• 12 Dinner (D)
• 14 Breakfast (B)
• 6 Lunch (L)

• Hand sanitizer is freely available on board for you to use throughout the day.

• Olympia: Join a local chef who will share their passion for local ingredients and high-quality products. Learn how to make tzatziki and other regional dishes during a fun and immersive cooking demonstration.

Insight Vacations

• Top-rated dining, from farm-to-table to local restaurants
• 4 & 5-star hotel and overnight cruise stays
• Business class coach with extended leg room, and cruise travel

Meet your Travel Director and fellow travellers over a hosted dinner in Athens. It is an opportunity to share a table, get acquainted and hear about the journey through Greece and the Aegean.

Taste the flavours of Greek cooking in the capital, where olive oil, seasonal produce and dishes made for sharing are central to the dining tradition. The welcome gathering offers a relaxed introduction to the people travelling alongside you.

Explore ancient Athens with a Local Expert on one of two included Insight Choice activities. Visit the Temple of Olympian Zeus and Arch of Hadrian, then ascend the Acropolis to see the Parthenon overlooking the modern city.

Examine the Temple of Athena Nike and the Erechtheion’s Caryatids, six sculpted figures supporting its Porch of the Maidens. The monuments reveal how architecture, worship and civic identity shaped the city at the centre of classical Greek history.

Walk through Plaka with your Travel Director on one of two included Insight Choice activities. Explore the narrow streets and quieter corners of this neighbourhood beneath the Acropolis, where small squares sit among historic buildings.

Known as the Neighbourhood of the Gods, Plaka brings Athens’ long past into its everyday street life. Your guided walk introduces its character and landmarks; you can also enjoy independent time along Adrianou, a pedestrian street lined with shops and traditional cafés.

Visit the monument to King Leonidas near Thermopylae, where Greek forces confronted the Persian army of Xerxes I in 480 BC. See the statue commemorating the Spartan king and the defenders whose stand became one of antiquity’s best-known battles.

The site gives a sense of the strategic mountain pass that helped a smaller force delay the Persian advance. With the terrain in view, the story becomes more than a legend of courage: it is also one of geography and military decision-making.

Get to know Kalambaka with your Travel Director during an orientation of the town at the foot of Meteora. Look up to the immense rock pillars that rise directly above its streets and define the surrounding landscape.

Kalambaka is a gateway to the monasteries perched on those formations, but it has a character of its own beneath the cliffs. The orientation helps you understand the town’s setting and the striking relationship between everyday life and Meteora’s monumental scenery.

Visit a Meteora monastery with a Local Expert and take in views across the rock towers and Peneios Valley. The monastery stands high above the plains, within a UNESCO World Heritage landscape whose name is often translated as ‘suspended in the air.’

Monastic communities established themselves on these isolated pinnacles centuries ago, creating places of worship and refuge in a dramatic natural setting. Inside one of the monasteries, discover how religious life adapted to the heights of Meteora while admiring the scale of the surrounding cliffs.

Follow Delphi’s Sacred Way with a Local Expert up the slope of Mount Parnassus. Pass the Treasury of the Athenians and the closely fitted stones of the Polygonal Wall on the approach to the Temple of Apollo.

Ancient visitors came to this sanctuary to consult the oracle before making decisions that could affect cities and kingdoms. Walking the same ascent reveals how Delphi’s monuments, mountain setting and rituals gave its pronouncements influence across the Greek world for centuries.

Explore the archaeological site of Olympia, birthplace of the ancient Olympic Games, traditionally dated to 776 BC. See the remains of the Temple of Zeus, the athletes’ gymnasium and the ancient stadium, where stone markers still identify the sprint course.

This sanctuary was dedicated to Zeus and drew competitors and spectators from across the Greek world. Standing at the stadium’s starting line offers a tangible connection to its athletic traditions, including the Heraia, games held in honour of Hera.

Join a local chef for a cooking demonstration in Olympia and learn how to prepare tzatziki and other regional dishes. Watch familiar Greek ingredients become part of a shared meal, with an emphasis on local produce and practical techniques.

The demonstration offers a closer look at the food traditions behind the flavours you taste at dinner. Savour the dishes prepared while hearing the chef’s perspective on the ingredients and recipes that remain part of everyday cooking in Greece.

