Faith581

My husband and I will be traveling to Greece for our 5-year anniversary in mid/late June 2012. We will be gone for 2 weeks. This is our first time to Greece and our first time traveling internationally together. I love travel, adventure, new places, history, and beautiful scenery. He is not sure how he is going to like international travel (he has only traveled for business and humanitarian trips in the past, never just for fun!) He values a good deal and a simple itinerary. Our combined goals are romance, low-key travel, but enough adventure/excursions so we don't get bored. We love culture (ie: don't feel the need to go to the touristy spots, or the places that cater to Americans) and we love exercise (hikes, etc). We are planning to pack as little as possible-a backpack each. To try and mesh our 2 styles the plan so far is to fly into Athens and then hop on a plane for Santorini. Spend a couple of days each on a couple islands (recommendations so far are: Santorini, Crete, and Paros or Hydra) and then go back to Athens to explore and do some day trips (possibly Peloponnese or Delphi). We are on somewhat of a budget, so we realize that the majority of our money will be spent on airfare and then we will have to save on lodging, food, etc. Our original budget was $3000 but we were told this is impossible.
1. Any general tips for first-timers?
2. Any tips on saving money, especially when it comes to airfare?
3. We have heard it is possible, on the islands, to just show up and find a last minute room, is this feasible in late-June?
4. Any must-see places on the islands or mainland (knowing that my husband doesn't want to be overwhelmed with high-paced tourist travel, he is more happy in a low key environment, taking a hike, exploring some ruins, checking out a little beach town, etc.
Thanks!!

mariha2912

Hello!
"Spend a couple of days each on a couple islands"
1) First times tend plan too much withoug taking into concideration time needed to get from A to B or how logistics work.
Personaly I believe that even tiny Santorini deserves at very least 3 nights/2 full days and this is fast paced. Talking about Paros even more days are required, not to mention Crete which is huge. Hydra can be walked around on a day more or less, so 2 nights might be ok. Personaly I wouls skip Crete on this trip, unless you plan to spend at least 10 days which doesn't seem like your plan, or you have on mind as a must see an easily accesible particular spot, like visiting Hiraklion to see near by Knossos. If you decide on a set itenerary, you can often save some time and even money, by fly between islands and Athens. Check Aegean air and Olympic air and subscribe for their newsletters. Some time around February/March they will release a few super-saver offers. If you book far in advance, you can fly from Athens to say Santorini on same or cheaper rate than a ferry ticket would cost. And you'll have a 30 minutes flight versus a 7 hours ferry ride.
You don't mention where are you coming from, but if possible, look on arriving in Greece on a flight straight to the islands, departing Greece from Athens so you do not backtrack!
2 weeks work fine for basic sites on Peloponnese+Delphi+one small island and Athens or maybe 2 islands if you make this fast paced. (Are you planning to hire a car for your mainland portion?)
2) See advice above about airfare. Note that the most you move around, the more money you'll spend.To be honest, you mention a general budget including your airfare which I have no idea how much it will cost. So I can't estimate what your daily budget will be. It will help to give us this information, and please in Euros. This is the currency in Greece, and I am not willing to do calculations for you especially not knowing what dollars you are reffering on. Exchange rate might change till time of your visit, but an approximate budget would help. Having a budget to work on, me and others can help as we will know approximately on what kind of accomondation, food etc you can rely.
3) Yes it is on early June, even on busy Santorini. What is availiable might not be suitable for your wanted budget, standards,location, expectations though. If you are flexible, then this works fine. You have to really be flexible though.
4)This is far too general. Decide on a draft itenerary and then people will make specific suggestions.

clausar

You say you wanna avoid touristy places, and yet your list contains the most touristy islands of Greece....
Santorini,Crete,Paros, Hydra....
I could mention many non or less touristy places.. islands and places on the Mainland, would you be willing to visit them?
Parga, Syvota,Ioannina on the mainland, or Kardamili, Stoupa, Finikounda, methoni, Koroni... or Islands such as Chios or Lesbos or Thassos ????

