laurenjones1919

I am heading to Athens, Greece for a business conference Nov.1st-5th this year. As we do every year, my husband will be flying over when I am done with work and we are hoping to take the next 8 days to travel through Greece.

Despite the poor timing for the Greek Islands, it is one of the places I have wanted to visit for years and years. I have read several posts about the islands needing to be visited in the summer, but unfortunately the timing cannot be changed for this trip due to work. We visited Italy 2 years ago and enjoyed Sorrento and Capri despite the cool weather etc.

My questions are really, what are the locations that are worth while in early November? We were hoping to visit Crete and Santorini or something along those lines, but cannot find ferries between the islands for this time? Do they ever run in November? Is there any way to make this vacation work in the islands and if so what is there to see / do in Nov, b/c we know we aren't going for sun bathing Any advice or suggestions would be very welcome!

portuense

In November, the further south the better so crete is the obvious choice. there are internal flights from athens which is much the best way to go at that time of your - it would take close to 24 hours by ferry from athens to crete at that time of year and not funny if a storm blows up. for flights try traveljungle.co.uk which tells you who goes where. santorini is beautiful and not at all a beach island but a bit exposed if you're staying in one of the villages on the rim of the caldera (and frankly why would you be there if you weren't). there's a good bit to do in crete esp in heraklion but it's walking country too. alternatives would be islands in the eastern aegean - those tucked into the coast of turkey eg samos, rhodes, lesbos. the latter is a great island with lots of things to see and a couple of beautiful towns. samos has a very pretty main town and harbour but maybe not quite so much in the way of activities. rhodes is full of history and has good places to stay, though they all do nowadays.If you're in the islands this book is outstanding - the best by a mile: http://www.greekislandhopping.com/Ho...ges/h_buy.html

dfr4848

We went to Greece including Santorini last Nov - also had a scheduling issue we couldn't do much about. We had never been to the islands and decided to go to Santorini regardless of the timing. We had a great time. Stayed in Oia (great view of the caldera and negotiated some very good hotel rates) and rented a car to explore rest of island. We flew and got some great fares on Aegean due to low season. We were also told the ferries can be very erratic that time of year due to seasonal adjustments and weather.

There were lots of shops and restaurants closed in Oia, but quite a few were open and we saw very few that were closed in Fira. Maybe we were lucky, but we had great weather and really enjoyed not having crowds. We thought there was more than enough to do and enjoy. Some of the vineyards were closed but most of the historical sights were open.

dfr4848

Should have added that we also went to Nafplio, Mycenae etc and thoroughly enjoyed them. Again, had great weather and didn't have any crowds. Nafplio has a lot to offer and is a wonderful destination. All the shops, museums, sites and restaurants were open.

laurenjones1919

Thanks for the great advice! Santorini was one of the islands that I was most excited about! Do you recommend any hotel in particular in Oia?

dfr: Did you fly directly into Santorini or do your trips to Nafplio first? Do you recommend Santorini for an extended amount of time, say over 2-3 days?

Thanks again for the response

dfr4848

We really liked Alexander's Boutique Hotel in Oia. Amazing views, great staff and got an exceptional rate for the Imperial Suite since it was offseason.

www.alexandershotel.com

Stayed 3.5 days in Santorini and thought that was a nice amount of time. We flew into Athens for a couple of days and then flew to Santorini. We did Nafplio, etc at the end.

I filed a rather detailed trip report this past Dec (including restaurants, costs, etc) which you should be able to find if you click on my name if you're interested