Trip itinerary: Greece & Istanbul
 

Hi all! Thank you for feedback for my previous posts which finally led me to this itinerary. Now I just need to get some ideas on charming local places such as shops, restaurants, cafes, experiences for each of the locations aside from the major touristy things which we plan on since this is our first trip to these locations. Background info: mid-30s, active, love history, museums (my husband loves more than me), architecture, dining hot spots, wine, souvenir shopping, some out-doorsy things. Here is what we have planned:

Sept 9: arrive in Athens in morning
Sept10: Athens 3 hour acropolis and city walking tour in morning
Sept 11: drive to Kastraki and stay night
Sept 12: see monestaries missed from day before, then drive to Delphi
Sept13: see Delphi, then drive to Athens and stay night
Sept 14: wander around Athens until about 21:00 then night ferry to Chania
Sept: 15-18 Chania
Sept 18: Heraklion and stay night so can catch morning ferry to Santorini (not morning people so do not want to wake up too early to take a bus to Heraklion from Chania)
Sept 19-22: Santorini, photo tour the day we get there
Sept 22-28: Istanbul by plane from Santorini via Athens (of course), staying in Sultanhamet for 2 nights & in Galata area for 4 nights. We plan on doing some historical walking tours and Bosphorus cruise.

Looks good to me! :-)

Thank you, Heimdall! Good to get confirmation.

If you like museums here are what to visit in Athens :
National Archaeological Mueseum, biggest of it's kind in the world, the Goulandris Museum, the Benaki and finally the Byzantine Museum. ( there are more....)

In Heraklion the local Archaeological Museum is closed for renovations, there is a room open with the highlights of the museum and this week they added 2 more rooms.
The museum is expected to be open in 2013.

We are going to have approximately 3 days in each of Rome, Istanbul and Athens. While we want to see the "must see" things in these places and learn "briefly" the interesting histories, we don't want to spend all of our time in museums either. I think by the time we've been to all these places we will start being "mosqued/churched out", "ruined out" and "museumed out".
Can anyone recommend which museums in these 3 cities we really should not miss?