This would be our first trip to Greece, and I am having a tough time narrowing down places to visit, especially which islands. We plan to go fairly soon (September or October) and stay for 2 or 3 weeks.

About us and our interests:
-couple, over 60, just retired, time to travel!
-like old architecture (e.g., roman ruins, spanish forts, gothic cathedrals), medieval town centers, walled cities, mosaics, etc.
-like walks along a scenic waterfront (fresh or salt) for a few miles at a time
-UNESCO world heritage sites
-we like to avoid renting cars and prefer public transit. For longer trips we like trains, including because they have bathrooms, a consideration which has become more important in recent years...
-we like to spend at least several nights in each of our accommodations, as opposed to having to pack and unpack frequently. At each location we see the local sites, and may take one or two daytrips

We do NOT particularly like: hanging out on beaches, partying, crowds. Although, a lot of the most interesting places get crowded, and so we are willing to deal with crowds although we try to reduce it by traveling outside peak season, and trying to figure out if/when cruise ships are arriving in port.

Boy, looking at all the preferences I listed makes me feel like a hidebound cantankerous old dinosaur. But we've been able to figure it out and have lots of fun in other countries.

So, this all brings me to an itinerary (or lack thereof). So far, I have Athens and perhaps Meteora and Nafplio. I think I could probably find other places of interest on the mainland, although we might have to move around (and spend more time in transit between locations) than would be optimal. Understood that Greece uses buses more than trains.

But, I get the impression that a lot of the Greek experience is the islands. I have no idea which islands might align with our interests, as well as not being too painful from a transit perspective. Corfu seems to have a nice walkable medieval old town, but perhaps the rest of of it resorts and beaches. Santorini seems like a "must visit on your first trip to Greece" kind of place, due to it's scenic construction, but I'm not sure if it would be more than one day of activities if we weren't into partying or beaches. Rhodes seems to have some possibilities in terms of monumental architecture, but I'm not sure yet. Crete seems to have a lot of options, but necessitate renting a car.

I would very much appreciate suggestions as to islands that might align with our interests, as well as any other itinerary or site suggestions (to include the mainland) you may have.

Greece definitely affords a wealth of opportunities!

Given your interests and preferences, planning on a chunk of time in Athens and in Nafplio makes a lot of sense to me. Here are some thoughts about the other places you mention:

• As you say, many people consider Santorini a "must see." I'm glad I saw Akrotiri, but was otherwise an outlier in that I was not enthralled with it.
• I loved Crete; I'm not sure how easy it would be to meet your interests there without a car.
• I haven't been to Corfu or Rhodes yet, so no comments.
• I greatly enjoyed Naxos.
• Meteora is spectacular. Whether it's worth a few nights of your time depends, I think, on what else you decide to visit.
• I thought Thessaloniki vastly underrated and think it might prove of interest to you.

You might find some value in my trip report: With Gratitude for a Glorious Solo Month in Greece

Hope that helps!

I have not been to Santorini, but of course I can see from just looking on a map there is a lot to do and see there. It's not just an island! First thing you need to do is look at these places on Google Maps. Don't go by what everyone else sees and does. Yes, most people are giving every place the fly-by look. Really drill down and find what inspires you.

I decided not to go to any islands. Not because I don't want to or because they aren't glorious. I'm saving them for next time....

Not an island, but Nafplio is surrounded by ruins of various eras, some right in town, other's a short drive. Not sure about transit, but the driving was easy, and some of the ruins hardly had any visitors (in September). It's a coastal "old town", with beaches nearby, and plenty to explore.

I also loved Naxos. There are some ruins right in town (Venetian castle and Temple of Apollo). Other sites you'd need a car or a tour.

There are endless places in Greece to enjoy and choosing a good selection for a first visit with limited time is always a challenge. Some comments which may help if you've never been there.

We too prefer to use public transport and have always found buses and ferries in Greece to be great (but not always frequent). Trains are fine too but very limited. However, there are more than 40 main bus companies in Greece and it is not always easy to work out how to get from A to B if a multi-leg journey is required. Rome2rio is a good starting point to work out which bus company plies a certain route. Timetables are sometimes only in Greek (although most have some English) and, importantly, they invariably show the timetables effective now but not the future. Buses are comfortable and clean, rest stops are usually made on longer journeys, and drivers are excellent. Ferry timetables are available online (try openseas or ferryhopper) but I recommend booking directly with the relevant ferry company. Most of the time we just turn up and buy a ticket (we don't travel in July or August). The practice of booking buses and ferries well in advance doesn't really apply in Greece, except perhaps at Easter. It's not uncommon for bus tickets to become available online a couple of weeks in advance and often not at all. Greeks are spontaneous people.

Greece is wonderful and hugely varied, everything from crystal clear water, beaches, mountains, cities, gorgeous villages, and famous places to see. Its cities tend to be grittier in appearance, compared with others like Paris or Vienna. But they are vibrant and there's a lot to enjoy, particularly Athens and Thessaloniki.

Travelling using public transport can sometimes take time, as does driving, and people often don't take enough account of travel time. Given your wishlist and a desire to spend some time on the mainland and some on one or more islands (and your time of year and time available), I suggest that you do not attempt to visit both northern Greece and the Peloponnese and perhaps choose one or two islands with easy ferry connections.

You don't say where you're coming from - and, as said, there are millions of choices - if arriving in Athens, you could travel on arrival to Nafplio (bus airport to the bus station, then bus to Nafplio). There are a number of ancient sites near Nafplio but public transport to see them is limited so you may need either tours or hire a car for a couple of days (you don't need a car to explore Nafplio itself). Mystras is an abandoned Byzantine village, absolutely beautiful, and easily reached by bus if you wanted to head south for a couple of nights. Then you could take a bus back to Athens, metro to Piraeus and take a ferry to an island. I suggest Naxos as I think it is beautiful and meets some of your wish list. It's famous and apparently very busy in season but should be quieter when you're there and has a decent bus network from Chora. If you really want to see Santorini (don't feel compelled) then you could travel to Santorini for a few days or maybe to Paros (very touristy but attractive). Ferry back to Piraeus. Spend some time in Athens as it really rewards time spent there.

If you prefer to visit the north, you could alternatively consider flying into Thessaloniki instead of Athens and visit the city, Meteora, Delphi and lots of other places.

If you decide on a particular itinerary, I'm sure everyone would be happy to give their feedback. Enjoy yourselves!

Thanks for all the replies, which are helping me focus my research. My preliminary list now includes: Athens, Meteora, Nafplio, THessalonki, Naxos, Santorini, Corfu, and Rhodes. I looked at a listing of cruise ship arrival for Santorini, and it was rather daunting--multiple ships with several thousand passengers on each arriving at 7am on many different days in September.
My current interest in Santorini stems from all those photos of white houses with blue domes. Are there other islands (and/or towns) that would have a similar set of charming houses?

@kja: your trip report was very helpful. Although, I should note that it both raised my interest in Crete, and then dashed it with anecdotes that reinforced my reluctance to rent a car. Most of your other suggestions made it to my current list.

@shelemm: That does sound like a good way to further research each island (most are larger than I realized), and it's good to raise to possibility of visiting Greece without heading to any of the islands.

@MFNYC: Nafplio is moving up pretty high on our list, and the possibility of some sites being uncrowded in September is appealing

@dreamon: Coming from the USA. Your elaboration on public transit is very helpful and practical guidance. Thanks also for putting together a draft itinerary. It's a good starting point, while also reminding me that I'll have to spend more time looking at transit times to see how much of my list is feasible in a single trip. I will look into Mystras and Paros. Naxos and Nafplio continue to be strong candidates, largely due to feedback from this forum.

Sounds like you're making some progress!

"My current interest in Santorini stems from all those photos of white houses with blue domes. Are there other islands (and/or towns) that would have a similar set of charming houses?"-- The classic images are of Santorini. Of the other places currently on your list: a few corners in Naxos. And (not on your list), Mykonos and other Cyclades Islands.

I'm glad you found my TR helpful! i did have some, uh, disconcerting experiences with transportation on Crete. Yikes! But don't give up on Crete -- just be sure to explore your options. Rome2Rio is an excellent source of information about how to get from one place to another ... as long as you click through to the underlying sites and pay attention to dates, etc.

Do you have the Rough Guide for Greece? I found it particularly informative.

One other note: I could be wrong, but I think it's a bit late to be looking for lodging in Sept. If that's your time frame, you might want to explore your options before proceeding. Many parts of Greece can, I think, be wonderful destinations in the broader Sept. / Oct. time frame. For excellent climate data, see weatherspark.com

@kja: Thanks for the ongoing responses.
-I'll see if some of those other options can help repress my Santorini urges.
-Will check out the Rough Guide. Surprised that suggestion wasn't automatically censored by this site...
-It's a good warning. There's at least some lodging availability in some of these places, hotels as well as VRBO, but can't do a thorough check until I know our destinations.

