See Peru through the eyes of the women who call it home on Intrepid’s new Women’s Expedition. Travel with an expert female leader and a small group of like-minded women - trek the Andes, take part in a traditional textile workshop and join a female shaman’s spiritual practice on this immersive 8-day adventure.

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🏆 University of Athens took three golds, three silvers, and two bronzes at an international math competition, the kind of Greek achievement that would go viral if it involved a ball instead of an equation CONGRATS!! 👏 👏 🇬🇷

🏅 Petrounias won gold on rings with a severe back injury, which in any other sport would be called insane and in gymnastics is called Tuesday.

🤖 The future has arrived and it is angry, as Athens drivers are getting AI-generated traffic fines.

🏛️ Underwater research off Karpathos just mapped 26 centuries of seafloor history, which in Greece means even the ocean has more archaeological layers than most countries have on land.

🏗️ Larissa's ancient theater is getting a major restoration, finally giving the city something to talk about besides being the butt of every Greek geography joke.

🏠 The IMF told Greece to tax vacant homes to ease the housing crisis, advice that will be received with the same enthusiasm Greeks reserve for all IMF suggestions.

💰 Greece's taxman is launching a guide for investors, combining two words that have never inspired confidence in the same sentence: "Greek" and "tax guidance."

🇦🇶 The University of Athens joined Greece's first scientific diving expedition to Antarctica, officially putting Greek researchers on every continent.

🎓 Melbourne’s Greek community schools marked March 25 and heroic Messolonghi, keeping alive the sacred tradition of children performing history while parents film from impossible angles.

🇨🇦 Quebec's National Assembly recognized the 120-year history of Montreal's Greek community, which is roughly how long it takes a Greek community to be considered "recently established."

🇦🇺 Greek summer camp in Thessaloniki returns for its fifth year for Greek Australians aged 18-24, the program that sends diaspora kids to Greece and brings them back with better Greek and worse sleeping habits.

🇦🇷 Aeschylus' "The Persians" was staged in Buenos Aires, proving that a play written in 472 BCE still tours better than most living playwrights.

🇦🇺 Canberra held a Greek Independence event at the National Museum, because Australia continues to celebrate Greek history with more enthusiasm than several actual Greek cities.

💌 Send it to [email protected] - your question might become next week's featured Q&A.

In the 9th century, Emperor Theophilos held a bride show, a Byzantine custom where eligible women were presented and the emperor chose his future wife by handing her a golden apple. Kassia was there: beautiful, highly educated, and, according to later tradition, the obvious standout. The story goes that Theophilos approached her and said, “Through a woman, evil things came to man”, referring to Eve. Kassia answered immediately: “And through a woman, better things began”, meaning the Virgin Mary. In other words, the emperor tried to be clever, and Kassia was cleverer. He moved on and chose someone else.

Kassia became a nun, founded a convent, and went on to write hymns, including the one still sung every Holy Tuesday in Orthodox churches around the world: the Hymn of Kassiani. It is written in the voice of the sinful woman who washed Christ’s feet with her tears, and when it is sung well, even people who only show up at church twice a year suddenly go very quiet. Tradition adds one more twist: years later, Theophilos visited Kassia’s convent while she was writing the hymn; she hid, he found the unfinished manuscript, and he added a line before leaving. Historians are not sure that part really happened. What is certain is that a woman remembered for outwitting an emperor went on to write something that outlasted his dynasty by more than a thousand years. Every Holy Week, her words are still sung.

😂 April 23, 2026, Ira Katsouda stand-up comedy, London

😂 April - November, 2026, Basile, Growing up Greek In America tour - info here

💃 May 9, 2026, Big Fat Greek Festival, Johannesburg, South Africa

Corfu at Easter is not subtle. Other places do Holy Week with solemnity. Corfu does solemnity too, but it also adds marching bands, candlelit streets, packed squares, and on Holy Saturday morning, a perfectly organized outbreak of people throwing giant clay pots off their balconies. This is the famous Botides tradition, and yes, it is exactly what it sounds like. At 11 a.m., the bells ring for the First Resurrection and the pots go flying. They smash below in a crash so loud and sudden it feels less like a custom and more like the city collectively deciding it has had enough of sadness.

That is what makes Easter in Corfu so good. It is deeply religious, but it is also public, theatrical, noisy, and completely committed to the occasion. On Good Friday, the bands play funeral marches through the Old Town and every procession seems to pass through the streets at once. By Saturday morning, the whole place is leaning forward. Then the pots shatter, people cheer, and the mood changes instantly. By midnight, everyone is out again for the Resurrection, the churches are glowing, the streets are full, and the island feels wide awake.

And then there are the smaller things that make it even better. After the Botides, people pick up pieces of the broken red clay and keep them for good luck. The bakeries are full of fogatsa, Corfu’s soft Easter bread, which exists partly to remind you that local variations are what keep Greece interesting. If you go, do not expect a peaceful spring break with a little culture on the side. Expect crowds, bells, music, candles, noise, and one of the few weekends in Greece where faith and spectacle stop pretending they are different things.

Grab a boti shard — Free souvenir, good luck charm, and proof you were close enough when it all came down.

Good Friday in a village — The Old Town is beautiful, but a village procession feels quieter, older, and less like you are being elbowed by six cruise passengers.

Fogatsa — Corfu’s Easter bread. Buy one, then buy another when someone starts comparing it to tsoureki.

Follow the bands — In Corfu during Holy Week, this is genuinely good life advice

Magiritsa is the soup waiting for you after the Resurrection service on Holy Saturday: lamb offal, spring onions, dill, and avgolemono served at an hour when most cuisines are asleep and Greeks are just getting started. It breaks the fast and emotionally divides the nation. It is not a beautiful soup, but it may be the most unmistakable flavor memory in Greek culture. And if your family skips it and goes straight to lamb on Sunday, that is your business, but your yiayia definitely has thoughts.

Tsoureki is the braided Easter bread that requires mahlepi, mastiha, eggs, butter, patience, and the willingness to spend an entire day kneading dough. The recipe looks straightforward until the dough refuses to rise or even cooperate and you begin to understand why Greek bakeries inspire such loyalty. A good tsoureki should be fluffy, fragrant, glossy on top, and finished with a red egg that looks symbolic rather than trying to escape (or sprinkle sliced almonds and call it a day). If yours tastes right but comes out looking wrong, serve it proudly and blame the oven. Most Greek families do.

🕯 The Easter candle lighting is not just symbolic. Every Holy Saturday, the Holy Light flies in from Jerusalem, gets received in Athens with full ceremony, and is distributed across Greece by additional flights and road transfers so churches can light their candles from the same flame at midnight. One of the most moving moments of Greek Easter also happens to be one of the country’s more impressive annual logistics operations.

That’s it for now. Whether you're in a packed church in Athens, a candlelit village in the Peloponnese, or a parish hall in Queens trying to keep your kids quiet during the Twelve Gospels, this is the week. Kalo Pascha to everyone celebrating. Keep your candle lit. 🧿 Stay Greek. [email protected]