Buck moon shines over Greece's ancient Temple of Poseidon
The full moon shone brightly above the ancient ruins, once a key religious and strategic site, creating a striking scene.
Famous for its sunsets and historic significance, the temple overlooks the Aegean Sea.
This year's Buck Moon is notable as it is one of the most distant full moons of 2025, appearing slightly smaller in the sky.
It also coincides with a period of major lunar standstill, meaning the Moon's path is unusually low in the sky, which can amplify the so-called 'Moon illusion' – an optical effect that makes the Moon appear dramatically larger when close to the horizon.
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The Sun
7 hours ago
- The Sun
The Greek hotel that looks more like the Maldives with overwater rooms named one of Europe's best resorts
AN ADULTS-ONLY all-inclusive resort nestled in Greece with Maldives-style overwater villas and swim-up hotel rooms has been named the best in Europe. Awarded by Conde Nast as the top spot, Stella Island Resort and Spa offers the ultimate luxury, with plenty of different villas to choose from, on the island of Crete. 4 Having opened in 2017, the resort has quickly become known for its 'floating breakfasts' and spa and wellness centre, with a sauna and hammam. Sitting at its centre is also one of Europe 's largest lagoon pools. Whilst the overwater huts don't sit above the ocean, and instead sit above a pool - with narrow bridges crisscrossing the water. Each features a day bed that looks out across the pool (and some, the sea too) and a hammock that hovers above the calm crystal waters. In total, there are eight pools at the resort in total and guests can also head to the beach and a waterpark which neighbour the resort. In the middle of some of the pools are sunken seating areas, where guests can retreat to with a book or glass of wine. Each room and suite features blonde wood and bamboo, with a sleek and stylish minimalist interior. At night, the villas are then illuminated with glowing yellow lights, as are the pools. The entire resort is located close to Analipsi, but guests also don't need to really venture out of the resort itself as it has five restaurants serving a range of cuisines. For example, there is a buffet serving authentic Greek food and a Mexican restaurant as well. As for wellness, there is both and indoor and outdoor gym, tennis and paddle courts, stand up paddle-boarding and complimentary bike hire. The resort even has its own app which guests can use to book restaurants and activities and request things such as room service or a towel change. One recent visitor said: "This is our third time staying here — and it won't be our last. "The moment you walk through the doors, you can feel the stress of life just melt away. "It's like the whole place is designed to make you breathe easier, relax deeper, and feel completely taken care of." 4 4 Another added: "Special memories made in a very special place." It takes about 20 minutes to reach the resort from Heraklion airport - and if you book via the hotel's website, you'll even get a free transfer from the airport. Rooms cost from £180 per night and anyone over the age of 15-years-old is allowed to stay. If visitors do want to venture out of the resort, there is plenty to do across Crete - including several serene beaches, quad safaris across the rugged landscape and historic village hopping. The Greek island that's the 'birthplace of marathons' The Sun's Brittany Vonow headed to Rhodes and ran the most beautiful 13 miles in the world - here's her take. Running the TUI Rhodes half-marathon, I'm 16 kilometers in and almost sorry I have only five more to go. It's easily one of the most beautiful races I've done, winding along the sparkling sea and past ancient fortifications. With the supportive locals and 700 volunteers, it's a joyful experience in the birthplace of the marathon. I push through the final stretch, crossing the finish line in 1 hour and 55 minutes. Afterwards, I relax at the adults-only Imperial Atlantica resort, recovering my muscles in the sauna. The shoulder season offers a quieter and more peaceful atmosphere. Beyond the hotel, we explore the Old Town, enjoying delicious Greek food like dolmades, tzatziki, and baklava. My medal serves as a lasting souvenir of a truly unforgettable trip. A Greek expert has also revealed four better value islands where locals go on holiday with Santorini-like houses and secluded beaches. Plus, the smaller Greek island with 70 beaches that experts warn you should see before it gets too popular. 4
The Guardian
14 hours ago
- The Guardian
Balkan bounty: the little-known corner of Greece now ripe for walkers and nature tourism
