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From Santorini sunsets to ancient ruins, the delights of this sought-after summer destination are luring more visitors than ever
If you are planning a Greek odyssey this summer, you are not alone. With its pristine seas, family-friendly golden-sand beaches, world-class archaeological sites, and myriad culinary delights, it is no surprise that the birthplace of democracy – and its more than 6,000 idyllic islands – has topped a survey by Jet2holidays on the most popular destinations for International travellers in 2023.
So, what is it that makes Greece so enduringly popular? Whether it is sultry Santorini with its black-sand beaches and towering volcanic caldera; bohemian Hydra with its traffic-free cobbled streets and elegant stone mansions; or Crete, the country’s largest island, famed for its hospitality, each island has its own special charm.
But the mainland has plenty to offer, too: capital Athens, framed by its age-old Acropolis and criss-crossed by labyrinthine streets, is a magnet for culture vultures, while lively second city Thessaloniki, clustered around its old port and the crenellated turrets of its 15th-century White Tower, is a food lover’s paradise.
Greece is also an ideal destination for families, who are wooed by the warm welcome offered to children of all ages. “We are seeing continued high demand for Greece from families, with many 2022 customers re-booking early this year to ensure their choice of property and accommodation,” says Erin Johnson, marketing director of Sovereign Luxury Travel.
But with tour operators reporting that trips to Greece are selling faster than any other, if you want to enjoy the Greek holiday, hike, or historic tour of your dreams, you will need to book now. From island-hopping in the Cyclades to climbing Mount Olympus, day-tours to week-long breaks, here is our pick of 30 great ways to experience Greece in 2023.
Best for culture seekers
Visit the Acropolis
Shining like a marble-clad beacon from the top of its dramatic limestone crag, Athens’s ancient citadel (Acropolis means “upper city”) with its iconic 5th century BC temple the Parthenon is a magnet for most visitors to Greece.
It’s well worth the hefty climb to see sights such as the temple dedicated to goddess of victory Athena Nike and the 5,000-seat theatre that Roman senator Herodes Atticus built in memory of his wife, Annia Regilla.
It also overlooks the port of Piraeus, and you can see the purple smudge of the Peloponnese peninsula beyond. Wily travellers who want to avoid the cruise crowds will arrive early and buy an Athens City Pass, which gives skip-the-line access.
Athens City Pass, including free hop-on hop-off bus pass, Turbo Pass, from $82 per day (turbopass.com)
Tour the Sacred Site of Delos
Backed by Mount Kynthos, mythological birthplace of Greek god Apollo, Delos lies in isolated splendour just a 30-minute ferry ride from Mykonos’s bustling old town. Once deemed so sacred that nobody was allowed to die or give birth here, this uninhabited islet is now a strikingly well-conserved open-air museum.
Visitors come to stroll around the 7th-century BC Terrace of the Lions, with its lion head fountains and colonnaded porticoes, visit the stunning 7,000-seat marble-crafted amphitheatre, and marvel at pottery, figurines, and sculptures in the artefact-packed museum, before climbing Mount Kynthos to enjoy a God’s-eye of Mykonos and its chaplet of surrounding islands.
Half-day guided tours of Delos, leaving from Mykonos with local company Delos Tours, from $33 (delostours.gr)
Hang out with the knights on Rhodes
Once the legendary site of the Colossus statue – one of the ancient world’s Seven Wonders – the dazzling Dodecanese island of Rhodes is home to the largest medieval town in Europe to have been continually inhabited for the past 2,000 years.
Entered via seven stone gates within walls that encircle the cobbled streets of the entire old town, Rhodes, while still home to some 6,000 residents, is a living museum where ancient mosques, Byzantine churches and ancient houses of the Knights Templar rub shoulders with souvenir souks, vine-shaded kafeneions and atmospheric boutique hotels.