Enter Mycenae through the Lion Gate with a Local Expert and explore the citadel’s massive Cyclopean walls. Visit its beehive-shaped royal tombs and see the scale of a fortified centre that held power in the Late Bronze Age.

Mycenae lends its name to the civilisation that dominated much of mainland Greece before the classical era. Its monumental entrance, stonework and burial sites help reveal a society shaped by kingship, skilled construction and far-reaching trade.

Discover Nafplio with your Travel Director on an orientation of its streets and waterfront. See neoclassical buildings and the imposing Palamidi fortress above a town whose setting combines a sheltered harbour with a historic centre.

Nafplio served as the first capital of independent Greece, a role reflected in its public architecture. The walk offers a sense of the town’s political history as well as the promenades, cafés and colourful streets that give it a distinct coastal atmosphere.

Meet artisan Maria Gonidou and her daughter Nefeli at their Nafplio atelier. Watch a live demonstration on an ancient loom and learn about the techniques behind their handmade textiles; the boutique displays individual pieces produced through the family’s craft.

This MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® Experience brings Greece’s weaving heritage into focus through the people keeping it alive. Visiting the family-run studio supports traditional skills and offers a personal perspective on how knowledge passes between generations.

View the Corinth Canal from a crossing point and look down between its steep limestone walls to the narrow waterway below. The engineered cut passes through the Isthmus of Corinth, separating the Peloponnese from mainland Greece.

Opened in 1893, the approximately 6.3-kilometre canal created a passage between the Aegean and Ionian seas, avoiding a long voyage around the peninsula. The viewpoint makes the scale and precision of this late-19th-century undertaking immediately apparent.

Cruise the Aegean Sea aboard an overnight ship, travelling between the Turkish port of Kusadasi and Greek island destinations including Crete, Santorini, Mykonos and Milos. Enjoy time on board as changing coastlines, island harbours and open water become part of the journey.

This sailing connects places shaped by centuries of maritime exchange. From the ship, appreciate the contrast between Santorini’s high cliffs and the lower shores of the Cyclades; meals are served on board during the cruise.

Walk through Ephesus with a Local Expert, following the Arcadian Way into the ancient Roman city. See the richly ornamented facade of the Library of Celsus and take in the size of its great theatre.

Ephesus was an important port and commercial centre of the Roman world. The excursion also includes a visit to the House of the Virgin Mary in the hills above the ruins, a pilgrimage site associated by Christian tradition with Mary’s later life.

Explore the Palace of Knossos near Heraklion, entering through its northern gate and viewing frescoes restored in the early 20th century. Follow scenes of processions, animals and ceremonial figures through the remains of this extensive Minoan complex.

Knossos is closely associated with the myths of King Minos and the Minotaur. Its architecture and imagery offer insight into Minoan ritual and daily life on Crete, where a sophisticated civilisation flourished long before classical Greece.

Explore the hill of Philerimos with a Local Expert on this optional Rhodes excursion. Visit the medieval monastery, follow the mosaic-lined Golgotha path and see the 15th-century Church of St George Hostos.

The hill’s religious buildings and paths offer a different perspective on Rhodes beyond its harbour and medieval Old Town. This experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour, making it a choice for travellers drawn to the island’s layered history and hilltop setting.

Travel to Lindos and ascend its Acropolis on this optional excursion in Rhodes. Explore the ancient hilltop site, including the remains of the Doric Temple of Athena Lindia, and look out over the whitewashed town and St Paul’s Bay.

Lindos combines an ancient sanctuary with one of the island’s most recognisable coastal settings. The climb rewards visitors with a clear view of why this headland held both religious and strategic importance. The experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.

Visit Oia on an optional Santorini excursion to see its whitewashed houses, blue-domed churches and lanes perched above the caldera. Take in views across the sea-filled volcanic basin from the village’s elevated setting.

Oia is especially known for the changing light over the caldera at sunset, when its buildings and cliffside terraces frame the horizon. This village visit is at additional cost and bookable on tour for travellers who want to explore beyond Santorini’s capital, Thira.

Visit the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion on an optional excursion from Athens. See the surviving columns of the ancient sanctuary standing above the Aegean at the southern tip of Attica.

Dedicated to the god of the sea, the temple’s prominent position would have made it a powerful sight for ancient sailors approaching the coast. Its headland setting and open sea views connect Greek mythology with the maritime landscape. This experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour.