61 Best Sights in Greece

The enormous five-domed post-Baroque church of Agios Therapon, completed in 1935, was designed by architect Argyris Adalis, an islander who studied under Ernst Ziller, the prolific architect of so many of the municipal buildings in Athens. The church is dedicated to St. Therapon, whose name means "healer," and it has been visited by many people who came to Lesvos to recuperate from illness. It has an ornate interior, a frescoed dome, and there's a Byzantine museum in the courtyard that's filled with religious icons.

Though it's not in Glossa, the village marks an easy setting-off point for checking out this 18th-century marvel, perched dramatically atop a rocky outcrop that juts out at sea, flanked by verdant mountains; 200-or-so uneven steps lead you up the monolith, and when you get there, you'll find the tiny chapel surrounded by a few veteran olive trees. Inside are a handful of painted frescoes, and candles that visitors can light to pay respect. Legend has it, the chapel was built to protect the island from pirates. Famously, the church was the setting of Sophie's wedding in the 2008 movie, Mamma Mia!

Mykonians claim that exactly 365 churches and chapels dot their landscape, one for each day of the year. The most famous of these is the Church of Panagia Paraportiani. The sloping whitewashed conglomeration of four chapels, mixing Byzantine and vernacular idioms, looks fantastic. Solid and sober, its position on a promontory facing the sea sets off the unique architecture, and it is said to be one of the most photographed churches in the world.

Built in 1596, this church is the tallest on the island, thanks to its distinctive red-domed bell tower, and it's filled with silver treasures. The patron saint's remains—smuggled here after the fall of Constantinople—are contained in a silver reliquary in a small chapel; devout Corfiots visit to kiss the reliquary and pray to the saint. The silver casket is carried in procession through the town four times a year. Spyridon was not a Corfiot but a shepherd from Cyprus, who became a bishop before his death in AD 350. His miracles are said to have saved the island four times: once from famine, twice from the plague, and once from the hated Turks. During World War II, a bomb fell on this holiest place on the island but didn't explode. Maybe these events explain why it seems every other man on Corfu is named Spiros. If you keep the church tower in sight, you can wander as you wish without getting lost around this fascinating section of town. Agiou Spyridonos, the street in front of the church, is crammed with shops selling religious trinkets and souvenirs.

This towering church just off the main square was built in 1694 and is embellished with a lavishly decorated portico. Every 15th of August the Virgin Mary is celebrated in one of the biggest festivals on the island.

The 19th-century church that commands the main square of Mesta (and one of two churches of the same name in the town) is one of the wealthiest in Greece; its vernacular is Baroque combined with the late-folk-art style of Chios. There is a double staircase leading to the bell tower and to a pebbled courtyard. The church was built on the ruins of the central refuge tower and dedicated to the Archangels Gabriel and Michael.

The best way to get an idea of the town and its history is to follow the sinuous cobbled lanes past the mansions of the Old Town to the Kastro, the highest point, and this fortified monastery founded in AD 962 and radically rebuilt in 1600. Today it is inhabited by a sole monk. A white marble lion, which may be left over from the Venetian occupation, is in the wall above the entrance to the monastery. The once splendid frescoes of the Monastery of St. George are now mostly covered by layers of whitewash, but look for the charming St. George and startled dragon outside to the left of the church door and, within, the ornate iconostasis. An icon of St. George on the right is said to have been brought by settlers from Constantinople, who came in waves during the iconoclast controversy of the 9th century. The icon is familiarly known as Agios Georgis o Arapis ("the Negro"); the Skyrians view him as the patron saint not only of their island but of lovers as well.

The main reason to venture to the atypically green, pine-covered hills surrounding the little Gulf of Panormitis is to visit this unexpectedly huge monastery dedicated to Symi's patron saint, the protector of sailors. The site's entrance is surmounted by an elaborate bell tower, of the multilevel wedding-cake variety on display in Yialos and Chorio. A black-and-white pebble mosaic adorns the floor of the courtyard, which is surrounded by a vaulted stoa. The interior of the church, entirely frescoed in the 18th century, contains a marvelously ornate wooden iconostasis, which is flanked by a heroic-size representation of Michael, all but his face covered with silver. There are two small museums, one dedicated to folk culture (closed for renovation at the time of writing) and the other to religious paraphernalia. The latter has a particularly eclectic collection, including votive offerings of wooden ship models, bottles with notes containing wishes, and, most bizarrely, stuffed crocodiles.

