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- 🌀Greece Just Won "World's Best Cheese" + Wellness Greece
🌀Greece Just Won "World's Best Cheese" + Wellness Greece
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Hi Greek Talkers!
Somewhere between the Christmas cookie tins, EU defense meetings, and a knitted village in Chios, Greece has entered its “soft power meets soft dough” season—and we are here for it. Also, a special shoutout to John E. who told us we’re hilarious; John, you have excellent taste.
Whether you’re in cold NYC or sunny Sydney, today’s Greek Talk brings you lasers finding ancient settlements, wellness Greece trying to fix your spine and your mood, and our very serious referendum on the only question that truly divides the nation: melomakarona vs kourabiedes.
Let’s dive in. ☕🤿🇬🇷
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🇬🇷 WHAT’S NEW IN GREECE
🧶 The knitted village of Chios turns Christmas decor into a full-scale textile installation.
tornosnews
🪦 2,700-year-old noblewoman’s tomb unearthed, proving ancient Greeks took “going out in style” very literally.
Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports
More news from Greece
🕶️ Naxos graviera named world’s best cheese, and quickly becomes the coolest thing in your fridge.
📄 How about a new bookmark from the Greek independent authority for public revenue? AADE just dropped FAQs for Greeks abroad, attempting to solve generational tax confusion.
🛰️ No Indiana jones whip and hat needed - lasers are mapping buried sites across Greek islands.
🦴 Vatera on Lesbos just added a palaeontology exhibition to its beach, in case you wanted your swim with a side of a paleo exhibit.
🇫🇷 France just decorated Professor Konstantinos Zopounidis, confirming that Greek spreadsheets now come with Parisian flair.
📚 Papapetropoulos has been named Doctor Honoris Causa, because when you spend your life in the lab, someone eventually sends a fancy diploma.
📽️ With the film Kapodistrias premiering in New York, Greek history officially joined the festival of Very Serious Films.
✈️ Wellness and medical tourism are Greece’s next big bet, as combining MRIs with mezzes make total sense.
🤳 Greece is launching a months-long YouTube–TikTok blitz, politely harassing you until you admit you want to go.
🏚️ Greece’s winter holiday homes have gone ice-cold on prices, which is excellent news unless you bought one right before the plot twist (ouch).
🌊 The Cyclades are pushing back against new mega-resorts, as there is clearly a limit to how many infinity pools one rock can carry.
🛡️ Greece has joined a new EU defense program, moving from “we have opinions” to “we’re literally in the security group chat.”
☀️ Greece is trying to swap coal for solar so fast it feels less like energy policy and more like training for a climate Olympics relay.
🐐 A virus is hitting Greek goats and sheep, and for once global anxiety over cheese is entirely rational.
⏳ Greece’s growth story now comes with a three-item caution list from Goldman, perfect for anyone who enjoys fiscal suspense.
🌎️ WHAT’S NEW OUTSIDE OF GREECE
🤖 Two Greek sisters in South Africa just won gold for using AI to protect the Parthenon. CONGRATS!! 👏 👏 🇬🇷 🇬🇷
greekreporter
More news from outside of Greece
🏆 Georgia Politis just snagged the 2025 Magnify Her NT mentor and role model award
🎒 Turning nostalgia into new classrooms, as a Greek-American donor just donated to her ancestral village school.
📚 Dr. Dounis' book honors Greek-Australian literature's unsung heroes. Finally documenting the factory floor stories that built diaspora communities but rarely made headlines.
Be honest: in the eternal Christmas showdown… where does your loyalty lie? |
💎 CULTURAL GEMS
🏛️ Kapodistrias - The Over-Qualified Governor Who Tried to Invent Greece (and Potatoes)
wikipedia
If modern Greece had pilot episodes, Ioannis Kapodistrias would be the prestige drama opener: an aristocrat from Corfu, trained doctor, star diplomat in Russia, co-architect of neutral Switzerland, and then the first Governor of a brand-new, half-burnt, bankrupt Greece. He arrived in 1828 to find a country that existed mostly as feeling and ashes, woke up at 5 a.m., lived like a monk, and tried to run the place with the intensity of that one colleague who sends emails at 06:02 “for Monday alignment.” Greece basically handed him a post-war start-up with no budget and said, “Please build a state, also we are all fighting.”