If you have your heart set on seeing Santorini, go for it! Most people seem to like it far better than I did. And even though I was disappointed, I had wanted to see it and would have regretted skipping it.

People who post on Fodor's Forums are welcome to express their opinions about different guidebooks and other things, unless promoting one's own business / business interests -- that is forbidden.

As far as Santorini, Oia is the town that most of those blue dome photos represent, and also the town where the cruise ships arrive. I too wanted to go to Santorini for the beauty but were concerned about the corwds. Many in this forum advised against staying in Oia, as there are several other lovely areas to stay in. Most said the best time in Oia is the mornings and evenings. As it turned out, we had plans to do many other things during the days outside of Oia, and were only going to be there in mornings and evenings. I am glad we went to Santorini and glad we stayed in Oia, the mornings are magical. The evenings are busier, but we never had issues getting dinner reservations with sunset views, and enjoyed wandering around afterwards. Here's our trip report from there: Our September 2022 trip island hoping and Athens

One of these days I'll do one for the Crete/Nafplio trip.

And just want to add, we too are over 60, and for the most part, retired.

Use the Trip Advisor website. Find the forum page for any island that interests you. At the top of that island's page select "Things to do". This will help you decide if a specific island is where you would want to spend some of your time. Save Athens and the other mainland locations for the end of your trip so you have those days to get back from the islands in case of some sort of delay caused by mechanical breakdown, weather, strike or other unforeseen problem. If you do decide to include Corfu I suggest you go there first, since the other islands you've mentioned are not close by and are actually in the Aegean Sea, not the Ionian Sea.

We also stayed at Oia in May 2022 had the same experience as MFNYC, it was magical early mornings and late evenings. We rented a car and were touring other parts of the island during the daytime and avoided the crowds, luckily there wasn’t any cruise ship on one of our three days.

The ancient site of Akrotiri was fasc, also the red sand beach nearby. We took a caldera cruise tour which included swimming in the hot springs and hiking up to the volcano on Nea Kameni, which my niece and nephew greatly enjoyed.

Yes, Santorini is crowded and touristy, but there’s a reason why, it’s probably one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to, and I have visited 60 countries!

I recommend visiting Santorini, too! It’s crowded because it is stunningly beautiful and so very unique. We stayed in Firastefani which we found to be quieter and less crowded. We had a lovely room with a balcony overlooking the caldera at Blue Dolphin Suites. In May 2022 our room cost $230 per night. We stayed 3 nights, and we rented a car for a day to explore the island, including Akrotiri. I am quite sure there are buses that you can take if you don’t want to rent a car.

We loved Nafplio, so I second that.

The other island we really enjoyed is Naxos. We rented a car for a day to explore the island, too. But I know you can get around by bus, too.

Thanks again to all. Plans are starting to gel.

@kja: Will have to decide if Santorini was an uninformed whim, or one of those things I will flagellate myself for having not seen. Presumably nothing can be as crowded as the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.

@brotherleelove2004: I have also been looking at tripadvisor, but not on a per island basis. Sounds like a good idea. Visiting one cluster of islands does make sense to reduce the percentage of our trip we spend traveling.

@MFNYC, @geetika, @KarenWoo: The cruise ship info shows arrival and departure times that are consistent with your "these are the good times" assessments. Thanks for the pointers to specific accommodations/locales. I had considered staying on Naxos (which many here seem to love) and doing a day trip to Santorini, but that would (although I haven't checked the ferry schedules) likely constrain us to being there at the worst times. I'll have to see what else we can do on Santorini that would elude the peak mobs--without requiring a rental car.

Maybe, but at least the crowds in the Sagrada Familia are generally not drunk. ;-0

BTW, I'm glad that some people who truly enjoyed Santorini have given their input. I would hate for you to make a decision on the basis of my experience, which was apparently unusual.

In Santorini, we hired a private guide to drive us around for 1 of the days. We had 5 hours of his time. He made suggestions, but we customized it. We basically wanted to avoid having guide take us places that we can easily do on our own. Akrotiri was a priority for us, so we tweeked things so we can go there. At the end of the tour we asked him to drop us off at a nice lunch spot where we can take a taxi back to hotel, instead of going straight back to hotel. He dropped us off at a restaurant on Monolithos Beach (one of the black beaches). We booked guide from here: https://www.viator.com/tours/Cyclade...r/d957-54553P2. Other days we took buses and taxis. Our hotel there was a short distance from the bus station.

