γύθειον), is a town on the eastern shore of the Mani Peninsula, and a former municipality in Laconia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality East Mani, of which it is a municipal unit.[2] The municipal unit has an area of 197.313 km2.[3] It was the seaport of Sparta, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) north. Gytheio is the site of ancient Cranae, a tiny island where according to legend Paris of Troy and Helen from Sparta spent their first night together before departing for Troy, thus igniting the Trojan War.

Gytheio used to be an important port until it was destroyed in 4th century AD, possibly by an earthquake. Even thereafter its strategic location gave Gytheio a significant role in Maniot history. Today it is the largest and most important town in Mani. It is also the seat of the municipality of East Mani.

Monemvasia is a town and municipality in Laconia, Greece. The town is located on a small island off the east coast of the Peloponnese, surrounded by the Myrtoan Sea. The island is connected to the mainland by a short causeway 200 metres in length. Its area consists mostly of a large plateau some 100 metres above sea level, up to 300 metres wide and 1 km long. Founded in the sixth century, and thus one of the oldest continually-inhabited fortified towns in Europe, the town is the site of a once-powerful medieval fortress, and was at one point one of the most important commercial centres in the Eastern Mediterranean (see below). The town’s walls and many Byzantine churches remain as testaments to the town’s history. Today, the seat of the municipality of Monemvasia is the town of Molaoi.

Mystras or Mistras, also known in the Chronicle of the Morea as Myzithras, is a fortified town and a former municipality in Laconia, Peloponnese, Greece. Situated on Mt. Taygetos, near ancient Sparta, it served as the capital of the Byzantine Despotate of the Morea in the 14th and 15th centuries, experiencing a period of prosperity and cultural flowering during the Palaeologan Renaissance, including the teachings of Gemistos Plethon.[2] The city also attracted artists and architects of the highest quality. The site remained inhabited throughout the Ottoman period, when Western travellers mistook it for ancient Sparta. In the 1830s, it was abandoned and the new town of Sparti was built, approximately eight kilometres to the east. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the Sparti municipality.

Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement on the banks of the Eurotas River in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. Around 650 BC, it rose to become the dominant military land-power in ancient Greece.

Vlychada Cave in Diros is one of the most beautiful caves in the world and is located on the west coast of the Laconian Peninsula, in Diros Bay. Under the sparse Mani landscape, nature has patiently and artistically sculpted a miracle beyond imagination – white stalactites and stalagmites, impressive waterfalls and glittering crystals adorn every corner, creating an incomparable spectacle that takes your breath away!

The Orange Factory is located in the largest citrus growing area of Greece, Sparta, which is in the heart of Laconia region, Peloponnese offering consistent orange juice supply all-year round. The Orange Factory is a state of the art, modern citrus processing and blending facility in South-Eastern Europe, having the ability to process 600 MT of citrus fruits and to blend 200MT of juice per day. With skilful personnel and an in-house laboratory, The Orange Factory guarantees high quality products.

The Archaeological Museum of Sparta, founded in 1875, is a museum in Sparta, Greece that houses thousands of artifacts from the ancient Acropolis of Sparta and the rest of the municipality of Laconia. It is one of Greece’s oldest archaeology museums.

The collection’s pieces date from the Neolithic to the late Roman era. There are seven rooms of an approximate area of 500 square metres (5,400 sq ft) which display only a small part of the collection.

Kalavryta is a town and a municipality in the mountainous east-central part of the regional unit of Achaea, Greece. The town is located on the right bank of the river Vouraikos, 24 kilometres south of Aigio, 40 km southeast of Patras and 62 km northwest of Tripoli. Notable mountains in the municipality are Mount Erymanthos in the west and Aroania or Chelmos in the southeast. Kalavryta is the southern terminus of the Diakopto-Kalavryta rack railway, built by Italian engineers between 1885 and 1895.

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately 9.4 inches (24 cm) in diameter) through the defender’s hoop (a basket 18 inches (46 cm) in diameter mounted 10 feet (3.048 m) high to a backboard at each end of the court, while preventing the opposing team from shooting through their own hoop. A field goal is worth two points, unless made from behind the three-point line, when it is worth three. After a foul, timed play stops and the player fouled or designated to shoot a technical foul is given one, two or three one-point free throws. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins, but if regulation play expires with the score tied, an additional period of play (overtime) is mandated. Invented in 1891 by Canadian-American gym teacher James Naismith in Springfield, Massachusetts, United States, basketball has evolved to become one of the world’s most popular and widely viewed sports.

Olive oil is a liquid fat obtained from olives (the fruit of Olea europaea; family Oleaceae), a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin, produced by pressing whole olives and extracting the oil. It is commonly used in cooking: for frying foods or as a salad dressing. It can be found in some cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, soaps, and fuels for traditional oil lamps. It also has additional uses in some religions. The olive is one of three core food plants in Mediterranean cuisine; the other two are wheat and grapes. Olive trees have been grown around the Mediterranean since the 8th millennium BC.