If a day trip isn't enough for you, the monastery rents 75 spartan rooms (from €20 per night) with kitchens and private baths. Though the price doesn't include a towel or air-conditioning and there are insects (some rather large), the spiritual aspect makes for an enriching experience. A nursing home as well as a market, bakery, restaurant, and a few other businesses make up the rest of the settlement. The monastery is at its busiest for the week leading up to November 8, Michael's feast day, an event that draws the faithful from throughout the Dodecanese and beyond.

Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachos ("the Dueler") ordered the Nea Moni monastery built where three monks found an icon of the Virgin Mary in a myrtle bush. The octagonal katholikon (medieval church) is the only surviving example of 11th-century court art—none survives even in Constantinople. The monastery has been renovated a number of times: the dome was completely rebuilt following an earthquake in 1881, and a great deal of effort has gone into the restoration and preservation of the mosaics over the years. The distinctive three-part vaulted sanctuary has a double narthex, with no buttresses supporting the dome. This design, a single square space covered by a dome, is rarely seen in Greece. Blazing with color, the church's interior gleams with marble slabs and mosaics of Christ's life, austere yet sumptuous, with azure blue, ruby red, velvet green, and skillful applications of gold. The saints' expressiveness comes from their vigorous poses and severe gazes, with heavy shadows under the eyes. On the iconostasis hangs the icon—a small Virgin and Child facing left. Also inside the grounds are an ancient refectory, a vaulted cistern, a chapel filled with victims' bones from the massacre at Chios, and a large clock still keeping Byzantine time, with the sunrise reckoned as 12 o'clock.

The square above the port, to the northwest, was built to celebrate the church's 1,700th anniversary. From there note a white wall with two belfries, the front of the former monastic quarters that surround the magnificent Panagia Ekatontapyliani, the earliest remaining proto-Byzantine church in Greece and one of the oldest unaltered churches in the world. As such, it is a renowned pilgrimage church of the Aegean, second only to Megalochari on nearby Tinos.

The story began in 326, when St. Helen—the mother of Emperor Constantine the Great—set out on a ship for the Holy Land to find the True Cross. Stopping on Paros, she had a vision of success and vowed to build a church there. Though she died before it was built, her son built the church in 328 as a wooden-roof basilica. Two centuries later, Justinian the Great (who ruled the Byzantine Empire in 527–65) commissioned the splendid dome.

According to legend, 99 doors have been found in the church and the 100th will be discovered only after Constantinople is Greek again—but the name is actually older than the legend. Inside, the subdued light mixes with the dun, reddish, and green tufa (porous volcanic rock). The columns are classical and their capitals Byzantine. At the corners of the dome are two fading Byzantine frescoes depicting six-winged seraphim. The 4th-century iconostasis (with ornate later additions) is divided into five frames by marble columns. One panel contains the 14th-century icon of the Virgin, with a silver covering from 1777. The Virgin is carried in procession on the church's crowded feast day, August 15, the Dormition. During Easter services, thousands of rose petals are dropped from the dome upon the singing celebrant. The adjacent Baptistery, nearly unique in Greece, also built from the 4th to the 6th century, has a marble font and bits of mosaic floor. The church museum, at the right, contains post-Byzantine icons.

The Tinians built the splendid Church of the Annunciate Virgin on this site in 1823 to commemorate finding a buried icon of the Annunciation in the foundations of an old Byzantine church that once stood here. Imposing and beautiful, framed in gleaming yellow and white, it stands atop the town's main hill ("hora"), which is linked to the harbor via Megalochari, a steeply inclined avenue lined with votive shops. Half Venetian, half Cypriot in style, the facade (illuminated at night) has a distinctive two-story arcade and bookend staircases. Lined with the most costly stones from Tinos, Paros, and Delos, the church's marble courtyards (note the green-veined Tinian stone) are paved with pebble mosaics and surrounded by offices, chapels, a health station, and seven museums. Inside the upper three-aisle church dozens of beeswax candles and precious tin- and silver-work votives—don't miss the golden orange tree near the door donated by a blind man who was granted sight—dazzle the eye. You must often wait in line to see the little icon, encrusted with jewels, that is said to have curative powers. To beseech the icon's aid, a sick person sends a young female relative or a mother brings her sick infant. As the pilgrim descends from the boat, she falls to her knees, with traffic indifferently whizzing about her, and crawls painfully up the faded red carpet lane on the main street—1 km (½ mile)—to the church. In the church's courtyards, she and her family camp for several days, praying to the magical icon for a cure, which sometimes comes. This procedure is very similar to the ancient one observed in Tinos's temple of Poseidon. The lower church, called the Evresis, celebrates the finding of the icon; in one room a baptismal font is filled with silver and gold votives. The chapel to the left commemorates the torpedoing by the Italians, on Dormition Day, 1940, of the Greek ship Elli; in the early stages of the war, the roused Greeks amazingly overpowered the Italians.

