How to Plan an International Trip: Travel Tales and Tips : How to plan a Trip to Greece; Introduction

Greece is the Land of Gods and the birth place of many sciences and logical thinking.

The country has fascinating ancient history and is a mind-boggling land of firsts: the first Olympics; the first democracy; the Socratic method; the first historian (Herodotus); the inventors of mathematics, such as Pythagoras, Euclid, Archimedes, and Apollonius; the first philosopher, Thales of Miletus; the first actor, Thespis; the first cartographer and recorder of scientific experiment, Anaximander. The list goes on

Mention of Greece to a tourist conjures up the vision of majestic ruins, mesmerizing monuments, magnificent museums and magical monasteries perched precariously on high cliffs.

Of course the turquoise waters, spectacular sunsets and pristine beaches of the Greek Islands ignite the imagination and beckon all travelers. So there was a plethora of choices... a bewildering array of options when we decided to plan a Greek holiday!

We did succeed in enjoying a varied and fascinating flavor of this wonderful country as can be seen by these pics.

Ruins of Delphi here...

METEORA MONASTERIES...

Central Zagori:

Nafplio (Peloponnese)...

Above is the statue of Ioannis Kapodistrias, the first governor of the modern Greek state. he is considered one of the greatest politicians in Greek History.

This is the church of Agios Konstantinos in the Old Town of Nafplio

Statue of the revolutionary hero Staikos Staikopoulos who liberated Greece from the Turks after a successful siege and capture of Palamidi fort.

This is Pyli Xiras (Land Gate) built in 1708.... the only land entrance to the city surrounded by a moat.

Here's Spectacular Santorini with its unique caldera and cliff homes and 600 plus churches ... an ancient volcanic eruption 3600 years ago made the center of the island collapse creating a large circular caldera connected to the sea by multiple openings and lined by black cliffs.

Santorini's YPOSKAFOS homes (dug into cliffs) are Awesome and so are its blue domed churches...

Even caught an amazing sunset and moonrise

AMAZING Athens...

Day trip to Aegina...

Monastery of Agios Nektarios

Back in Athens...
Temple of Zeus...

National Garden

Benaki Museum...

National Archeological Museum

Hellenic motor museum

WHEN TO GO?

Summer is high season, with its inflated prices, hordes of tourists and high temperatures (heat waves of 100°F/+40°C are routine).

Best time to visit is spring and early summer (mid-Apr to mid-June) or autumn (Sept to mid-Oct).

We had US Thanksgiving holiday to use up and scheduled our holiday as early a we could in November...Nov 8-26. We always fly in on a Friday and fly out on Monday to avail good air fares from the US. We booked out return flights in and out of Athens

Our goal was to avoid heat and crowds but November could be quite rainy especially the latter part.

With the threat of Weather Gods raining on our parade, advice was to wing it without pre booked accommodations... deciding at short notice which places to include based on weather forecasts. We were too chicken to wing it, so just drew up a plan of all our targets and kept our fingers crossed.

SPOILER ALERT:

YES!! The weather elves did oblige us and painted the skies bright blue and blew in some fleecy white clouds wherever we went!! Blazing sun combined with cool breezes made it optimum for extensive walking. Surprisingly Peloponnese was a little wet, steady drizzle when we visited Epidavros... but nothing to dampen our spirits or derail our plans!

Also, the off season travel rewarded us with no crowds... 90% of the time we had the sites/sights to ourselves, to savor and enjoy!

Day light is less though...it gets dark at 6 PM

Here are pics showing the (non)crowd factor
Some more Delphi pics here...

Meteora monasteries ...

EVEN IN SANTORINI, we had a serene secluded experience!

I must confess we did get photo-bombed once in a while... just by some canine / feline pals!

Such an AWESOME experience having these exquisite places exclusively to ourselves!

WHAT TO SEE?

In this map I've circled in red our bases. N with an arrow is Nafplion in Peloponnese

Many first timers confine themselves to Athens and a couple of well known islands. In a population of just over 11 million, 40% live in Athens, more than 16 million tourists visit Greece each year.

