I am planning a 7 day (6 nights) trip to Greece.

I arrive Athens on August 28 from London at 5pm and depart Santorini at 1:30pm.

My biggest question is: what is the best use of our time? Should we spend 3 nights in Athens / 3 nights in Santorini, or spend more time in Santorini perhaps 4nights and 2 nights in Athens? I primarily would like this to be a relaxing trip, but we definitely like exploring cities.

Also, what you recommend flying or taking a ferry from Athens to Santorini?

Thanks

Athens is going to be extremely busy, extremely hot and extremely smoggy in August. If it were me I'd save it for the end of the trip and only spend 2 nights there.

With so little time I recommend that you fly. Athens Airways still has some cheap flights available.

http://www.athensairways.com/cgi-bin...i?ZF=2&LANG=EN

Easy Jet has direct flights to Santorini in August.

Athens is a lovely city but the major sights can be seen in a day or two. If you stay somewhere in the center of town you will be able to easily walk (or metro) to all the popular places. There is a direct train from the airport to down town Athens. Very clean and efficient.

I'd do Athens first then go on to a more relaxing part of the trip.

Have fun,
Lily

just got back from a 10 day trip to greece. in my opinion 2 full days / 2 nights in athens is enough time. one day for the national archaelogical museum and the other for exploring plaka, acropolis, and ancient agora. i found the rest of athens to be quite grimey and some parts downright unsafe at night.

spend as much time as possible in santorini. i had 5 full days and could have spent another 5 there. there is so much to do in santorini and it's just drop dead gorgeous.