Email and internet use has caught on in a big way in Greece; electronic addresses or websites are given in this guide for the growing number of travel companies and hotels that have them. For your own email needs, you're best off using the various internet cafés which have sprung up in the larger towns - street addresses are given where appropriate. Rates tend to be about €4.50 per hour maximum, often less.

Ideally you should sign up in advance for a free internet email address that can be accessed from anywhere, for example YahooMail or Hotmail - accessible through www.yahoo.com and www.hotmail.com . Once you've set up an account, you can use these sites to pick up and send mail from any internet caf? or hotel with internet access.

Alternatively, you can lug your own laptop around, not such a burden as they get progressively lighter. You will need about 2m of North American-standard cable (UK ones will not work), lightweight and easily purchasable in Greece, with RJ-11 male terminals at each end. The Greek dial tone is discontinuous and thus not recognized by most modems - instruct it to "ignore dial tone". Many newer hotel rooms have RJ-11 sockets , but some older ones still have their phones hard-wired into the wall. You can get around this problem with a female-female adaptor , either RJ-11- or 6P6C-configured, available at better electrical retailers. They weigh and cost next to nothing, so carry both (one is sure to work) for making a splice between your cable and the RJ-11 end of the cable between the wall and phone (which you simply unplug). You will usually have to dial an initial "9" or "0" to get around the hotel's central switchboard for a proper external dial tone.

Compuserve and AOL definitely have points of presence in Greece, but more obscure ISPs may also have a reciprocal agreement with Greek-based ISPs like forthnet.gr and otenet.gr , so ask your provider for a list of any available dial-up numbers. Piggybacking charges tend to be fairly high, but for a modest number of minutes per day, still work out rather less than patronizing an internet caf?

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