Kapodistrias went straight for the unglamorous essentials: currency, education, public health, borders, bureaucracy, diplomacy—everything that doesn’t fit on a fridge magnet but makes a country real. The folklore highlight is the potato story: when Greeks wouldn’t take them for free, he allegedly stacked sacks on the Nafplio docks under heavy guard, perfectly aware that Greeks would immediately be curious, think of potatoes as very important and “liberate” whatever seemed off-limits—early behavioral economics in action that worked. But for all the admiration he got abroad, in Greece he was accused of being too strict, too centralising, too “European,” and in 1831 he was assassinated outside the church of St Spyridon in Nafplio. If you’re diaspora, his arc feels painfully familiar: the hyper-qualified Greek abroad who returns to “help fix things,” tries to import Swiss-level order on people who fundamentally disagreed about what order should look like, and discovers that sometimes the hardest part of changing a country is convincing it to be changed.
📆 BEST OF GREEK CALENDAR
🖼️ 6 December 2025 to 11 April 2026, From Monet to Warhol: Three Generations, One Collection, B&E Goulandris Foundation, Athens
🎤 December 13, 2025, Rod Stewart, Athens
🎤 May 15, 2026, Patti Smith, Athens
🧳 TRAVEL NEWS
🏖️ Where Greece Goes to Exhale: Thermal Lakes, Blue-Zone Islands & Spa Resorts With Actual Soul
Pozar Baths
Greece did “wellness” long before cold plunges and chlorophyll shots The country is geologically blessed with thermal springs, volcanic mud, and mineral-rich waters bubbling up everywhere. Ancient Greeks built shrines to healing gods wherever hot water appeared. Modern Greeks built spas, some Instagram-worthy, others aggressively no-frills and full of elderly locals.
Edipsos on Evia is Greece's most famous spa town, where thermal springs reach 75°C and allegedly cure everything from arthritis to existential dread. Loutraki sits an hour from Athens with beachfront thermal baths where Greek grandmothers take two-week "cures" covered by health insurance. Ikaria's Therma springs are free, clothing-optional, and treated like a social club by locals. Kaiafas Lake in the Peloponnese is a thermal lake surrounded by forest where you float in warm medicinal water while storks judge you from trees. Pozar Baths in northern Greece cascade down mountainside pools that are genuinely beautiful. Methana Peninsula smells like sulfur but locals swear it fixes skin problems and your attitude.
If you are looking for fluffy robes, add a northern detour to Halkidiki, where resorts like the Myrthia Thermal Spa at Miraggio pair thalassotherapy pools with Aegean views, or go big in Crete at sprawling spa properties with thalasso centers and overwater-style villas that keep winning “best resort in Europe” prizes.
Greek wellness is less about deprivation and green juices and more about water, warmth, slowness, and being around people who will comment if you look tired.
♨️ Ikaria's Therma springs at dawn on weekdays - Free thermal pools by the sea, empty before 9am when locals arrive. Clothing optional but everyone's 70+ so nobody cares.
🏔️ Smokovo Springs near Serres - Wild hot springs in a river gorge. No facilities, no fees, just natural pools where locals have bathed for generations.
💧 Methana's Vromolimni beach - "Stink Lake" smells like rotten eggs but locals swear it cures skin conditions. Free, volcanic black sand, aggressively unsexy but allegedly effective.
🧖 Loutraki municipal baths - €5 entry, mostly Greek pensioners, zero tourists. Staff will prescribe your soak time based on your complaints.
 |  Ikaria Therma |
🆕 OBSESSIONS
🫒 A cultural culinary getaway in Messolongi
🏘️ The secrets of Mets, the most beautiful ‘village’ in Athens
🧑🍳 RECIPE OF THE WEEK
Melomakarona
mygreekdish.com
Melomakarona are the OTHER Christmas cookie every Greek household makes in December—oval-shaped, spiced with cinnamon and cloves, soaked in honey syrup, topped with crushed walnuts and made in industrial quantities. They taste like Christmas and improve with age, which is good because you'll be eating them until February.
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💡 INSPIRATION
In every person there is a sun, Just let them shine.
😂 MYTHIC MEMES
@vrussanos
That’s it for now. If you made it this far, you’ve now survived Greek tax FAQs, global feta anxiety, and our cookie referendum—congratulations, you’re basically certified Greek Talk core. Hit reply and tell us: where in the world are you reading from, and which holiday food says “home” to you? Catch you next week for more news, drama and deep dives. 🧿 Stay Greek. [email protected]
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