In Naxos we rented a car for 2 of the days to explore on our own. Paros we used buses and taxis. We had a car in Nafplio the entire time. Driving was easy there, and we had no problem finding parking outside the old town. Also drive from Athens airport (where we picked up car) to Nafplio was very straight forward. There are buses as well, if you don't want to drive.

@kja:
@MFNYC: That's an interesting option I hadn't considered. Thanks for the idea and an example of how to optimize usage of a private driver and balance it with other transportation options. Forgot to mention that the photos in your trip report were very helpful.

Obscurename, here are some Nafplio photos (on Snapfish)
https://www.snapfish.com/share?via=l...19070/SNAPFISH

Geetika & Zebec at Thermopylae, regarding oh-so scenic Santorini. Absolutely essential, one of travel's great moments.
The thing is to be strategic and selective. Go for sunrise somewhere. Avoid the obvious and the crowded.
Seek out the less-popular corners. Easy-peezy... and your efforts will be rewarded.

A two-fer combo to consider: Santorini followed by quieter Folegandros (our fave).
I am done. the nervous octopus

Hey ObscureName, I took your post copy and pasted it into ChatGPT4.o and said generate a Itinerary. Here is the output Your preferences and interests provide a great starting point for an enriching trip to Greece. Here’s a suggested itinerary that combines mainland Greece and a few islands, tailored to your interests:

Week 1: Athens and Surroundings

Days 1-5: Athens

• Day 1: Arrive in Athens, settle in your accommodation.
• Day 2: Explore the Acropolis, Parthenon, and the Acropolis Museum.
• Day 3: Visit the Ancient Agora, Roman Agora, and the Temple of Hephaestus.
• Day 4: Take a day trip to Delphi to see the ancient ruins and the Temple of Apollo (UNESCO World Heritage Site).
• Day 5: Stroll through Plaka, Monastiraki, and Syntagma Square. Visit the National Archaeological Museum.

Days 6-7: Nafplio

• Day 6: Travel to Nafplio by bus (approx. 2 hours). Explore the old town, Palamidi Fortress, and Bourtzi Castle.
• Day 7: Visit the ancient site of Mycenae and the Epidaurus Theatre.

Week 2: Mainland and Islands

Days 8-9: Meteora

• Day 8: Travel to Meteora by train (via Kalambaka, approx. 4-5 hours). Check into your accommodation.
• Day 9: Explore the monasteries of Meteora (UNESCO World Heritage Site) and enjoy the stunning landscapes.

Days 10-12: Corfu

• Day 10: Travel to Corfu (a combination of train/bus and ferry or a direct flight from Athens). Settle into your accommodation.
• Day 11: Explore the Old Town of Corfu (UNESCO World Heritage Site), including the Old Fortress and the Palace of St. Michael and St. George.
• Day 12: Enjoy a leisurely walk along the Liston Promenade and visit the Mon Repos Palace.

Week 3: Islands

Days 13-15: Rhodes

• Day 13: Travel to Rhodes (direct flight from Corfu or Athens).
• Day 14: Explore the medieval Old Town of Rhodes (UNESCO World Heritage Site), including the Palace of the Grand Master and Street of the Knights.
• Day 15: Visit the ancient city of Kamiros and the Acropolis of Lindos.

Days 16-18: Santorini

• Day 16: Travel to Santorini (direct flight or ferry from Rhodes).
• Day 17: Explore Fira, Oia, and the archaeological site of Akrotiri.
• Day 18: Enjoy a scenic walk from Fira to Oia along the caldera.

Day 19: Return to Athens

• Travel back to Athens for your departure or any last-minute sightseeing/shopping.

Optional Extensions:

• Crete: If you decide to extend your trip, consider visiting Crete for its rich history and archaeological sites like Knossos. However, it might require renting a car for optimal exploration.
• Peloponnese: Alternatively, explore more of the Peloponnese region, including Ancient Olympia and Mystras.

Transportation Tips:

• Public Transit: Utilize trains, buses, and ferries for intercity travel. Athens has a good public transport network for getting around the city.
• Day Trips: For day trips, organized tours can be convenient and informative.
• Flights: Domestic flights are a time-efficient way to travel between distant islands.

This itinerary balances your interest in historical sites, scenic walks, and a comfortable pace of travel. Enjoy your trip to Greece!