What Are "Audio Guides?"
Audio Guides are "albums" you download to your MP3 player or iPod. Each album covers a particular site or museum in Greece. When you get to the Acropolis, for instance, you simply put on your headphones, choose the "Acropolis album," hit "Play," and follow the directions I'll give you. It's that easy!
Accompanying each album are .pdf files for you to print out (preferably on a color printer) and take with you on your trip. These printable files give you:
- information on how to get to a particular site
- an overview of the site itself
- a map that shows you the "Start" point where the audio guide begins
- and a "path" to follow through the site that is coordinated with the audio guide.
The recordings are professional-quality and full of facts, stories, and commentary on the site or museum you will be touring. They give you a strategy for walking the site and ensure that you understand what you're looking at and why it is significant. They function as your own personal "tour guide."
Most great museums in the world (e.g., the Uffizi and the Louvre) have their own in-house audio guide systems. They understand that, after the expense of getting to a foreign country and paying the entrance fee, visitors want to understand what they're seeing … to put artifacts in a context of history and people. Astoundingly, not a single site or museum in Greece has such a system. Unless you hire a tour-guide (expensive!), you are completely on your own.
Why "Audio Guides" for Greece?
I love Greece. I love the country, its people, the food, and—especially—the stories. Greek history is our history. Her heroes are ours also. Her myths and legends form an intellectual and emotional backdrop for our own lives.
Greece, I'm fond of saying, has more spectacular and significant sites and museums per square kilometer than any other country in the world. These places should be the perfect setting for hearing the stories, learning the history, and meeting the fabled characters of Greece.
Sadly, getting to these places and understanding what you're looking at when you actually arrive, is ... uhmm ... challenging. Not only are many of these sites difficult to find, once you land there's not much help making sense of the rocks and artifacts you've paid good money to see. Signs are sparse, faded, and (sometimes) only in Greek. Often, the gatekeeper who sells you your ticket will be out of the brochures that give you a rudimentary map of the place. And few sites or museums (actually, I can't think of any!) have an in-house audio guide system. You'd think there was some sort of conspiracy to keep visitors to Greek sites in the dark.
That leaves you—the visitor—bumbling around, trying to figure out where you are and what you're looking at and wondering if there are any stories within the stones. OR—and here, I suspect, we're getting to the conspiracy part—you can hire a guide! Someone who has run through a course of study, taken a test, and offers you his or her services at immodest rates. Do they speak English? Yes, but maybe not the version you understand. Do they know their history? Maybe ... or then again, perhaps they just know how to pass tests!
Take the National Archaeological Museum as an example. I was there in September of 2008. I purchased my ticket (they actually had a brochure!). I asked if there was an audio guide—the ticket agent looked at me blankly then smiled in comprehension and shook his head decisively "No." He pointed to a desk in the foyer advertising "Guides." The woman manning the desk spoke only German—and a smattering of English. She managed to indicate that an English-speaking guide would be along sometime that afternoon (I never did learn when). And the cost? Here my German-speaking friend was very fluent: €50 minimum for up to 5 people … €10 per person after that … for a "one hour tour!"
Wow. Since I was by myself, I had a choice. Either try to drum up some additional English speakers to share the cost, or fork over $75 for the pleasure of learning what I'd just paid €7 to see!
Those are a few of the reasons why I have chosen to write these audio guides and you should decide to take them with you on your trip to Greece.
What makes GreeceAudioGuides different?
Getting your arms around a country like Greece—with all its richness and history and accomplishment—can be daunting. Where should you go? What should you see? How do you know what you're looking at? Is there a "back story" to this site or that artifact? Is there a context that makes these ruins come alive? What about the people who lived here and left their mark on our world?
There are several wonderful guidebooks for travels in Greece. But most of them are written to please everyone—which means too much information on some things and not enough on others. They cover the ancient and the modern, museums and beaches, ruins and nightlife—everything you wanted to know about Greece but were afraid to ask.
Some of us, however, aren't all that interested in the beaches of the Greek isles or nightlife in Athens or the dubious charms of modern Lamia. We want Socrates and Agamemnon and Leonidas. We want Thermopylae and the Olympic games and the Delphic oracle. We want to experience a world long gone, a world that can only be conjured up through books and museums, ancient stones and ancient stories. We want to remember—and honor—the birth of democracy, the rise of science and philosophy, the achievements in art and architecture, and the giants who walked this land 2500 years ago.
So how do you go about getting at that Greece? Welcome to GreeceAudioGuides! This is a travel guide with a difference. It's not for everybody. It's for those who come to Greece to learn about and pay homage to the past. It's for those who love museums and ancient sites and the stories they tell. It's for those who have limited time and want to squeeze as much of the glory of old Greece as possible into a single visit.
Now, GreeceAudioGuides is that … but it's more than that. It's a series of audio guides that can be customized to your needs and interests and personal itinerary. Pick and choose sites and museums. Design your own trip if you want and use these guides to help you make the most of what you're going to see.
But at its' heart, GreeceAudioGuides is not so much a group of MP3 files and maps as it is a plan for getting at ancient Greece in the fullest and most affordable way. I say "fullest" because GreeceAudioGuides offers an ambitious strategy for visiting as many as 25 sites and museums in nine different cities scattered throughout Greece. And I say "most affordable" because I've designed these trips to stretch your time and respect your money.
What are "Itineraries"?
Itineraries are trip suggestions based on 1) how long you have to spend in Greece, and 2) how hard you want to work while you're there.
Tripbuilder is a tool that lets you input the duration of your trip (three, seven, or ten days) and the pace you want to set (relaxed, moderate, or intense). Based on that information, I recommend a particular itinerary. "This is what I would do," for example, "if I had a week in Greece and wanted to see as much as possible. These are the places I would visit. These are the "must-see" sites." My itineraries suggest what to do on each day of your trip and provide an hour-by-hour schedule for you to follow (or ignore!).
You can get a preview of these itineraries by clicking on the tab "Itineraries/Tripbuilder" and submitting your trip information. A "virtual book" will appear and allow you to page through a suggested itinerary.
When you purchase an itinerary "package," you get all the audio guides associated with that particular itinerary, all the printable files that go with the MP3 albums (including the itinerary itself), bonus materials (like driving directions), and a significant discount in price.
Are there any "bonuses" that come with GreeceAudioGuides?
Absolutely. And most of it is free!
- Camera, clothing, and equipment recommendations
- Packing tips
- Photographic strategies
- Driving advice and directions
- Hotel and restaurant suggestions
- Journaling ideas
- Extra audio guides like "Famous Battlefields of Greece"
- Lots of pictures to whet your appetite
- Book and website suggestions
- "Hand" exercises on Greek history
- Trip planning tools and suggestions
- Information on traveling to Greece with Tim
You don't have to buy a single audio guide from GreeceAudioGuides to take advantage of these bonuses!
