Heimdall

Travelerjan has an excellent itinerary, but allow me to make one suggestion: since it's so early in the season, consider Mykonos rather than Naxos.

Mykonos is crowded in July and August, but delightful in May and early June. The island has good beaches, a beautiful chora (main town) with great shops and restaurants, and best of all, the island of Delos only 30 minutes away. You can take FlyingCat 4 directly from Santorini to Mykonos.

Naxos is a good choice too, but will be very quiet in early May. If you do choose Naxos, try to take a day trip to Delos to see its spectacular ruins. I'm not sure the excursion boats from Naxos start that early in the season, though - perhaps travelerjan knows.

Heimdall

I just did a Google search, and it appears that at least one excursion from Naxos to Delos operates from the beginning of May.

travelerjan

Thanks Heimdall, I forgot to mention that Naxos does have the advantage of a 1-day excursion to Delos & Mykonos, and it's a great choice. it gives you 3.5-4 hours in Delos (really, all you'd want), and about 4 hours in Mykonos, to wander the port town, shop, etc.

I still feel that Naxos would be a good early-May choice because I have been there as early as May 10; if you stay in Naxos Town or St. GEorge beach, everything is "up and running". There are several other reasons I would suggest Naxos vs. Mykonos for this particular pair:

(1) Their concern about timing to use frequent-flier miles tells me their budget is more limited -- and Mykonos lodgings even off-season are about 2 x as expensive as Naxos (budget rooms 30-35 vs 55-60). Food & drink also higher, not to mention over-priced jewelry aimed at the cruise crowd.

(2) OP specifically said they are interested in history, ancient sites etc. Delos can be covered via excursion and Mykonos itself has almost nothing of that sort. By contrast, Naxos has THE best pre-history museum in the Cyclades, tons of wonderful sites to explore.

Once again, I'll post a link to Fodorite stanbr's terrif slide-show of some Naxian highlights ---
http://travel.webshots.com/slideshow/552001505EYxVYT
NOTE: to speed up, click on photo, menu drops down, speed up to 3 secs per slide change

Goldiept

Well, tonight is the night that I have to finalize the plan. The ticket will be on hold until midnight and I still have a hard time deciding if I should take that extra day off from work. We are only talking one extra day but it will mean enough loss of income for me to obsess about it.

Hate to say that I will probably just do 12 instead of the 13 nights. Oh well...have to earn to be able to go away - right?

Thanks so much for the photos, Jan. My heart leapt as I was looking at them. I am going to take all of your suggestions to Barnes and Noble and take my time checking all if it out.

Thanks for the itinerary too! Sounds like you have spent a LOT of time there - how I envy that! Also, my daughter is going to put some time into investigating. We will each to our own thing and then consult with each other. I am so grateful to have this framework. I don't feel as lost as I would otherwise - reading and just getting more and more confused.

I'll sign off now with this wealth of information and check it all out. Hope you will all be out there the next time I need you help. It is still so far off that the immediacy to actually look for hotels doesn't feel as pressing.

Having said that, if you have names of hotels to recommend - not luxury and not cheapo either, I would love to know about them.

travelerjan

as I said, e-mail me.

Maudie

Book marking