I'm on a steadily rising road in northern Greece as swallows sweep over the burnished grasses to either side of me and pelicans spiral through the summer sky. Gaining height, the land thickens with oak forests and a Hermann's tortoise makes a slow, ceremonial turn on to a sheep track at the edge of the asphalt. And then, just as the road briefly levels out before corkscrewing down the other side, a glittering lake appears beneath me – a brilliant blue eye set in a socket of steep mountains. I can't even begin to count how many times I've crossed the pass into the Prespa basin on my way home from trips into town, but the sight of shimmering Lesser Prespa Lake – often striking blue in the afternoons and silvery at sunset – takes me back to the summer of 2000 when I saw it for the first time. A little over 25 years ago, my wife and I read a glowing review of a book about the Prespa lakes region. In the north-west corner of Greece and an hour's drive from the towns of Florina and Kastoria, the two Prespa lakes straddle the borders of Greece, Albania and North Macedonia in a basin of about 618 sq miles. We'd never heard of Prespa until then, but the review of Giorgos Catsadorakis's Prespa: A Story for Man and Nature got us thinking about a holiday there, imagining a week or two of walking in the mountains, birding around the summer shores and enjoying food in village tavernas at night. When the book finally arrived at our London flat, at a time when we were talking seriously about living somewhere else, it took just a single evening (and, to be fair, a couple of bottles of wine) to decide to leave the city behind. Not for a holiday, but to try to make a home for ourselves in the Prespa national park. Twenty-five years later, we're still in the village we moved to – Agios Germanos. I park the car near the pass and walk further into the hills on a path worn smooth by shepherds and their animals. It's high summer and there's a languor to the landscape. Clouds of butterflies drift on the hot air and a hoopoe raises its magnificent crest in an oak. From up here I can now see Great Prespa Lake as well, separated from its smaller neighbour by a wide and sandy isthmus. These two ancient lakes, thought to be in the region of 3-5 million years old, are almost entirely encircled by a bowl of mountains, making it feel a world apart when you cross into the basin. Although the water levels in the lakes have dropped significantly because of climate change in recent decades, Prespa remains a place of extraordinary vitality. Looking north over the rolling oak forests, I can see the rough point in the lake where Greece, Albania and North Macedonia meet. Prespa is a crossroads not only of countries but of geologies too, resulting in an extraordinary profusion and abundance of wild species – almost three times as many butterfly species (172) can be found on the Greek side of Prespa than in the whole of the UK (59). I look up as a mixed group of Dalmatian and great white pelicans lowers towards Lesser Prespa Lake. Seeing these birds in flight, carried across the mountains on wings that can have a total span of more than three metres, it feels as if you have been given a glimpse into the age of the dinosaurs. Until we read the book that brought us here, I had no idea that pelicans could even be found in Greece, let alone nest on these lakes in large numbers, but then Prespa is full of surprises. In some winters, Lesser Prespa Lake can freeze solid enough to walk across – and there are far more brown bears in the region than bouzoukis. While Prespa is a popular winter destination for Greek visitors, in part because of a ski-centre halfway between Florina and the basin, it's the quieter spring and summer seasons when the place comes into its own for walking and nature tourism. There's a mosaic of cultural riches to explore here too: the remarkable ruins of the 1,000-year-old Byzantine basilica on the island of Agios Achilleios; the lakeside cliffs on Great Prespa Lake, studded with centuries-old hermitages and monastic cells, reached by hiring a boatman from the fishing village of Psarades; the churches screened by sacred groves of immense juniper trees, found on some of the many marked walking trails. Sign up to The Traveller Get travel inspiration, featured trips and local tips for your next break, as well as the latest deals from Guardian Holidays after newsletter promotion Besides the abundant nature and mountain walking that prompted us to move here, what also makes this place so special is the food and hospitality. There are welcoming, family-run guesthouses in many of the villages and excellent tavernas serving regional specialities, including slow-baked beans in a rich tomato sauce with oregano, fresh carp and sardine-sized tsironia from the lake, grilled florinela cheese brushed with red pepper marmalade, and wild greens called horta doused in lemon juice and olive oil. I stop to watch the cross-hatchings of light on the lakes as the hum of insects deepens with the heat. A short-toed eagle turns into the wind ahead of me, briefly motionless as it hunts for snakes in the forest clearings. Then it steers northwards and away across the mountains. Beyond those peaks encircling Prespa are the beautiful, traditional market towns of Korҫë in Albania and Bitola in North Macedonia, which, together with Florina and lakeside Kastoria just outside the basin in Greece, help make the entire region one of endless fascination for me. There are plans to re-open the long-closed crossing between Greece and North Macedonia within the Prespa basin in the next few years, an opportunity to build further bridges between communities and make movement for tourists easier. Another project will establish a cross-border walking route between our village