Tour operators for Peloponnese & Mainland
 

My boyfriend and I will be in Greece for a total of 17 tourist days. We will be spending time in the islands and Athens.

However we also want to do two side loops on the mainland -
- Delphi/Meteora - 3 days
- Peloponnse (Corinth, Napfilo, Epidaurus, Mycenae, Olympia) 4 or 5 days

We are not big on driving so were thinking of taking organized tours for these two loops.

Could you please recommend budget tour companies?

Thanks for all your help.

Anyone, please?

Or are tours not necessary and we can do this driving?

Any suggestions would be very very helpful. Thank you

The two main tour operators in Greece are CHAT Tours and Key Tours; they are pretty much interchangeable. Your hotel will most likely have the brochures of one or the other. There are many travel agencies in Athens; you can pick up the other company's brochures at one of them.

I've never come across a "budget tour operator" in Greece. You might ask your question at

http://thorntree.lonelyplanet.com/

where the people tend to be younger and more budget-minded.

One of the standard offerings of CHAT and Key is the Four-Day Classical Tour. It includes the places on the Peloponnese that you have mentioned as well as Delphi.

I'm sure there are tours that go to the Meteora as well.

Both CHAT and Key used to offer hotel options: you could choose between staying in more expensive or less expensive hotels.

I don't drive, so I can't offer an opinion on whether it would easier and/or better to do the tours by car.

I am leaving Thursday for a trip to Greece which will include a four day/three night organized tour including almost all the sites you list. I arranged it through Fantasy Travel, at www.fantasy.gr.

Thank you so much Eloise and Nikki for your responses. I've never been on an tour with guide, group, and bus before (except in grade school). So I'm a bit hesitant. I don't want to feel rushed or like a sheep.

Nikki - when you come back please tell me how the tour goes.

I'm beginning to think I gave up too easily on the Greek bus/train system and that we can probably do this on our own... but I"ll definitely look into those companies for comparison.

Thank you

Matrexx: Unless things have changed a great deal since I was last in Greece, I would strongly urge you NOT to try to tour the Peloponnese and the mainland by train and bus.

The train system in Greece is very sketchy; the bus system is only a little better. Please also bear in mind that public transportation (train or bus) will take you to the modern town and not to the ancient town that you want to visit, e.g., in Corinth. And some of the towns are so small, I rather wonder whether they even have taxis. They probably have a few "amateur" taxi drivers, who do it on the side; and you'll have to take them twice, to get to the ancient site and to get back to your hotel, unless you have them wait, which puts pressure on your sightseeing.

Matrexx, I share your concerns about organized tours, and I have not gone on one since school either. However, I do not want to worry about driving in Greece with road signs in an unfamiliar language on narrow, steep mountain roads. Indytravel's report on his trip last fall convinced me of that. I will try to post a report when I return. I am very excited about the sites we are going to visit.

Well I checked out the suggested tour companies (thank you all for the suggestions). I'm currently leaning towards the following:
Peloponese - take the bus/train to Naphlio and rent a car there to visit Mycenae, Tiryns, Epadauros, Corinth.
Delphi / Meteora - take the bus to Delphi (seems pretty straight forward)and then rent a car to go to Meteora so that we have it to drive around the area. Then drop the car back at Delphi on our way back to Athens.

Or some variation on the above. A combination of car rental and public transit.

Thanks again.

Your idea sounds very good, but the towns of Nafplio and Delphi are really not very large. I would suggest that you make sure well in advance that there are car rental agencies in both towns; if there are, it would probably be wise to reserve a car in advance.

Just back from Greece. My daughter and I took the four day, three night classical tour operated by G.O. Travel from Athens. This was arranged through Fantasy Travel. Had a great time, really glad to have done this. I only felt rushed one time, at Mycenae, where I would have liked longer to poke around the ruins of Agamemnon's city, but for some reason that was not clear to me, we had less time there than we had been told. It may have had something to do with the fact that it was a holiday in Greece (Clean Monday) and the site was closing early.

We visited Epidaurus, Mycenae, Olympia, Delphi, and Meteora. Fabulous sites that I would never have been able to see without the tour. The touring was done in the mornings, and the driving was done after lunch. This allowed us to visit the sites early, before they became too crowded. I did not feel we were being herded like sheep. The guide would tell us when we were meeting back at the bus, and we could take in the sites at our own pace if we didn't want to stick with the group. This worked well for me, as I liked to linger and take pictures. Of course I now have WAY too many pictures.

The people on the tour were a surprising mix of educated, interesting folks from all over the world. The restaurants at lunch time were clearly made to be visited by tour buses, but they were much better than similar places in the U.S. In fact, I really liked these lunches for the most part. Lunch was not included in the price, so we got to choose our own selections.

Dinner, which was included, was served at our hotels, and was nothing to write home about. One could go elsewhere if the hotel was within walking distance of the village, but this was not always the case. If you are a picky eater, this might be a problem, because there was no choice of dinner, everyone got the same thing.

I found it a real advantage having a guide on the bus rides. She was able to answer all the little questions people had about things we saw along the way. When we drive ourselves we have the questions, but they frequently go unanswered. Commentary was given in two languages, English and French.

We got to see a pretty large chunk of Greek countryside between the major sites, and it was spectacular. I had to force myself to keep my eyes open when I was getting drowsy, because I didn't want to miss a thing.

Leaving Korinth to Epidaurus, there is a small town called "Loutra Elenis" expensive homes, magnificint beaches & outdoor restaurants, very reasonably priced. Stop in and enjoy the food, people and the many beaches.
It about 5 minutes past a small military base on the highway. Don't blink you pass thru this lovely town.

This is a link to my trip report, which I have finally finished.

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34589254