When you saddle a trip with a moniker as lofty as “Best of Greece”, you’d better make sure it lives up to the hype. This one does. Gaze out over rugged island coastlines, hike the Samaria Gorge and wander through white-washed villages as you cover the best of Crete, Santorini and mainland Greece. Start with the ancient sights of Athens, Meteora and Delphi, then trade this for sun-drenched beaches and adjust your watches to ‘island time’, a pace of life that nobody does better than the Greeks.
Greece and the Greek Islands are one of the favourite tourism destinations in Europe. Every year, the country welcomes millions of visitors from all over the world. Greece mainland and the Greek islands are one of the favorite holiday destinations in Europe. In fact, Greece comes in the 15th place in the world rating of tourist destinations, since, according to the National Statistical Service of Greece, it receives more than 15 million tourists every year, after countries such as the USA, China, Spain and Great Britain.
No one’s trip to Greece can be complete without a visit to its supreme symbol, the outcropping of rock called the Acropolis, crowned with Athena's sacred temple, the Parthenon. It looks great all day, but visit in the early morning or late afternoon to avoid the crowds. Skip the Sound and Light show - cold in temperature and corny in tone.
Atlantis legends, missing Minoans, a living volcanic legacy, swell sunsets, good local wine, fine restaurants, vampire stories, oodles of tourists. There's nothing like it. But rearrange your trip, cancel your tickets, do anything in your power to be able to arrive by sea, slowly crawling up the coast watching the banded cliffs of brown, black, and red crowned by snow-white tufa, a light lava which still clings to parts of the island like frosting on a cake.
The most famous Greek island got that way for good reason. It's charming, fun, beautiful, and now, renowned for sophisticated, international goings-on. Vibrant nightlife, terrific shopping, more nude and non-nude beaches per square mile than anywhere else in Greece, loved by gays, straights, honeymoon couples, Greeks, tourists...though half of all these groups will insist that the island is passé or over-developed, they still come in droves.