Ottoman-era boutique hotel Marco Polo Mansion (marcopolomansion.gr) has doubles from $130, breakfast included
Explore the ancient theatre of Epidavros
Once revered as a place where miracles were commonplace, Epidavros – about 19 miles east of the Peloponnese seaside city of Nafplio – centres on the Sanctuary of Asclepius, the mythical god of medicine who is said to have brought Hippolytus and others back from the dead.
Perhaps the real miracle here is one of conservation: strolling around this beautifully preserved World Heritage site, with its temples and columns and sporting stadium clustered around a 14,000-seater amphitheatre built in the 4th century BC, is like stepping back in time. This is especially true during the world-renowned Epidavros Arts Festival, from May to October, when – just like Hippolytus – the ancient theatre returns to life once more.
Key Tours (keytours.gr) have guided day trips from Athens to Epidavros and the neighbouring site of Mycenae from $135 per person
Consult the Oracle at Delphi
Scattered like a giant jigsaw puzzle among citrus-scented pine forests and silver-leaved olive groves 100 miles north of Athens, the sacred site of Delphi revolves around the salmon- hued Doric pillars of its 8th-century BC Sanctuary of Apollo, which was once home to the celebrated Oracle.
According to legend, this sacred site beneath the peaks of Mount Parnassus was the omphalos, or centre of the world, and pilgrims once flocked here to consult priestess Pythia before taking important decisions.
A 14-room archaeological museum houses many of the important findings from this Pan-Hellenic sanctuary, including the famous bronze sculpture of the charioteer of Delphi.
Athens Delphi Tour (athensdelphitour.com) runs guided Delphi tours from Athens from $99 per person
Visit the birthplace of the Olympic Games
The modern Olympics might be based on the principles of excellence, respect and friendship, but the ancient games, dating back to around 3,000 years ago, were rather more cutthroat: the only rules were “no biting or gouging”.
The Unesco-listed archaeological site of Olympia – which gave the games their name when the event was launched there in 776 BC – lies on the western coast of the Peloponnese peninsula of southern Greece and is an easy day trip from Athens.
The light-filled museum, with its statue of Hermes of Praxiteles and the Nike of Paionios is well worth visiting; as is the marble-hewn temple of Zeus, which once held a 43ft-high gold statue of the deity, to whom the games were dedicated.
But the biggest thrill is to jog out along the 650ft/200m-long race track, where most of those Olympic events took place in antiquity.
My Tours (mytours.gr) offers full-day tours from Athens from $107 per person
Take a boat tour around holy Mount Athos
Halkidiki, birthplace of philosopher Aristotle, is a large peninsula resembling a hand with three fingers; it thrusts these forest-cloaked digits into the pristine Aegean Sea an hour’s drive south-east of Thessaloniki, but only two of these smaller peninsulas – Kassandra and Sithonia – can be visited by all: for more than 1,000 years, only men have been allowed to set foot on the third peninsula of Mount Athos (although it’s rumoured that a few women have entered in disguise).
If there are no false beards to hand, the easiest way to discover Mount Athos’s unique collection of Unesco-listed monasteries is to grab a pair of binoculars and join a half-day cruise from Halkidiki’s Ouranoupolis port.
Athos Sea Cruises (athos-cruises.gr) runs twice daily boat cruises from Ouranoupolis port to Mount Athos from $30 per person
Discover ancient Corinth and the Corinthian canal
Gateway to the Middle East and one of ancient Greece’s most important cities for more than 1,000 years, the region surrounding Corinth on the Peloponnese peninsula is littered with fascinating archaeological sites, including the Acrocorinth: a monolithic citadel that provided a refuge for the city’s inhabitants during times of war.
For most people, however, Corinth is synonymous with its four-mile long canal, sandwiched between 280ft-high rock walls, which connects the Aegean to the Ionian Sea.
Corinth Canal Cruises (corinthcanal cruises.gr) has a two-hour Corinth Canal Cruise from $61 per person
Best for couples
Experience the buzzing nightlife of Mykonos
You can expect to rub shoulders with the likes of Lady Gaga or Leonardo DiCaprio as you hop between the sleek sand beaches and hip mega-clubs that have earned magical Mykonos its nickname of “Greece’s Ibiza”.
The lanes of the island’s compact capital Chora are the island’s nightlife hub, where designer boutiques rub shoulders with glitzy champagne bars like Queen of Mykonos and Scarpa.
When the sun goes down over those celebrated windmills, the party crowd heads for the beach. Choose from Nammos in yacht-studded Psarou Bay, where the Amex Black card set come to sup on Mediterranean fusion food; the dusky sands of Paradise beach, littered with cool clubs helmed by world-class DJs; or Paraga beach, nestled between the two, where sophisticated Soho House-owned club Scorpios offers unique cocktails and starry clientele.
The Mykonos Yacht Club (mykonosyachtingclub.com) charters party yachts for the night from $3000
Take a day trip to Hydra
Just an hour’s ferry ride from main port Piraeus, the Saronic island of Hydra has attracted a bohemian crowd for decades: Picasso and Chagall came here to paint, Maria Callas stayed in one of the magnificent stone mansions circling the harbour, and Leonard Cohen, who owned a house in Hydra’s maze of back streets, wrote Bird on the Wire here.
Apart from 300 churches and a handful of hip galleries, the real charm of Greece’s answer to Porto Fino is the lack of traffic: only donkeys can climb the steep streets that rise from the waterfront, so peace is guaranteed here.
Purchase tickets for the two-hour ferry ride from Athens to Hydra at ferryhopper.com; from $55 one-way
Hop on a Santorini sunset cruise
Seeing the sun set in a blaze of vanilla and raspberry over Santorini’s wax-white villages and celebrated volcanic caldera is a big tick on most traveller’s bucket list, but the best way to do it is to eschew the crowds at Oia’s celebrated castle sunset spot and hop on a half-day catamaran cruise instead.
Leaving from Vlychada’s petite fishing port, roomy yachts whisk you out for a quick dip in the magma-heated hot springs near the barren blacked Kameni islands – formed after a series of volcanic eruptions – before gliding in a stately procession with other catamarans to Amoudi Bay, which provides a ringside seat for what is surely one of the world’s most spectacular sunsets.
Santorini Sailing (santorinisailing.com) has a sunset cruise from $60 per person, including drinks and snacks
Visit the island of Mamma Mia!
Greeks in-the-know have flocked to the talc-soft beaches and pristine seas of Skopelos for decades, but this lush green island – dubbed “Mykonos of the Sporades” because of its chic beach bars and glass-clear seas – only really gained fame in the UK when Streep, Brosnan and co came here in 2007 to film Mamma Mia!.
Even if you’re not a fan of the movie, a Mamma Mia!-themed boat tour – whose highlights include a visit to pine-shaded Kastani beach, where many key scenes were filmed, and a trip to the picturesque rock-top chapel of Agios Ioannis Kastri, where Donna and Sam finally married – is a great way to discover the island.
Skiathos Cruises (skiathoscruises.gr) has Mamma Mia!-themed tours from $65 per person
Best for families
Join Orthodox Easter celebrations
Easter in Greece is an exuberant affair when families come together for three days of feasting. Celebrations kick off on Good Friday with candlelit processions following Christ’s coffin to the church, and on Easter Saturday the bells toll and the streets are quiet. After the resurrection on Easter Sunday, the country celebrates with fireworks, wild music and dancing, and al fresco feasts of lamb slow-roasted over charcoal, to which passing strangers are generally invited.
Each region has its own tradition, but some are more spectacular: in Corfu they hurl giant water-filled clay pots, called botides, from balconies, while Tinos is known for its trombones – traditional fireworks packed with gunpowder that look like old wooden muskets.
Aegean Air (aegeanair.com) has flights from Athens to Corfu from $99 return
Discover the Durrells’ Corfu
The Ionian island where Prince Philip was born might be renowned for its Unesco-listed Old Town, medieval monasteries, and Venetian fortresses, but lately Corfu has been most in the limelight thanks to UK TV series The Durrells, which was based on the real-life family’s experiences there from 1936 until the start of the Second World War.
