Complete Greece Guide

From our agency in Athens, we see travelers every year torn between the islands and the mainland. Our advice: think of Greece in two phases. The mainland holds the major ancient sites (Delphi, Olympia, Mycenae), the stone villages of Pelion and the suspended monasteries of Meteora. The islands, meanwhile, are divided into archipelagos that have almost nothing in common: mineral and windswept Cyclades, lush and Venetian Ionian islands, Dodecanese marked by a thousand years of Ottoman and Italian influences.

Crete alone deserves ten days: the Minoan palaces of Knossos, the Samaria gorge spanning 16 kilometers of hiking, inland villages where dakos and bouboutista snails are still eaten. The Peloponnese, accessible in 2 hours by road from Athens via the Rio Bridge, concentrates Mystras, Monemvasia and the beaches of Mani across territory you can explore in a week. Further north, Epirus and its Zagori villages remain little frequented, with manageable temperatures even in the height of summer.

For a first trip, plan 12 to 15 days to combine Athens, a major ancient site and an archipelago. Beyond that, you can seriously explore two regions without rushing.