Nestled in the shadow of the Agios Minas cathedral is one of Crete's most attractive small churches, named for St. Katherine and built in 1555. The church now houses a museum of icons by Cretan artists, who often traveled to Venice to study with Italian Renaissance painters. Look for six icons by Michael Damaskinos, who worked in both Byzantine and Renaissance styles during the 16th century. Crete's most famous artist, Domenikos Theotocopoulos, better known as El Greco, studied at the monastery school attached to the church in the mid-16th century.

While following the seaside promenade, before you reach the very tip of the peninsula (marked by a ship's beacon), there is a little shrine at the foot of a path leading up toward the Acronafplia walls above. The tiny church of the Virgin Mary, or Agia Panagitsa, hugs the cliff on a small terrace and is decorated with icons. During the Turkish occupation the church hid one of Greece's secret schools.

The freely accessible 18th-century church of Agia Paraskevi has a flamboyantly decorated altar screen that's worth a peek. Note that July 26 is its saint's day, entailing a big celebration in which the church's silver icon is carried around the town in a morning procession, followed by feasting and dancing.

The founding date of this church, a UNESCO World Heritage site and the focal point of the city's Easter and Christmas celebrations, has been the subject of disagreements over the centuries. Ecclesiastics think it was built after the first Council of Nicea (AD 325), when Jesus was declared a manifestation of Divine Wisdom; other church historians say it was contemporaneous with the magnificent church of Agia Sofia in Constantinople, completed in AD 537, on which it was modeled. From its architecture the church is believed to date to the late 8th century, a time of transition from the domed basilica to the cruciform plan. The rather drab interior contains two superb mosaics: one of the Ascension and the other of the Virgin Mary holding Jesus in her arms. This latter mosaic is an interesting example of the conflict in the Orthodox Church (AD 726–843) between the iconoclasts (icon smashers, which they often literally were) and the iconodules (icon venerators). At one point in this doctrinal struggle, the Virgin Mary in the mosaic was replaced by a large cross (still partly visible), and only later, after the victory of the iconodules, was it again replaced with an image of the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus. The front gate is a popular meeting spot.

The oldest church in Kalamata is the small 13th-century Agioi Apostoli ("Holy Apostles"), dedicated to the Virgin of Kalamata ("of the good eye"), from whom the town may get its name. The Greek War of Independence was formally declared here on March 23, 1821, and a celebration is held at the church on that date every year. Even the square on which it lies, Martiou 23 (March 23rd), is named after this historic moment.

The fresco-embellished 12th-century church Ayioi Apostoli is a very small replica of the katholikon, or major church, at the Nea Moni Monastery. Cretan artist Antonios Domestichos created the 17th-century frescoes that completely cover the interior, and they have a distinct folk-art leaning.

Magnificent and covered in mosaics, this five-aisle basilica is Greece's largest church and a powerful tribute to the patron saint of Thessaloniki. It was rebuilt and restored from 1926 to 1949, with attention to preserving the details of the original; the marks left by a fire can still be seen throughout. In the 4th century, during the reign of Emperor Galerius, the young, scholarly Dimitrios was preaching Christianity in the coppersmith district, in contravention of an edict. He was arrested and jailed in a room in the old Roman baths, on the site of the present church. While he was incarcerated in AD 303, Dimitrios gave a Christian blessing to a gladiator friend named Nestor, who was about to fight Galerius's champion, Lyaios. When Nestor fought and killed Lyaios, after having made Dimitrios's blessing public, the enraged Galerius had Nestor executed on the spot and had Dimitrios speared to death in his cell. His Christian brethren were said to have buried him there. A church that was built on the ruins of this bath in the 5th century was destroyed by an earthquake in the 7th century. The church was rebuilt, and gradually the story of Dimitrios and Nestor grew to be considered apocryphal until the great 1917 fire burned down most of the 7th-century church and brought to light its true past. The process of rebuilding the church uncovered rooms beneath the apse that appear to be baths; the discovery of a reliquary containing a vial of bloodstained earth gave credence to the idea that this is where St. Dimitrios was martyred. You enter through a small doorway to the right of the altar. Work your way through the crypt (which tends to close a little earlier than the church itself), containing sculpture from the 3rd to 5th century AD and Byzantine artifacts. The church's interior was plastered over when the Turks turned it into a mosque, but eight original mosaics remain on either side of the altar.