The best way to discover the island through the eyes of its most eccentric family is to hop on a half-day Durrell tour, where highlights include exploring the alleys of Corfu’s Old Town in Gerry’s footsteps, and visiting the White House where Lawrence Durrell once lived with enigmatic wife, Nancy.
Blue Tours (bluetours.gr) offers a private half-day Durrell island tour from $95 per person
Sail the Sporades on a tall ship
From Mamma Mia! island Skopelos with its golden beaches to Skiathos with its lively nightlife, the romance of the sea takes on a whole new meaning when you explore the Sporades aboard one of the world’s largest sailing ships.
Sleek, clean, and eco-friendly, a wind-powered ship is the perfect way to explore this lush archipelago of 24 islands along Greece’s east coast – a haven for monk seals and turtles. Passengers can even help man the sails, haul the anchor or climb the crow’s nest.
Star Clippers (starclippers.com) offers a seven-day Sporades Highlights cruise from $3900 per person, from Athens, including full-board and flights
Enjoy the beaches of Paros
From endless stretches of toddler-friendly golden sands lapped by bath-warm seas, to sheltered coves shaded by stately tamarisk trees, the Cyclades island of Paros has some of the Aegean’s best beaches for families.
Within easy walking distance of the capital Parikia, Livadia’s quiet beach is perfect for younger kids, while Kolymbithres, with its wave-sculpted rocks near Naoussa, or Pounda’s golden-sand beach lined with kite- and wind-surfing facilities, are ideal for active families.
Luxury resort Poseidon of Paros (poseidon-paros.gr) has rooms overlooking Golden Beach from $200 per night, including breakfast
Lounge on the pink sands of Elafonisi beach
Greece’s largest island, ever-popular Crete is famed for its stunning seashore, ringed with palm-fringed stretches of silky sand, pretty pebble-strewn coves and lively resorts. If you’ve tired of the crowds, however, head for the gloriously isolated beach of Elafonisi, reached via a potholed track from the village of Vathi some 50 miles north of Chania’s Venetian harbour.
The beach itself is a paradise of rose-tinted sands and windswept dunes, dotted with sweet-scented sea daffodils and separated from the main beach by a shallow toddler-friendly lagoon. Facilities are limited here, however, so be sure to take plenty of water and snacks.
Elafonisi is a roughly 90-minute drive from Chania Town. Kriti Plus (kritiplus.gr) has car hire from $50 per day
Meet the Minoans at Knossos
Whether you’re for or against Sir Arthur Evans’s controversial reconstitution of the 1,300-room Palace of Knossos, it doesn’t alter the majesty of this 2000 BC Minoan site. Just a short drive from Cretan capital Heraklion, this is the site where Theseus killed the fearsome Minotaur – or so the legend goes.
Testament to the sophistication of this mysterious civilisation, which reached its peak some 4,000 years ago, there are shrines, storerooms and banquet halls and Europe’s oldest throne room.
To see the ornate frescoes – including the celebrated dolphin murals – which once adorned the walls of this ancient complex, you’ll have to head to Heraklion’s two-storey archaeological museum, which houses the world’s best collection of Minoan artefacts.
Visit Knossos (visitknossos.com) offers combined tours of Knossos Palace and Heraklion archaeological museum from $65 per person, transport included
Go island hopping in the Cyclades
What could be more thrilling than skipping over dolphin-studded seas to a different island every few days? The once grungy port of Piraeus – now home to a string of hip art galleries and linked to the centre of Athens by metro – is a cosmopolitan hub for dozens of island ferries, which travel regularly between islands.
From sailing into the heart of Santorini’s volcanic caldera to arriving in Ios’s tiny beach-lined, café-dotted port, or chugging past the cypress-furred hillsides and sandy coves of Corfu, island hopping is surely the ultimate – and ultimately sustainable – Greek adventure.
Ferry Hopper (ferryhopper.com) sells tickets for multiple routes from $40 per person
Best for nature lovers
Visit the monasteries of Meteora
Rising from the lush Thessaly plains near Kalambaka like giant dollops of Play-Doh, the Meteora – with its weird and wonderful sandstone pillars housing 24 Byzantine monasteries – is one of Greece’s most magical natural monuments.
Clinging to the highest pinnacle overlooking the storied Corinthian Gulf, the 14th-century Holy Monastery of the Metamorphosis, with its frescos representing the transfiguration and its artefact-packed museum, is the lynchpin of this holy complex, best explored via a network of hiking trails that have been used by the monks for centuries.
Visit Meteora (visitmeteora.travel) has full-day private hiking tours from $40 per person
Seek out Zakynthos’s shipwreck bay
It might be one of the world’s most Instagrammable shipwrecks, but that doesn’t detract from the sheer splendour of this site on Zakynthos’s wild west coast. Here, dramatically steep cliffs frame a sandy cove where the rusted hulk of MV Panagiotis was washed up in the 1980s.
Skinari, on the island’s northern tip, is the starting point for half-day boat excursions to Navagio – as the beach is known locally – and boats generally stop off at the Blue Caves, so-called because of the vivid turquoise hue of the surrounding seas. It is also possible to drive to the Navagio viewpoint near Volimes village, from which views of the shipwreck are spectacular.
The Potamitis Brothers (potamitisbros.gr) offer half-day tours to Navagio from $41 per person
Explore the Saronic gulf aboard a private yacht
If you’re visiting the Greek capital, cruising the seven Saronic Gulf islands sandwiched between the Peloponnese and Piraeus in a private yacht is an ideal add-on adventure.
Seven-day cruises glide lazily through glittering turquoise seas to make calls at Aegina, with its ancient Temple of Aphaia and pretty harbour lined with seafood tavernas; Hydra, with its hip art galleries and cool cafés; or Spetses, the lush and lovely island famed for its fish a la spetsiota – fish fillets fried in breadcrumbs and served with a garlicky tomato sauce – where wacky whodunit Glass Onion, starring Daniel Craig, Kate Hudson and Edward Norton, was recently filmed.
Istion Luxury Yachts (istionluxuryyachts.com) has private crewed yacht hire, with a bareboard sailing yacht sleeping six, available from $11500 per week
Climb Mount Olympus
Legend has it that no human could climb Mount Olympus, mythical home of the 12 Olympian gods – and it wasn’t until 1913 that a team of Swiss climbers finally managed to reach the 9,570 ft-high peak.
It’s still a challenging climb to reach Mytikas peak, but amateur hikers who’d like to experience a taste of adventure can drive to Prionia – the highest location that’s accessible by car – then make the strenuous hike to Skala, one of the lower peaks, to get a glimpse of the spectacular views that once upon a time only the Gods could enjoy.
Trail Path (trailpath.gr) offers small‑group two-day hiking tours, leaving from Thessaloniki, from $180 per person
Enjoy sunset at the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion
Known to Greeks as the paraliaki, the Athenian Riviera – lined with stylish bars and hip restaurants – stretches from chic yachtie hangout Palaio Faliro in northern Athens to the marble-pillared splendour of Cape Sounion some 18 miles away.
Teetering on the southernmost tip of the Attic peninsula, this high-flung sanctuary sacred to the goddess Athena is also the best place on the peninsula for watching the sun set in a pool of scarlet over one of the world’s most fabled seas.
Athens Walking Tours (athenswalkingtours.gr) offer Sunset Tours of Cape Sounion from $96 per person
Hike Crete’s Samaria Gorge
Stretching for 10 miles from high in the Lefka Ori (White Mountains) to the pebbles of Agia Roumeli’s peaceful beach far below, Samaria Gorge, Europe’s longest canyon, is just a short drive from the harbour of Crete’s second town, Chania.
But be warned – you’ll need to be fairly fit to tackle the five-hour hike through this spectacular boulder-strewn ravine; an easier alternative is to take a boat from Hora Sfakion to Agia Roumeli and hike through the bottom end of the gorge.