Spain accounts for almost half of global olive oil production; other major producers are Portugal, Italy, Tunisia, Greece, Morocco and Turkey. Per capita consumption is highest in Greece, followed by Italy and Spain.

The composition of olive oil varies with the cultivar, altitude, time of harvest, and extraction process. It consists mainly of oleic acid (up to 83%), with smaller amounts of other fatty acids including linoleic acid (up to 21%) and palmitic acid (up to 20%). Extra virgin olive oil is required to have no more than 0.8% free acidity and is considered to have favorable flavor characteristics.

Running is a method of terrestrial locomotion allowing humans and other animals to move rapidly on foot. Running is a type of gait characterized by an aerial phase in which all feet are above the ground (though there are exceptions).[1] This is in contrast to walking, where one foot is always in contact with the ground, the legs are kept mostly straight and the center of gravity vaults over the stance leg or legs in an inverted pendulum fashion. A feature of a running body from the viewpoint of spring-mass mechanics is that changes in kinetic and potential energy within a stride occur simultaneously, with energy storage accomplished by springy tendons and passive muscle elasticity. The term running can refer to any of a variety of speeds ranging from jogging to sprinting.

Running in humans is associated with improved health and life expectancy.

It is assumed that the ancestors of humankind developed the ability to run for long distances about 2.6 million years ago, probably in order to hunt animals. Competitive running grew out of religious festivals in various areas. Records of competitive racing date back to the Tailteann Games in Ireland between 632 BCE and 1171 BCE, while the first recorded Olympic Games took place in 776 BCE. Running has been described as the world’s most accessible sport.

Wrestling is a hand-to-hand combat system and a set of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat sports and military systems. The sport can either be genuinely competitive or sportive entertainment (see professional wrestling).

Wrestling comes in different forms such as freestyle, Greco-Roman, judo, sambo, folkstyle, catch, submission, sumo, pehlwani, shuai jiao and others. A wrestling bout is a physical competition, between two (sometimes more) competitors or sparring partners, who attempt to gain and maintain a superior position.

There are a wide range of styles with varying rules, with both traditional historic and modern styles. The term wrestling is attested in late Old English, as wræstlunge (glossing palestram).

Pankration was a sporting event introduced into the Greek Olympic Games in 648 BC, which was an empty-hand submission sport with few rules. The athletes used boxing and wrestling techniques but also others, such as kicking, holds, joint-locks, and chokes on the ground, making it similar to modern mixed martial arts. The term comes from the Greek παγκράτιον [paŋkrátion], meaning ‘all of power’, from πᾶν (pan) ‘all’ and κράτος (kratos) ‘strength, might, power’.

Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word football normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly called football include association football (known as soccer in North America and Oceania); gridiron football (specifically American football or Canadian football); Australian rules football; rugby union and rugby league; and Gaelic football.[1] These various forms of football share to varying extent common origins and are known as football codes.

There are a number of references to traditional, ancient, or prehistoric ball games played in many different parts of the world. Contemporary codes of football can be traced back to the codification of these games at English public schools during the 19th century. The expansion and cultural influence of the British Empire allowed these rules of football to spread to areas of British influence outside the directly controlled Empire. By the end of the 19th century, distinct regional codes were already developing: Gaelic football, for example, deliberately incorporated the rules of local traditional football games in order to maintain their heritage. In 1888, The Football League was founded in England, becoming the first of many professional football associations. During the 20th century, several of the various kinds of football grew to become some of the most popular team sports in the world.

A climbing wall is an artificially constructed wall with grips for hands and feet, usually used for indoor climbing, but sometimes located outdoors. Some are brick or wooden constructions, but on most modern walls, the material most often used is a thick multiplex board with holes drilled into it. Recently, manufactured steel and aluminum have also been used. The wall may have places to attach belay ropes, but may also be used to practice lead climbing or bouldering.

Each hole contains a specially formed t-nut to allow modular climbing holds to be screwed onto the wall. With manufactured steel or aluminum walls, an engineered industrial fastener is used to secure climbing holds. The face of the multiplex board climbing surface is covered with textured products including concrete and paint or polyurethane loaded with sand. In addition to the textured surface and hand holds, the wall may contain surface structures such as indentions (incuts) and protrusions (bulges), or take the form of an overhang, underhang or crack.

Some grips are formed to mimic the conditions of outdoor rock, including some that are oversized and can have other grips bolted onto them.

Archery is the sport, practice, or skill of using a bow to shoot arrows. The word comes from the Latin arcus, meaning bow. Historically, archery has been used for hunting and combat. In modern times, it is mainly a competitive sport and recreational activity. A person who practices archery is typically called an archer, bowman or toxophilite.