and the neighbouring mountain village of Brajčino in North Macedonia; it will celebrate the cultural and natural heritage of the common watershed while highlighting the importance of low-impact tourism to local economies, particularly at a time when climate change is making itself felt around the lakes and threatening agricultural livelihoods. It's almost time to return along the path and head home, but first I sit in the shade of an oak, its leaves rustling in the warm breeze. A steel-blue dragonfly unzips the air and I can hear sheep bells somewhere in the hills. The sound shifts and swirls, just as on the saint's day festivals of summer, called panigyria, when the wild, soaring music of clarinets and raucous Balkan brass rises into the mountain nights as people gather with food and drink to circle-dance in village squares. I've never thought of Prespa as anything but a shared place, where human cultures and wild species come together and co-exist, a place best experienced slowly and with care. And although Prespa has been my home for a quarter of a century now, when I see that blue water glimmering beneath me as I cross the pass, it still so often feels like the first more information visit Society for the Protection of Prespa and Visit Prespes Julian Hoffman is the author of Lifelines: Searching for Home in the Mountains of Greece published by Elliott & Thompson (£18.99). To support the Guardian order a copy from Delivery charges may apply
Daily Mail
15 hours ago
- Daily Mail
From Diana's island hideaway to a 'secret date' location and a £40m yacht trip: Inside the Royal Family's most iconic holidays
Although the Prince and Princess of Wales have only just returned from their summer holiday in Greece, the trip already looks destined to become one of the Royal Family's most iconic vacations. It is understood that William and Kate holidayed in the idyllic Ionian Islands on a luxury £40million yacht. The Prince and Princess of Wales - along with Prince George, Prince Louis and Princess Charlotte - first travelled to Kefalonia before they were spotted off the coast of the tiny island of Ithaca. The royals then dropped anchor at nearby Zakynthos for a very special reason. During the weekend, the Daily Mail reported that a tender boat was dispatched on a special mission. Locals in Zakynthos have half-jokingly speculated that the 12-year-old George fancied a fast food treat. Sources remain tight-lipped about what the purpose of the trip was but allegedly the young prince - seemingly having grown tired of Greek staples such as souvlaki and moussaka - might have fancied a McDonalds. The amusing story is just one of many famous tales to come to light once the Royals were back home inside their palaces. And while many are lighthearted, other trips abroad caused scandal and in other cases were marked by tragedy. The tropical island made most famous by the royals is the Caribbean paradise of Mustique which was owned by The Lord Glenconner. He gave Princess Margaret a holiday home on the island as a wedding gift. The holiday home quickly became Margaret's sanctuary where she entertained guests with lavish parties. Mustique found itself at the centre of a royal scandal in 1976 when pictures of Margaret frolicking in the sea with Roddy Llewellyn who sported a pair of striking Union Jack budgie smugglers were published. The photos exposed the Princess' affair with Roddy, who was 17 years her junior, and played a part in the end of Margaret's marriage to Lord Snowdon. Prince Charles was another royal who was spotted enjoying a swim in the sea during a holiday to Perth, Australia, in 1979. The prince was still a bachelor at the time and got plenty of attention from young women who couldn't keep away from Charles. In a video from the visit one woman - wearing a bikini - can be seen clinging onto Charles as he emerges from the ocean. As he drying off with a towel, another woman runs up to Charles and gives him a peck on the cheek. It would be another two years before Charles married Princess Diana in 1981. As any married family do, Charles and Diana went a number of summer holidays together including multiple trips to Majorca with Prince William and Prince Harry. Perhaps the couple's most famous holiday was their visit to Italy in 1991. The excursion was dubbed their 'second honeymoon' as it came shortly after the couple celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary. Sailing along the coast of Italy, the royals enjoyed the splendour of the Alexander - which at the time was the third biggest yacht in the world - where they were joined by the former King and Queen of Greece, Constantine and Anne-Marie, as well as Prince Charles' cousin, Lord Romsey, and his wife, Lady Penelope and all their children. While the press dubbed the trip a 'happy family holiday', Charles and Diana would separate just over a year later in December 1992 and from what is known now their marriage was very much on the rocks by the summer of 1991. After they separated Diana took a number of holidays with her sons to an array of destinations. This included a trip to the Caribbean island of Nevis, accompanied by her mother, in January 1993 shortly after her split from the Prince of Wales. And a visit to Walt Disney World in Florida - where Diana and the boys were pictured enjoying the theme park's famous Splash Mountain. One of Diana's favourite destinations at this time was the tiny island of Barbuda where she holidayed on multiple occasions after her separation and later divorce from Charles. Diana goes for a swim on the island of Nevis in 1993 Diana sunbathing on the diving board off the coast of Italy This included a trip to the island with her secretary and friend Victoria Mendham in Easter 1996 where they stayed in Barbuda's exclusive K Club resort. The close friends fell out during the excursion after Diana asked Victoria to foot half of the £5,000 bill which she could not afford. Diana then quietly footed the bill to end the drama. Diana returned a year later where she was snapped smiling in a remarkably candid photo sitting cross legged on a sun lounger. In recognition of Diana's love of Barbuda, a secluded beach on the island was renamed Princess Diana Beach in 2011 on what would have been her 50th birthday. Her most notorious trip would tragically become her last when she spent the summer of 1997 sailing around southern Europe with Mohamed al Fayed and his son Dodi al Fayed. At Mohamed's invitation Diana travelled to the south of France, with William and Harry, in July that year for a week away at his home in Saint-Tropez and on his private yacht. It was on this holiday that the princess met Dodi and a romance soon blossomed. Diana enjoyed the break. The princess was pictured smiling and enjoying herself aboard the luxury vessel and Harry would write in his memoir, Spare, that 'everything about that trip to St. Tropez was heaven'. A month later, Diana returned to the French Riviera and spent more time with Dodi travelling to Corsica and Sardinia on his yacht. The pair were soon photographed together leading to a summer of speculation in the media about what their relationship was. The Daily Mail ran a headline on August 7 which read 'Diana's cruise with playboy Dodi'. It was during this fateful holiday that Princess Diana was snapped sitting at the end of the yacht's diving board. Alone, wearing a striking turquoise swimming costume, the picture instantly became one of the most notorious photos from that summer as just days later both Dodi and Diana would die following a car crash in Paris. More recent holidays by the royals have been much more low key but that doesn't mean they still haven't grabbed headlines. In 2006, William and Kate holidayed in Ibiza making use of Kate's 'bad boy' uncle Gary Goldsmith's £3.6million villa and his yacht - where they were pictured sunbathing together on the bow. Gary's luxury pad boasted an infinity swimming pool and a tennis court, but it quickly became known as 'La Maison de Bang Bang' – crude French slang for the house of sex – because of his penchant for wild parties. In 2009, the trip made headlines after The News Of The World printed a shocking photo of Kate's uncle - Gary Goldsmith - seemingly preparing to snort cocaine on the front page. Gary had unwittingly invited two journalists from the paper into his villa in Ibiza where he shared stories about Kate and William's time at his home including a tale of how William broke his ornamental pyramids. In 2012, while Kate and William were enjoying a holiday, the French gossip magazine Closer published topless pictures of Kate from inside the private grounds of a chateau. Following a trial in France, Closer was ordered to pay €100,000 to Kate and William for the publication of the pictures. That same year leaked pictures of the Duke of Sussex in Las Vegas showed the then-27-year-old prince playing strip billiards. The Sun was the only British newspaper to publish the photos at the time despite a warning from the Royal Family that it was an invasion of privacy. At the time the Palace said: 'We remain of the opinion that a hotel room is a private space where its occupants would have a reasonable expectation of privacy.' However, the Firm then decided not to lodge a complaint to the press watchdog claiming that to 'pursue a complaint relating to his private life would not be appropriate at this time and would prove to be a distraction'. Another headline-grabbing holiday was when Prince Harry whisked Meghan Markle away to Botswana in 2016. The trip to the southern African country - which Harry was visited countless times - was their third date. According to Tina Brown in her 2022 bestseller The Palace Papers, they stayed 'in a £1,500 deluxe tent at the Meno a Kwena safari camp.' To celebrate the Duchess of Sussex's 36th birthday, the couple returned to Botswana again a year later where Meghan was pictured equipping an elephant with a satellite collar. They were assisting Dr Mike Chase of Elephants Without Borders, who uses collars to track their movements. The Duke of Sussex has returned to Africa many times since, both with and without his wife. Perhaps the most touching picture from a royal holiday was released by Queen Elizabeth II following the death of Prince Philip in 2021. In the picture from 2003 - taken by Sophie Duchess of Edinburgh - a relaxed looking Philip and Elizabeth can be seen enjoying a day out on the Balmoral estate. It was reportedly one of the late Queen's favourite photos.