On smaller island there is this habit of people waiting on the harbour to promote their small hotels or private rooms.
Once you have agreed on the price, they will offer you a complimentary transfer ....
The problem starts in case you don't like the offered accommodation.. in that case you will have to return to the harbour on your own expenses.... in any case always ask exactly where the accommodation is located, in order to avoid complication.... ( a nice, cheap room only 5 minutes from here, can be 5 km away by car....)

In many bigger islands, like Crete and mainland cities nobody will be at the harbour/bus station advertising rooms, you will have to do your own research, something that is either time consuming or impossible ( in case of Crete).

Island hopping is very time consuming as well, the time of 2 weeks won't allow you to see too many islands plus the mainland. Keep in mind that every time you go from one island to another, you are loosing time.

Staying on the mainland, which has many many great cities and archeological sites/Museums and beaches to offer would be one option, combined with a stay on 1-2 islands.

Faith581

Mariha, thank you for your feedback. You asked about our budget, in Euro's our approximate budget for the whole trip would be around 3143. We are traveling from California. Thank you for the idea of flying straight to Santorini and avoiding the ferry ride. That would save time and be a good idea.

Clausar-yes, we are willing to try less touristy places. I have just mentioned the places that friends have told me about, but I am looking for advice, so thanks! We just want to see beautiful beaches and some historical sites.

To all: I guess our rough itinerary would be: Santorini (or other 1-2 islands), then the mainland (hopefully Peloponnese and Athens). Is it possible to take a train or bus between Athens and Peloponnese or is a car the only way?

clausar

Faith581
Santorini is the epitome of a touristy island.....
Islands that can be reached easily from Santorini, are touristy as well...
There are so many beautiful places in Greece that no one ever mentions here, as people always get advice for the same 5-6 places over and over again. I am glad that someone wants to discover new places...
As for Islands, i would recommend either Kea and Andros ( Andros is the second biggest cycladic island) or Sifnos and Serifos ( Serifos is one of my favorite cycladic islands)

The Mainland and especially the Peloponnese is absolutely beuatiful, you could do a tour , including the famous sites of Epidavros, Mycenae,Olympis and Corinth, plus the Southern Peloponnese with the beautiful villages of the Mani, Kardamili, Stoupa, Gythion or medieval Monemvasia and Mystras.
You could reach everything with a bus ( train is a bad idea - it is totally underdeveloped and very slow, plus not operating anymore in many parts of Greece)but best way to explore the Peloponnese would be a rental car.
In all the above places you can find inexpensive accommodation

As for beaches ,the Peloponnese has some of Greece's most beautiful ones...

Should you be interested in the above places, i'd be glad to give you more details.

Faith581

Clausar, thank you for the ideas. I have also heard that some of the most beautiful beaches are in the Peloponnese. Can you help me decide the timing of my trip? My husband will not enjoy himself if he has jetlag, so someone suggested we fly straight to the islands so we can have a few days of relaxation. However, there are no easy flights from the states to Kea, do you recommend we fly into Athens and then ferry (or fly?) over to Kea?

It sounds like you don't seem to think Santorini is worth the trip...is that correct?

After the islands we are then thinking of going to the mainland. Do you recommend we ferry (or fly?) to Athens and then take a bus to the Peloponnese or that we ferry/fly directly to the Peloponnese. I think it makes sense to end in Athens since our final flight will leave from Athens.

Do you think it is feasible to spend 2 weeks doing Kea (and maybe another island), the Peloponnese, and Athens? In that scenario, how many days would you spend in each location?
Thank you so much for your help and ideas!

Faith581

Clausar, I just spend some time researching Sifnos and Serifos...wow, they look amazing! You are starting to turn me away from the "well known" islands and towards these other ones. They look beautiful!

carolyn

On the mainland, after Athens I enjoyed Delphi the most. Olympia is lovely, too; the ancient site is very peaceful. Be aware that it will be hot in late June.

clausar

Faith581
Santorini is a unique island that i do like very much, my comments were actually based on the fact that you didn't like anything touristy.....
A tour of the Peloponnese starting and ending in Athens.
could look like that :

1. Day
pick up of car in Athens, drive to Delphi, visit the site and the museum, overnight in the city of Galaxidi ( lovely neoclassical city on the sea, 30 km away from Delphi)

2. Day
continue to Nafpaktos ( with a nice medieval small harbour) and further to Patras via the Rion Bridge ( very nice drive to Nafpaktos plus spectacular view from the bridge over the Patraic Gulf). Then continue to Olympia, overnight in Olympia

3. Day
Olympia - Kalamata- Stoupa/Kardamili
Kalamata is a nice city on the messenian gulf, with a nice old city, worth a stop. Stoupa and Kardamili are 2 beautiful villages in the Mani with nice beaches . Overnight in Stoupa or Kardamilli

4. Day
Kalamata- Nafplion, overnight in Nafplion
Nafplion is a lovely old city near to many archelogical sites

5. Day
Nafplion - Athens
Visit of Mycenae, Epidavros on your way to Athens

mariha2912

General budgeting comments:
On mainland you can find some lovely mostly family owned guesthouses/small B&B hotels. Depending on specifics, those can cost around 35-60 euro/night for a double room including a continental breakfast. If hiring a car, you can always stop along a smaller l;ess popular village and find some rooms to let or small guesthouse which might charge less than a similar place on the most known towns.
On the islands, there are really many variations according to island and location of island, but in general on June you'll find something along the same lines, maybe without breakfast on the lower scale. Advandage on the islands is that usually rooms to let offer a small fridge, a couple of cooking rings and basic equipement, so you can prepare your own meals and save some money.
Talking of food costs, the whole sharing-dishes-and-try-a-bit-of-everything Greek thing makes the trick for most visitors. On other cultures each idividual orders his own salad, first course, main course, desert and so on. This is not the case i Greece. Greeks will order only a main course each, and often even mot a main course, then share among them all salads, side dishes, dips, and even desserts. So you can easily have between you a Greek salad,one side dish, a main course each and pay around 15 euro or something. Tipsottled water costs more while taped water is free . Clarify when ordering. On mainland tap water is fine everywhere. On some islands tap water is not exactly dangerous for your health but it is rather unpleasant, as usually comes from disaltation etc. House wine coming on carafes is always cheaper than bottled wine, and often more tasty lol You may always refuse the bread offered on taverns etc if you do not plan to consume it. It comes with a couple of euros cover cost. In Greece, forget the 15% of the bill tip US etiquette. You can tip or not as you feel about it. If you are happy with service received on a tavern, you can leave 0.50-2 euros on the table for the waiter to take. Important note: Fish and sea food is extremely pricey in Greece, In general smaller fish (ie sardines) is cheaper than large fish (eg tuna). Fresh fish much more expensive than frozen. Fish, especially the larger ones, is sold by weight, so ask your fish to be weighted before hand to avoid great surprises. Note that by Greek law, menus should mention if a fish item is frozen or fresh.
Non tavern food...Note that some visitors, not only for saving, but because they really feel like it due to the summer heat and everything,often skip a proper lunch. You can easily buy a few fruits and vegetables and/or a loaf of bread and some refreshements and make your own snack to have on the beach or on a peaque-neaque on a nice location. If breakfast is not included on your accomondation deal, or you are not much of a breakfast person, you can always head for the bearest bakery. Bakeries in Greece offer not only bread but many kinds of tasty snacks. Cheesepies, green pies, hum&cheese pies, cookies.... Really tasty and no more than a couple of euro cost. Souvlaki/guros shops. Absolutely filling option, a pita gyros (the wraped thing) costs no more than 2-2.50 euro each and can keep you going for hours. On morning, on Athens and other places you'll see street vendors selling "koulouri" a simple sesame pastry that costs only 0.50 euro. On evenings you may find corn street vendors too. Delicious. Last but no least, you can always rely on the famous Greek periptero as a last resort. Periptera-small kiosks- are to be found on every corner, on every street, and serve as a place to buy a bit of everything. From cigarettes to condoms,from water to chocolates, from cokes to bus tickets(in Athens). A bottled water of 0.500 lt costs 0.50 euro, one litre costs 1 euro on the periptera. On large chain supermarkets you'll find cheaper water and items. On mini markets, corner shops and touristy similar shops, periptera will be often proved cheaper.