Obviously we had to fly in and out of Athens and as huge history geeks we were raring to walk where Pluto, Socrates and Aristotole had roamed. We were sitting on the fence regarding the Cyclades islands but its unique architecture swung us in its favor. Poster boy of this group stunning Santorini suggested itself but we were wary of insane crowds thronging the coveted island. A quick look at the Ferry schedule showed that there were no ferries to the island on the days we may plan to visit!

http://www.santorini.net/information/cruise-ship-calendar/

We researched on what mainland Greece has to offer.

Meteora with its AWESOME monasteries (with Hosios Loukas monastery and Delphi on the way) and Central Zagori region with its lovely Vikos Canyon and rustic villages tagged themselves to our itinerary, claiming 2 nights each.

We decided to go north from Athens and visit these regions first to avoid the chances of rain predicted for 2^nd half of November. The famed monasteries of Meteora are closed on specific weekdays, all six are open only on weekends; so we scheduled Meteora as our first halt after landing at Athens airport and spending the night nearby.

OUR ITINERARY:

Nov 9 2018 FRIDAY: Flying into Athens airport; renting car

ACCOMMODATION: Lepa Kuca, Spata (4km from airport)

Nov 10 2018 SATURDAY (drive to Meteora; visit Hosios Loukas and Delphi on the way),

Athens airport to Delphi: 201km, 2h 16min

Delphi to Kastraki Tsikeli hotel Meteroa Kalampaka: 234km, 3h 10min

ACCOMMODATION: 2 Nights Kastraki Tsikeli hotel.

Delphi museum...

NOV 11 2018 SUNDAY: Meteora Monastries

We saw this priest taking pictures with his phone... so sweet!! He's probably a visitor wanting memories like the rest of us mortals!

NOV 12 2018 MONDAY: Drive to Central Zagori, stay at Monodendri,

ACCOMMODATION: Hotel Matzato, Monodendri 2 nights

NOV 13 2018 TUESDAY: Central Zagori

Peloponnese jumped into our plan... ideally we would have driven around the peninsula with one night stays.

Our original plan was 5 days in Peloponnese, 3 full days in Athens, 2 full days in Santorini

Saw a very good RT flight fare of just 185 euros from RYAN AIR Athens - Santorini for 2 return tickets on priority with 10 kg checked bag if we could schedule to fly in on NOV 18 Sunday (6.50 AM Flight) and return on NOV 21 Wednesday (8 am flight). Grabbed this deal and switched our plans.

With the new time constraint we had to restrict to 3 days at Nafplio. And extend Athens to 5 days.

So to continue the itinerary

NOV 14 2018 WEDNESDAY: Drive to Nafplio, Peloponnese,

ACCOMMODATION: Pension Isabo 3 nights

NOV 15 2018 THURSDAY: MYSTRAS

NOV 16 2018 FRIDAY: Epidavros, Nafplio palace, Palamidi

NOV 17 2018 SATURDAY: Drive back to Athens Airport area visiting Tiryns, Mycaenae, Nemea, Akrocorith

ACCOMMODATION: Lepa Kuca, Spata (4km from airport)

NOV 18 2018 SUNDAY: Returned car, 6.50am flight to Santorini,

ACCOMMODATION: Sweet Home 3 nights.

Hired car, Firostefani, Fira, Imerovigli

NOV 19 2018 MONDAY: OIA, Sunset

NOV 20 2018 TUESDAY: Akrotiri, Red sand beach, Faros, Pyrgos, Amoudi bay etc

NOV 21 2018 WEDNESDAY: 8 am flight to Athens;

ACCOMMODATION: Hotel Tempi 4 nights.

NOV 25 2018 SUNDAY: Hotel Sofitel Athens Airport, 1 night

NOV 26 2018 MONDAY: flight back home

RESOURCES:

We learned the Greek alphabet and it came in mighty useful to read road signs.

We learned a few words too. Always said Kalimera to strangers before asking for directions and efharisto for thanking them.

Son downloaded offline maps from maps.me on his phone and I had offline google maps on my tablet. We also got google maps for specific routes printed out. Road signs were usually good guides and we were rarely lost.

We had cash for paying tolls (usually around 2 euros, just once a steep 13 euros for a bridge on way to Peloponnese), staff in toll booths always helped with confirming our route. All toll roads had clean washrooms at regular intervals. All attractions also have great washrooms.

