Athens

Redolent with mythology, smeared with grime, Athens is an affable city enlivened by outdoor cafes, pedestrian streets, parks, gardens and urban eccentrics. If you get into the Athenian mindset, you might not even notice the layer of nefos (smog) overhead.

Modern tourists have the ancient Athenians to thank for the ease of getting to major landmarks around the city. Old Athens was miniscule compared to today’s sprawling metropolis, which means that all the must-sees are conveniently huddled together in a fairly easy-to-manage rectangle.

Crete

Steeped in Homeric history and culture, scented by wild fennel and basil, Crete welcomes and overwhelms visitors with its wealth of myths, legends and history, a blessed and dramatic landscape, an extraordinary fusion of past and present, and an abundance of choices and experiences.

Crete was the birthplace of one of Europe’s oldest and most fascinating civilisations, the Minoan. Iraklio, the capital, has some fine musuems in which you can learn more about the island’s history, or you can visit the ancient Minoan site of Knossos. Hania has a beautiful old Venetian quarter.

Dodecanese Islands

Whitewashed walls, deep blue sky, olive groves, fig trees, azure Aegean waters…the heavenly Dodecanese Islands have all this and more. In this diverse group of islands you can experience the traditional life without the tourist trappings.

This Dionysian group of islands is perched on the easternmost edge of the Aegean, where ancient history jumps out at you at every turn. Island-hop your way to heaven, or just indulge in a spot of people-watching in the bar and beach scene of the big resorts.

Ionian Islands

Give into temptation and succumb to the lure of the idyllic Ionian group of islands - Corfu, Paxi, Lefkada, Kefallonia, Ithaki, Zakynthos and Kythira - far more lush than those barren Aegean islands, and tinged with a distinctly Venetian flavour.

Each island has its idiosyncrasies of culture and cuisine, and differing dollops of European and British influences. Their surfeit of charms include mountainside monasteries, Venetian campaniles, unspoilt villages, ancient olive groves, famous wines, white beaches and ludicrously blue-heaven waters.

Meteora

The monasteries of Meteora are one of the most extraordinary sights in mainland Greece. Built into and on top of huge pinnacles of smooth rock, the earliest monasteries were reached by climbing articulated removable ladders. Later, windlasses were used so monks could be hauled up in nets, a method used until the 1920s.

The monasteries provided monks with peaceful havens from increasing bloodshed as the Byzantine Empire waned at the end of the 14th century.

Apprehensive visitors enquiring how often the ropes were replaced were told ‘When the Lord lets them break’. These days access to the monasteries is by steps hewn into the rocks and the windlasses are used only for hauling up provisions.
Northeastern Aegean Islands

There are seven major islands in the northeastern group: Samos, Chios, Ikaria, Lesvos, Limnos, Samothraki and Thasos. Huge distances separate them, so island hopping is not as easy as it is within the Cyclades and Dodecanese. Most of these islands are large and have very distinctive characters. Samos, the birthplace of Pythagoras, is lush and humid with mountains skirted by pine, sycamore and oak-forested hills. Egg-shaped Samothraki has dramatic natural attributes, culminating in the mighty peak of Mt Fengari, which looms over valleys of massive gnarled oak and plane trees, thick forests of olive trees and damp dark glades where waterfalls plunge into deep icy pools.

Peloponnese

Greece’s southern peninsula is rich in history and scenically diverse. Packed into its northeastern corner are the ancient sites of Epidaurus, Corinth and Mycenae. The ghostly Byzantine city of Mystras clambers up the slopes of Mt Taygetos, its winding paths and stairways leading to deserted palaces and fresco-adorned churches.

Further south, you can explore the Mani, a region of bleak mountains and barren landscapes broken only by austere and imposing stone towers, mostly abandoned but still standing sentinel over the region. Other attractions in the region include ancient Olympia and the beautiful medieval town of Monemvasia.

Saronic Gulf Islands

The five Saronic Gulf islands are the closest of all to Athens, and Salamis is virtually a suburb of the capital. Aegina, Hydra, Spetses and Poros are all surprisingly varied in architecture and terrain, but they all receive an inordinate number of tourists and are expensive. Hydra, once the rendezvous of artists, writers and beautiful people, is now overrun with holiday-makers but manages to retain an air of superiority and grandeur. Motor vehicles, including mopeds, are banned from the island: donkeys rule.

Sporades

There are four inhabited islands in this mountainous and pine-forested northern archipelago: Skiathos, Skopelos, Alonnisos and Skyros. People go to Skiathos for the exquisite beaches and the nightlife; if you’re there for anything else, you’ll probably leave quickly.

Skopelos is less commercialised than Skiathos, but is following hot on its trail. There are some lovely sheltered beaches, but they are often pebbled rather than sandy. Alonnisos is still a serene island, partly because the rocky terrain makes building an airport runway impossible. The water around Alonnisos has been declared a marine park and consequently is the cleanest in the Aegean, and every house has a cesspit so no waste goes into the sea. Skyros is less developed than the other three, designed to attract posers rather than package tourists