TexasAggie

You've gotten lots of excellent advice from clausar who lives in Greece and is very knowledgable about what to see and do. I'll just add my 2-cents that we love the Peloponnese. We've spent about 5 weeks there over the past few years and we still feel that we have a lot left to see.

Are you comfortable renting a car and driving? We've found the driving in Greece to be straightforward. Signage is generally good and main roads are in fine condition. From Nafplio (sometimes spelled Nauplion), which is 2.5-3 hours from Athens, you can easily daytrip to the following: Nemea (underrated, excellent site!!), Mycenae, Corinth & Acro Corinth, Epidauros, Lerna, Dendra, Midea (another underrated sight), Argos, the Argive Heraion (stunning), and many other small sites (Orchemenos comes to mind).

On the other side of the Peloponnese, we love Methoni and the Gialova area (near Pylos). Ancient Messene, which is daytrippable from Gialova, has to be one of the better preserved sites we've seen. King Nestor's Palace and of course Ancient Olympia are also amazing sites on this side of the Peloponnese. Finikounda is a fantastic beach.

I could go on and on, and haven't even mentioned beautiful Mystra or Monemvasia, but with only 2 weeks, you might consider getting a taste of the islands with Hydra and then spending the rest of your time exploring the Peloponnese at a leisurely pace. You can see a lot without spending the whole trip in the car (or on a ferry/plane). The people are friendly and the food is excellent. It will be quite warm by late June but plan accordingly and do your sightseeing early in the day so that you can spend the warm afternoons at the beach or by the pool.

Kali Taxithi (good travels...),

TA

clausar

Excellent advice Mariha !!!!
Glad to see that you took the time to give this detailed information. !!
The good about food in Greece is that you spend from 1,5 Euro for a cheesepie or 2 Euros for a souvlaki, up to 100 Euro per person in a gourmet restaurant.... there are always lots of choices.

TexasAggie
The Peloponnese is my favorite part of Greece is well, and it is such a pity that most people only visit the Argolis.
You have mentioned so many gorgeous places ( i just love Finikounda!!!), i hope this will animate others readong this post to include a tour of the peloponnese in their next travel.
I tried to include as many places as possible, as a proposal to Faith581, unfortunately due to the limited time, Monemvasia and Methoni/Finikounda/Pylos will have to wait for another trip.

Orchomenos is actually in Beotia about 120 km north of Athens, have you been there as well?
This is the official site of the municipality :
http://www.orchomenos.gr The small town has great archeological sites, i don't know not even one Greek, who has visited them.......

TexasAggie

Kalimera clausar, or should I say Kalispera since you are in Greece and it is almost evening there .
The Orchomenos site I referred to is actually in the Peloponnese (Arcadia) but we didn't see anyone else there so I am guessing that it is relatively unvisited. It has a beautiful theater over a very dramatic setting looking down into the Mantinean plain. There are other ruins at the site too that are interesting.
Here is a link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchomenus_(Arcadia)

clausar

TexasAggie
This is truly amazing, had never heard of this Orchomenos !!!
If the other Orchomenos is relatively unknown, this one i am sure nobody ever heard of......( speaking of Greece...)

Thank you for the link

Here is a website of the Greek Ministry of Culture that includes all the archeological sites of Greece, it is worth a visit!

http://odysseus.culture.gr/index_en.html

BeachGirl247

I took our first trip to Greece last may visiting Santorini, Naxos, Mykonos and Athens. I am not a fan of touristy places and yet enjoyed Oia on Santorini very much. Mykonos definitely fell into the touristy category for us as it was so over-run with cruisers. However, the back streets were very picturesque and charming. Oia was much quieter and we had a very relaxing time. We stayed in Oia and didn't venture into the busy town of Fira for that reason.

I like to mix a little bit of both for a first-time trip to a country to get a feel for a place.

It's amazing and we can't wait to get back to Greece.

