lmavolio

Hi All - I am planning a 2 week trip to Greece in early-mid June. I'm allowing for 2 days of travel from NY to Greece, so I will have 12 nights/days total in Greece and would like to spend most of my time on the Islands, with 1-2 days in Athens. (wish I had longer!!!)

My husband & I are in our early 30's and our interests are in wandering around beautiful/quaint towns, experiencing authentic Greek culture, checking out a couple of beautiful beaches and of course eating!

Any suggestions on where we should visit based on our interests and the time of year? I know it will take some time to travel from place to place and I don't want to kill all of our time "bouncing," but I would like to see some of the true highlights of Greece.

Thanks so much!!

lmavolio

By way of some additional info, the areas I am most interested in are:

Santorini (of course!)
Naxos
Mykonos
Crete (Chania and possibly Knossos)
Corfu
Zakinthos
Napflion
Athens
Rhodes (possibly)

Clearly, I cannot see all of these areas in 12 days...So, I am looking for the best itinerary based on those who have been to Greece. Not sure if this helps narrow things down, but Thanks!!

Heimdall

For twelve days you need to narrow your itinerary down to no more than four locations, which will give you three days for each. Remember, though, that each transfer will eat up the better part of a day in travel, checking in and out of hotels, etc. If Athens and Santorini are 'givens', that leaves two more locations.

Rather than waste lots of time travelling to different ends of the country, stick to locations that are easy to reach from one another. For instance, you can do Athens and Nafplion together. You could also combine Santorini with Crete OR Mykonos OR Naxos.

For me, I would cut my itinerary even further, down to only two or three stops maximum. That would mean Athens and two islands, or Athens, Nafplion, and one island.

carylspall

I would consider spending 2 days in Athens, fly to Santorini (to save time) for 3 days, fly back to Athens, hire a car and do a circular from Athens up to Delphi, Meteora and head down to the Pellopponese, back to Athens in the time left.
We had 3 weeks in Greece 4 years ago and LOVED the Pelloponese region. The food was by far the best in those regions. It seemed that the farther north we travelled, the less enjoyable the food was for us. You are in for a real treat! Enjoy your holiday!

cathies

There is a lot to do in Athens itself. It's a gorgeous city to wander around, and to look up and see the acropolis is breathtaking. The National Archaeological Museum is fabulous, even if you just go to see the statues, there is a bronze of Poseiden that is wonderful! I would recommend that you spend two full days in Athens and don't try to see as many islands. We spent a few days seeing the countryside on the mainland - Olympia and Delphi (in the Pelloponese)are both wonderful and only a few hours out of Athens. I agree with Carylspall's trip plan - sounds similar to ours and we loved every minute. DON'T catch the fast ferry to Santorini - inexpensive yes, but it took hours! compared to a 30 min plane trip.
Enjoy, it is a fabulous country.

lmavolio

Thanks for all of the feedback everyone!! I'm not too familiar with the Pelloponese region right now, I'll have to look into that. In the interim,

Would this work or is this too much running around??

June 6 - Arrive in Athens with connecting flight to Crete
June 7-9 - Crete (Chania but maybe last night in Iraklion to see Knossos and be close to ferry to Santorini??)
June 10 - AM depart for Santorini
June 11-12 - Santorini
June 13 - AM depart for either Mykonos or Naxos (haven't decided yet)
June 14-15 - Mykonos or Naxos
June 16 - AM flight back to Athens
June 17 - Athens
June 18 - flight back to NY

Also, based on my initial list of places of interest, is there a better itinerary I should be looking at? Thanks all! SO EXCITED FOR THIS TRIP!!

Heimdall

That itinerary would work, although you will use the better part of a day in each island transfer. These islands are fairly close together, though, so your ferry journeys will be no more than a few hours each.

For Crete-Santorini and Santorini-Mykonos you can take FlyingCat 4, the fast passenger-only catamaran. For Santorini-Naxos you will probably have to take Blue Star Paros, which leaves at 3:30pm and arrives Naxos around 6:00pm. there may be an earlier ferry, but timetables for June haven't been published yet, except for Blue Star: http://tinyurl.com/y4gsfk.

Should you decide on Naxos, there is only one flight per day to Athens, which this year departed Naxos in the early afternoon. Aegean Airlines doesn't fly to Naxos (the runway isn't long enough for their aircraft), so you will have to rely on Olympic, or whatever airline succeeds it (the future of Olympic Airlines and its routes is uncertain at the moment).

lmavolio

If I added an extra day to this itinerary, would that give me enough time to see Napflion as well?? I don't know how long it would take to get there from Athens, but I'd love to spend at least a day there to check out the town...It sounds beautiful. Let me know what you think. Thanks!!

caughttravelbug

Not sure if you've already secured your hotel for Athens but my husband and I *loved* the Fresh Hotel - we were able to walk everywhere and took the train from the airport with a short walk to the hotel. It's a hip, trendy hotel - the Discovery Channel happened to be there taping it fof an episode while we were there, which was fun. We went to Rhodes from Athens and sailed there and also to the small island of Simi.