80% of Greece is mountainous, so driving takes more time for a specific distance...

In November, it got pitch dark at 6 PM generally, by 4.30 the road signs became difficult to read unless you beamed the headlight on them. We did not schedule driving in the dark...Excepting the 2nd day where we traveled from Athens airport area to Meteora with Hosios Loukas monastery and Delphi on the way... this was over-scheduling on my part... should have been avoided!

Greeks are the warmest nicest people, everyone had a smile and pointed us in the right direction when we needed confirmation of routes!

Car rental was from Enterprise where son has a corporate discount. We booked an automatic transmission for mainland Greece and a manual for Santorini. We got upgraded to automatic for free for Santorini...GREAT for us!

We got the full insurance as usual. Got an IDP from AAA before leaving (if there is some incident, the police will ask for the IDP... Insurance is not valid without IDP). We also read up on Greek traffic signs.

Weather forecast: meteoblue and weather.com proved trustworthy. Accuweather was TERRIBLE!

This was the google map we had created:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1DCKaUa-I048i4e6oGeNjJYi5dFQ&usp=sharing

You can zoom in and read the details in the bubbles.

FOOD:

We are vegetarians. As usual we self catered. Local produce was excellent, we had a pleasant sticker shock seeing how nominal prices are! Black Grapes were 99 cents per kg in Athens and green grapes euro1,25 per kg!!

WATER:
We drank the tap water everywhere except Santorini where we bought bottled water to drink. The water in Santorini comes from the desalination plant and we used it to cook rice and soup

FLORA AND FAUNA (rather trees and animals):

Olive groves and orange orchards laden with ripe fruits greeted us everywhere.

The terrain was lush green and lovely through out except in Santorini which was barren. Pines in Santorini were all bent... they had adjusted to the constant gusts of wind and grown up bent!

Cows, and sheep with tinkling bells on their neck shared the roads in Central Zagori... accompanied by protective sheep dogs and a shepherd/cowherd. Very pretty sight!

Dogs chased our car and fiercely barked us out of their territory... we safely stayed in the car and did not venture out near farms. I had read that if you are accosted by an aggressive sheep dog while hiking, trick is to sit on your haunches and look them in the eye to prevent getting attacked... supposedly local advice!! Sounds suicidal to me... we DID NOT give this a shot, ha ha!!

There was even a pony on the road once.

There were several stray dogs, cats pottering their way around. We had an UNPLEASANT experience at Mycenae. We are early birds and as usual were at the site before 8.30 am... we had been the first to enter at Tiryns at 8 the same day and had then driven on. When son got out of the car, 3 dogs surrounded him, one jumped on him with paws on his chest and scratched at his bag. Son managed to throw the bag in and walked out with just the camera around neck; the dogs followed us, barking. We told the ticket counter lady, "These dogs are very aggressive"... hoping she'll call in some security guy to drive them off. She shrugged and said "these are not ours".

The dogs followed us in barking and stayed too close... we stood at a place near the entrance waiting for other visitors. The dogs also sat down near us at least being quiet. A group entered, we slowly backtracked and joined them, Dogs stayed in the periphery of the group. The group went toward the museum... when the dogs were not looking our way, we separated and went toward the ruins. Thankfully we were not followed and had a great time. When we came back, the dogs were still around and followed a group toward the museum... one even entered the museum while 2 were locked out. We stuck with groups, then left the museum after checking the coast was clear. We wanted to get into our car without trouble... dogs were still in the vicinity, barking, jumping on bus drivers...we strategically managed to avoid them and got into the car without mishap. I think the dogs are used to being fed and have become aggressive when hungry!

Earlier at the monastery at Monodendri, there was a small dog which barked and did not let us enter initially. When the monk returned, the dog quietened... it had probably been put on guard when he was away and his paintings were on display.

At Santorini, the sadly overworked mules have tinkling bells too. Their minders were making them gallop on the steps of Oia early in the morning when hardly anyone was around... we managed to jump out of the way when a group of the mules came rushing through the narrow paths. A little boy around six got jostled and his elbow got hurt! We were on the lookout for mule bells after that incident! We did not see the mules carrying anyone though.