The Diakopto–Kalavryta railway is a historic 750 mm gauge rack railway in Greece. Located on the northern Peloponnese, it runs 22 kilometres from Diakopto through the Vouraikos Gorge and the old Mega Spilaion Monastery and up to Kalavryta, stopping en route at Zachlorou. Today, the infrastructure and rolling stock are owned and maintained by the Hellenic Railways Organisation and passenger trains are operated by Hellenic Train. At the Diakopto terminus, the line connects with the new standard-gauge Athens Airport–Patras railway; as of 2019 the new track is in place in a cutting through the station yard.

The line starts at Diakopto before entering the gorge of Vouraikos. Makes stops at the locations “Niamata” and “Triklia”. Between Niamata and Triklia there was an old stop at the kilometre position 8 + 156. In the middle of the route, after 12 kilometres, it makes a stop in the village of Kato Zachlorou, while at this point it serves the visitors of the historic Monastery of the Great Cave. Then, after 18 kilometres of route, it makes a stop southeast under the village of Kerpini, where you pass, but do not stop at “Kerpini railway station”,and finally ends in Kalavrita.

The Acropolis of Athens is an ancient citadel located on a rocky outcrop above the city of Athens and contains the remains of several ancient buildings of great architectural and historical significance, the most famous being the Parthenon. The word acropolis is from the Greek words ἄκρον (akron, “highest point, extremity”) and πόλις (polis, “city”). The term acropolis is generic and there are many other acropoleis in Greece. During ancient times the Acropolis of Athens was known also more properly as Cecropia, after the legendary serpent-man, Cecrops, the supposed first Athenian king.

Monastiraki (pronounced [monastiˈraci], literally little monastery) is a flea market neighborhood in the old town of Athens, Greece, and is one of the principal shopping districts in Athens. The area is home to clothing boutiques, souvenir shops, and specialty stores, and is a major tourist attraction in Athens and Attica for bargain shopping. The area is named after Monastiraki Square, which in turn is named for the Church of the Pantanassa that is located within the square.

The National Archaeological Museum in Athens houses some of the most important artifacts from a variety of archaeological locations around Greece from prehistory to late antiquity. It is considered one of the greatest museums in the world and contains the richest collection of Greek Antiquity artifacts worldwide. It is situated in the Exarcheia area in central Athens between Epirus Street, Bouboulinas Street and Tositsas Street while its entrance is on the Patission Street adjacent to the historical building of the Athens Polytechnic university.

The Temple of Poseidon is an ancient Greek temple on Cape Sounion, Greece, dedicated to the god Poseidon. There is evidence of the establishment of sanctuaries on the cape from as early as the 11th century B.C. Sounion’s most prominent temples, the Temple of Athena and the Temple of Poseidon, are however not believed to have been built until about 700 B.C., and their kouroi (freestanding Greek statues of young men) date from about one hundred years later. The material and size of the offerings at the Temple of Poseidon indicate that it was likely frequented by members of the elite and the aristocratic class. The Greeks considered Poseidon to be the “master of the sea”. Given the importance to Athens of trade by sea and the significance of its navy in its creation and survival during the fifth century, Poseidon was of a particular relevance and value to the Athenians.

The Odeon of Herodes Atticus (also called Herodeion or Herodion) is a stone Roman theatre structure located on the southwest slope of the Acropolis of Athens, Greece. The building was completed in AD 161 and then renovated in 1950.

The Acropolis Museum  is an archaeological museum focused on the findings of the archaeological site of the Acropolis of Athens. The museum was built to house every artifact found on the rock and on the surrounding slopes, from the Greek Bronze Age to Roman and Byzantine Greece. It also lies over the ruins of part of Roman and early Byzantine Athens

Filopappou Hill or Mouson Hill or Seggio Hill is a hill in Athens located opposite, southwest, from the Acropolis. It is connected to the adjacent hills of Asteroskopeio (hill of Nymphs) and Pnyka. At its top there is the monument of Philopappos which was erected by His Highness Philopappos during the Roman occupation and gave his name to the hill.

Mount Lycabettus, also known as Lycabettos, Lykabettos or Lykavittos (pronounced [likaviˈtos]), is a Cretaceous limestone hill in the Greek capital Athens. At 277 meters (908 feet) above sea level, its summit is the highest point in Central Athens and pine trees cover its base. The name also refers to the residential neighbourhood immediately below the east of the hill.

In legend previously called Pytho (Πυθώ), in ancient times was a sacred precinct that served as the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient classical world. The oracle had origins in prehistory and it became international in character and also fostered sentiments of Greek nationality, even though the nation of Greece was centuries away from realization. The ancient Greeks considered the centre of the world to be in Delphi, marked by the stone monument known as the omphalos (navel). The sacred precinct of Ge or Gaia was in the region of Phocis, but its management had been taken away from the Phocians, who were trying to extort money from its visitors, and had been placed in the hands of an amphictyony, or committee of persons chosen mainly from Central Greece. According to the Suda, Delphi took its name from the Delphyne, the she-serpent (drakaina) who lived there and was killed by the god Apollo (in other accounts the serpent was the male serpent (drakon) Python).