No first hand experience here - - but I might follow the advice of Matt Barrett, the internet guru of Greece travel - - http://www.greecetravel.com/dolphinhellas

Best wishes,

Rex

We have no experience with Tauck but have travelled with Grand Circle three times in the past two years with three more scheduled for the next year. We have also travelled independantly and have throughly enjoyed having the details taken care of by someone else. Grand Circle makes a great effort to introduce their travellers to the local culture, religion, people, etc. We were with Cosmos in Spain in June and this was not true on that trip. We have never had any complaints about hotels, program directors, pacing or itineraries with Grand Circle. We have stayed in the Metropolitan Hotel in Athens, although not with Grand Circle, and found it to be execellent, although not quite in the center of things, although it is a short to moderate walk to the Acropolis, and they do have complimentatary shuttle service. Taxis are also pleantiful and we had no problems with them. The Greek Islands are not to be missed, so the land and sea flavor of this trip is excellent. Istanbul is a beautiful city and the people are friendly, although we were there before the current war. I would not hesitate to go there again. Grand Circle does market to an older audience than most, but, I believe, that audience is what you encounter whoever you go with. We are in our late fifties and are younger than the median on any of the tours we've taken, but we've never been the youngest. The Hotel Taksim Plaza is also not in the center of things. We did not stay there, but in another hotel in Taksim Square. It was again a short to moderate walk to the center, with excellent public transportation and taxis (cheap too). If you have any other questions we would be glad to answer them.

Good Luck

We did an Insight tour to Greece and also stayed at the Metropolitan Hotel in Athens. Our mainland guide was Johanna, and she was wonderful--a history and archeology major who knew her stuff. We had a week on the mainland and a week of island hopping and really enjoyed the trip.

Personally I would not take ANY tour of Greece unless it included the so-called "classical" sites of Corinth, Olympia, Delphi, and Naphlion. If you had the time and money and could combine this with a tour of the Greek islands and/or Western Turkey then all the better.

The Insight tour included visits to Mycenae, Naphlion, Delphi (my favorite), Olympia, and Meteora. We didn't get to see anything in Corinth except the canal.