Quark

Our first trip to Greece 4 years ago was to Santorini, Naxos and Athens. when we were deciding how to use miles for 2011 we went from Croatia, to Turkey and ultimately decided on Greece again: Crete and Paros, because we enjoyed our first trip so much. The first trip was the better of the two. You will never get over walking onto the promenade in Oia and seeing the caldera nor the pristine waters of so many of the beaches on Naxos. The food we experienced is still some of the best of our travels and the people on both trips were the kindest we've come across. You probably can't go wrong regardless of where you go but I wouldn't discount Santorini. We rented an ATV on both Santorini and Naxos and went everywhere, stopping at small out of the way restaurants and beaches that didn't cater to tourists. One of our favorite drives on Santorini was along the Aegean where the vineyards are at early dusk. We liked Naxos better than Paros where we also rented an ATV and saw much of the island. Our budget was much the same as yours and we were able to find very nice hotels to stay. We didn't go to high end restaurants but as I said never had better food. Our next trip to Greece will be to a few of the lesser traveled islands but we have no regrets over the ones we've been too.

mariha2912

Hello again!
I'll wait and see Faith581's decisions on a final itenerary, but I agree that popular places are popular for a reason. And of course you can get on somehow less visited attractions/areas/shops/taverns etc eveywhere,even on the busiest of places.
Still you can't compare a tiny 76 square kms island that normaly holds 11000 pernament citisents but gets hundrend of thousand visitors every summer (Santorini) with a small village that holds no visitors at all, or with visiting rural parts of Peloponnese that is 21500 square kms wide with 1200000 pernament population and gets maybe 1/100 of Santorini's visitors. The first one is a compact but crowded area easy to explore on a few days but holding disadvandages of a busy touristy place, the second is a very wide area, you can only see a small part of it on a more relaxed travel style.
I don't think that you can go wrong anyway, you'll just have a different experiece! You can't compare apples to pears I guess.

clausar

I have to disagree with Mariha....
In Greece there are so many "popular" places, that are just totally unknown in this Forum...
All i see are recommendations for Santorini, Naxos Paros, and sometimes for Crete, and as for Mainland, it's always either Argolis or Delphi.
Greece is much more than that and if someone would like to discover the true face of Greece, then i would recommend many other destinations, unknown for many American perhaps, but very well known for many years in Europe.
It doesn't have to be always Mykonos or Naxos, while there are so many Cycladic islands that are equally beautiful!! ( Santorini is the big exception, as it is a unique island)
Plus all the other great islands from Thassos to Lesbos and Kythira or Paxi( just to name a few) that wait to be discovered.
Or the many many different faces of the Mainland, like Epirus with it's beautiful mountains and amazing villages and the incredibly nice coastline, or Pelion with the Sporades Islands.. ( the list could be endless)
I just wish people would be more daring to try to discover more than the "popular" places.

Faith581

Thank you all for your responses! I appreciate all of your thoughtful comments. We are in the process of deciding our final plan...as soon as we decide I will post it to see if people have any last thoughts. Thanks and keep the ideas coming!

Mariha, thank you for the tips on food, customs, etc. One of the things to which we are most looking forward is the food It is great to know that sharing is an acceptable and encouraged custom! Also, yes, we feel very comfortable driving in a foreign country (we have done it many times) and we like the idea of renting a car to get around the Peloponnese. In fact, after hearing so many people talk about his beautiful area we are now torn between spending more time on the islands, or instead spending more time in Peloponnese.

TexasAggie

If you are beach people, in addition to Finikounda, there is a beautiful omega-shaped beach near Gialova called Voidokoilia. Google it for photographs! There is also an ancient tholos tomb up on the hill overlooking the beach. The gate around it was locked when we visited (May 2009) but you could still see quite a bit.
Happy Planning!

PS - I forgot to mention that ancient Tiryns is just 5 minutes outside Nafplio. There is a fantastically preserved tholos tomb in an ornage grove about 1km from it. Follow the signs through the organge trees in the car and it takes you right to it. You'll almost certainly have it to yourselves