Sea

The wealth and diversity of the Greek seas, the endless kilometers of the Greek coast and the thousands of Greek islands, the protected sea areas covering thousands of square kilometers, the mild climate, the high percentage of sunshine and its interesting and varying landscape make Greece the ideal destination for the development of sea tourism activities.

This advantage is strengthened both by thousands of years of marine tradition and by conditions favorable for sea travelling: the Greek seas are considered safe, distances between coasts are small, while conditions related to wind strength, ambient and sea temperatures are equally favorable.
In Greece sea tourism started in the ‘60s and since then has been developing at a fast pace, especially in recent years.
Cruise ships under Greek flag organizing short or longer cruises to Greek ports and ports of other countries of the Eastern Mediterranean amount to more than 160,000 GRT units and have a total capacity of over 10,000 passengers. Greek ports, however, are also visited by cruise ships under foreign flags, which annually bring more than 500,000 passengers into the country by sea.
Beaches
The Greek coast has a total length of approximately 16,000 km. Half of this length includes the thousands of Greek islands scattered through the Greek seas, while the rest extends along the mainland.
The Greek shores are world-famous and exceedingly popular because they are known for their crystal clean and clear waters, as well as for their unique diversity.
The visitor has the opportunity to enjoy beaches stretching along over many kilometers, sheltered bays and coves, golden stretches of sand with dunes, pebble beaches, coastal caves with steep rocks and dark sand typical of volcanic soil. Every year hundreds of beaches and marinas in Greece are awarded with the “Blue Flag”.
Most of the thousands of Greek coasts are freely accessible and you can easily discover and enjoy them.
There are also many organized beaches in the country, with the necessary infrastructure providing high-quality services (umbrellas, reclining chairs, change booths, cafes, bar-restaurants etc), where, apart from swimming, you can enjoy water sports (water skiing, windsurfing, diving, etc) as well as other means of having fun in the water, such as the parasailing, “inner tubes”, “bananas”, wakeboard, jet ski, etc. All organized beaches also have manned lifeguard towers, ensuring safe swimming in the area.