Touring Ancient and Modern Greece

You already know Greece from the million postcard-perfect shots that decorate calendars and computer screens and magazine covers – the white-washed buildings and sun-bleached ruins, heaping bowls of olives and skewers of grilled lamb, perfect sapphire waters dotted with fishing boats.

There’s a lot of ground to cover here – a lot – whether you want to spend your entire vacation bronzing on the beach, or exploring the ruins of ancient Athens, or sipping ouzo on a boat off the coast of the Aegean Islands, or any combination of the above.

(Speaking of which, a word of warning – make sure you sip ouzo, don’t shoot it. It’s the best served either neat or over a few ice cubes, with a splash or two of cold water.)

Greek history is so rich that you could easily make an entire trip around trying to see just its very most famous ruins and archaeological sites. There’s the Acropolis, the Parthenon, Delphi, Olympia, the Temples of Zeus and Hera, and the battle site of Thermopylae, just to name a few, and that’s without getting into all of the country’s museums and palaces and historical sites.

So how can you manage all the entrance fees and driving and visiting hours so that you still have a fantastic time? One place to start is Trafalgar’s Best of Greece tour, which will take you exploring the highlights of thousands of years of one of the most influential cultures in Western history without all the legwork that goes into your having to plan anything.

If you were thinking about something more relaxing, you can hop a cruise to explore the outer islands of the Aegean Sea. Globus Aegean Legends Tour combines land touring with a leisurely sail to ports like Mykonos, Crete, and Santorini. With your free time, you can go celebrity spotting on Psarou beach, climb the hillsides for panoramic shots of the Aegean Sea, or just relax at a tavern with a freshly baked spanakopita.