If you're lucky enough to be in Arachova for the festival on St. George's Day—April 23 (or the Monday after Easter if April 23 falls during Lent)—you're in for the time of your life. St. George the dragon slayer is the patron saint of Arachova, and the largest church on the top of the highest hill in town is dedicated to him. So, naturally, the festival here lasts three days and nights, starting with a procession from the church, in which the villagers don traditional clothes, many of them ornately embroidered silken and brocaded heirlooms that testify to the rich heritage of the town. The festival is kicked off in fine form with the race of the yeroi, the old men of the town, who are astonishingly agile as they clamber up the hill above the church without so much as a gasp for air. The following days are filled with athletic contests, cooking competitions, and, at night, passionate dancing in the tavernas until long after the goats go home. Visitors are welcome to partake of a feast held outside St. George (Agios Georgios) church that features Mt. Parnassus's legendary roast lamb and feta cheese and a steady flow of Arachova wine.

Agios Mamas is the protector of shepherds and is regarded as a patron saint in Naxos, Cyprus, and Asia Minor. Built in the 8th century, the stone church was the island's cathedral under the Byzantines. Though it was converted into a Catholic church in 1207, it was neglected under the Venetians and is now falling apart. You can also get to it from the Potamia villages.

The town's stone promontory is the site of the little 19th-century church, Agios Mamas—take your photos from a distance as the church is privately owned and often locked. Bring a swimsuit, as the beach here is great for a dip.

This 13th-century church is named for Venice's patron saint, but, with its modern portico and narrow interior, it bears little resemblance to its grand namesake in Venice. Concerts and recitals are often staged in the afternoons.

This huge, lofty cathedral, dating from 1895, can hold up to 8,000 worshippers, but is most lively on November 11, when Heraklion celebrates the feast of Minas, a 4th-century Roman-soldier-turned-Christian. Legend has it that on Easter Sunday 1826 a ghostly Minas reappeared on horseback and dispersed a Turkish mob ready to slay the city's Orthodox faithful.

Notably, few of Heraklion's inhabitants are named after Minas, which is unusual for a city's patron saint. The reason is that many years ago babies born out of wedlock were left on the steps of the church, and were named Minas by the clergy, who took these children in and cared for them. Thus, the name Minas came to be associated with illegitimacy.

As you approach from the sea, your first view of Aegina Town takes in the sweep of the harbor, with quaint Neoclassical buildings in the background, the lovely vista punctuated by the gleaming white chapel of Agios Nikolaos Thalassinos (St. Nicholas the Seafarer).

The cathedral, perched atop a hill above the harbor and Old Town, is named after the patron saint of sailors and possesses a beautifully carved 19th-century altar screen.

Noted frescoes here include the unusual Agion Mandilion in the apse, which shows Jesus superimposed on a veil sent to an Anatolian king, and the Niptir, also in the apse, in which Jesus is washing the disciples' feet. The artist is said to have depicted himself in the right-hand corner wearing a turban and riding a horse. The 14th-century church, which became a dependency of the Vlatádon Monastery in the 17th century, has an intriguing mix of Byzantine architectural styles and perhaps the most beautiful midnight Easter service in the city.

A prime example of 14th-century Macedonian religious architecture, Agios Panteleimon is an eye-catching church that draws you in to take a closer look. Restored in 1993 after an earthquake in 1978, the facade reveals the ornamental interplay of brick and stonework, and a dome displays typically strong upward motion.

A chapel to the left of the entrance contains St. Tito's skull, set in a silver-and-gilt reliquary. Titus is credited with converting the islanders to Christianity in the 1st century AD on the instructions of St. Paul. Agios Titos was founded in the 10th century, rebuilt as a mosque under Turkish rule in the 19th century, and rededicated as a church in the 1920s, when the minaret was removed.

Panagia Antivouniotissa, an ornate church dating from the late 15th century, houses an outstanding collection of Byzantine religious art. More than 50 icons from the 13th to the 17th centuries hang on the walls. Look for works by the celebrated icon painters Tzanes and Damaskinos; they are perhaps the best-known artists of the Cretan style of icon painting.

A place of pilgrimage for many Cretans, Moni Arkadi is also one of the most stunning pieces of Renaissance architecture on the island. The ornate facade, decorated with Corinthian columns and an elegant belfry above, was built in the 16th century of a local honey-color stone. In 1866 the monastery came under siege during a major rebellion against the Turks, and Abbot Gabriel and several hundred rebels, together with their wives and children, refused to surrender. When the Turkish forces broke through the gate, the defenders set the gunpowder store afire, killing themselves together with hundreds of Turks. The monastery was again a center of resistance when the Nazis occupied Crete during World War II.