Entrance tickets to Samaria Gorge cost from $7 (samaria.gr)
Best for curious gourmands
Take a foodie tour of Greece’s second city
Often overlooked in favour of Athens, the port city of Thessaloniki – radiating out in an easy-to-navigate grid of streets from its historic centre and Ladadika district – has long been known as gourmet heaven by Greeks.
Since Greece is the home of the healthy Mediterranean diet, foodie indulgence is fairly guilt-free, which is just as well: from cinnamon and custard filo pastry bougatsa – best enjoyed at the century-old pastry shop Bantis – to the meat-skewer treat souvlaki and meze snacks served in a string of low-key family-owned taverna known as koutoukia, there is plenty to tempt those tastebuds.
Eat and Walk (eatandwalk.gr) runs half-day food tours of Thessaloniki from $57 per person
Taste meze in the Cretan capital
Whether it is vlita (steamed wild herbs served with a squeeze of lemon and lashings of olive oil) or crispy twice-baked dakos barley rusks smothered in tomato pulp and sprinkled with salty myzithra cheese, Cretan food specialties abound – but it can be tough to find them without help.
A three-hour gourmet walking tour with an experienced local guide through the busy backstreets of Crete’s capital city Heraklion is the perfect way to get to grips with the food: you can stop off to meet the man behind the city’s best tripe restaurant, sample the island’s succulent thyme honey, and eat plenty of meze snacks en route.
Tours By Locals (toursbylocals.com) runs full-day Cretan Diet Past and Present private food tours from $138 per person
Explore Captain Corelli’s island
Home to some of Greece’s most beautiful beaches and a raft of succulent foodie delights – including must-trys kreatopita (crispy mutton and beef-stuffed pie) and moustopita (a rich cake made with grape pomace) – the Ionian isle of Kefalonia was a star long before the 2001 film Captain Corelli’s Mandolin was filmed here.
Nevertheless, a tour based on the Hollywood movie is still a good way to discover the island’s best-loved sights – it includes a dizzying descent along the cliffs to horseshoe-shaped Myrtos beach (where a Second World War bomb was discovered in the film) and a hike out to 11th-century Agios Fanentes chapel, where the opening scenes of the feast of St Gerasimos were filmed.
Kefalonia Tours (kefaloniantours.com) organises four-hour Corelli’s Kefalonia jeep tours from $80 per person
Sample the wine on Lesbos
Known for its wine-making tradition since the 7th century BC, the island of Lesbos exported its wines as far afield as Rome and Byzantium. Arguably the best-known, pramnian – which resembled Hungary’s tokaj – was mentioned by Homer in his Odyssey.
Sadly, many of the ancient grape varieties on Sappho’s island were destroyed during a 19th-century outbreak of phylloxera – though since the 1990s, a handful of young vintners have started to revive the old varietals with spectacular results.
Today, Lesbos has more than a dozen wineries, but Methymneos Wines – which was the first to revive the chidiriotiko grape on lava-rich soils from Lesbos’s petrified forest – is a leading light.
Methymneos Wines (lesbianwine.net) offers free wine-tasting tours from August 1 to September 20, between 10am and 2pm
Learn to live the long life on Ikaria
Known as “the place where people forget to die”, Ikaria is one of only five Blue Zone regions in the world – places where people live longer than average – with one in three Ikarians living until well into their 90s.
Apart from its laidback way of life and a rough mountainous terrain that makes exercise inevitable, experts say the secret to the islanders’ longevity is their diet, which includes lavish use of vegetables, whole grains, olive oil and goats’ milk.
These ingredients come together in dishes such as soufiko (the local equivalent of ratatouille), and prasino kolaro me patates (wild greens with potatoes), accompanied by a few glasses of Ikaria’s robust red wine.
Sunvil (sunvil.co.uk) offers week-long self-catering holidays on Ikaria from $1560 per person, including flights
