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

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

• Athens: Taste seasonal dishes built around olive oil, grains, legumes and coastal produce, paired with wines from native grape varieties grown across mainland and island vineyards.
• Delphi: Join a pie-making class in Delphi with a local chef, preparing savoury pies rooted in Central Greece’s mountain cuisine, a long-standing staple in village kitchens. Work with thin pastry and fillings of seasonal vegetables, herbs and local cheeses, then sit down together to taste the pies fresh from the oven.
• Heraklion: Share a Cretan menu with your Small Group. You’ll try island dishes such as dakos, built on barley rusk with tomato and mizithra, and kaltsounia pastries finished with honey and cinnamon. Raise a first toast with raki, Crete’s traditional grape spirit.

• Athens: Visit the Acropolis Museum with your Local Specialist to examine sculptures and architectural fragments from the Parthenon and other Acropolis buildings. The top-floor gallery aligns with the Parthenon’s orientation, allowing you to view surviving frieze sections in their original sequence.
• Vergina: Visit the Royal Tombs at Vergina with your Local Specialist and see the tomb traditionally identified as Philip II’s. You’ll learn how the discovery of the burial complex reshaped understanding of Macedonian royal history and funerary practice.
• Nafplion: Meet an expert sommelier at a Nemea winery and learn about the evolution of Greek wine making, dating back to antiquity. After touring the winery, sample some of the delicious and elegant Greek wines, expertly paired with piquant local cheeses and tasty cured meats.
• Heraklion: Explore the Palace of Knossos with your Local Specialist, Crete’s largest Bronze Age palace complex and traditionally linked to King Minos. You’ll walk through the Central Court and Throne Room and see reconstructed frescoes, examining how the scale, layout and surviving details reflect the administrative and ceremonial role of the site.

• Thessaloniki: Join your Local Specialist for an introduction to Thessaloniki’s historic centre, exploring key districts shaped by successive empires. You’ll move through the city streets before continuing to the Upper Town for views across the harbour and Thermaic Gulf.
• Thessaloniki: Walk with your Travel Director through central markets and bakeries, tasting sesame koulouri rings, local cheeses, cured meats and bougatsa pastry. You’ll see how Balkan, Anatolian and Mediterranean influences shape the city’s everyday food culture.

• Nafplion: Stop at a local olive grove to learn the steps from harvest to pressing, including how timing and temperature affect flavour. You’ll taste olive oil and learn how producers assess fruitiness, bitterness and peppery finish as markers of freshness and quality.

Join a guided panoramic tour through modern Athens, taking in Hadrian’s Arch, the Temple of Olympian Zeus and the marble Panathenaic Stadium, rebuilt for the 1896 revival of the Olympic Games. In Syntagma, see the Parliament and Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Trace the city’s evolution from Roman boundary markers to 19th-century nation-building, passing the University, Academy and Library—Athens’ Neoclassical “Trilogy”—that signalled a new intellectual capital for an independent Greece.

Share a welcome dinner in a lively Athenian taverna, where seasonal produce, grilled meats and olive oil–rich mezze set the tone for the journey ahead. Expect crisp salads, warm breads and regional recipes shaped by Attica’s coast and countryside.

As you sample regional wines from native grapes, your Travel Director introduces local dining customs and neighbourhood rhythms. It’s an easy immersion into Greece’s table culture and the convivial spirit of philoxenia—love of the guest.

Stand where strategy met terrain as you view the monument to King Leonidas beside the narrow pass of Thermopylae. The coastal flats and hot springs outline a battlefield whose topography helped a small Greek force delay Xerxes’ army.

Recall the 480 BC battle recorded by Herodotus and pause for photos and reflection on how this defile—then tighter than today—entered legend as a symbol of resolve and sacrifice.

Explore the archaeological park of Dion at the foot of Mount Olympus, wandering sanctuaries to Zeus and Isis, Hellenistic theatres and Roman villas threaded by springs and reed beds. Your Local Specialist decodes inscriptions and city planning across the marshy plain.

Once the Macedonian cult centre, Dion hosted festivals where Philip II and Alexander celebrated victories before campaigning. Votive offerings and mosaic floors illuminate kingdom, religion and daily life at the empire’s threshold.

Join a Local Specialist to trace Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman layers through Thessaloniki’s centre—forums, churches and arches that reveal a crossroads city. Continue to the Upper Town (Ano Poli), where lanes and towers edge the old ramparts.

From the walls, enjoy views over the Thermaic Gulf and harbour that framed centuries of commerce and empire. This is one of two included Thessaloniki experiences; you will select one during your time in the city.

Set out on a guided food walk through the Modiano and Kapani markets, where spice stalls perfume the air and counters brim with olives, cheeses and cured meats. Taste sesame koulouri and bougatsa as your Travel Director highlights favourite bakeries.

Hear how Balkan and Anatolian influences layered Sephardic traditions to shape everyday cuisine—sweet, savoury and always seasonal. This is one of two included Thessaloniki experiences; you will select one during your time in the city.

Visit the Royal Tombs at Aigai, the subterranean complex traditionally linked to Philip II of Macedon. Among dimly lit chambers, see gold grave goods, weaponry and painted tombs preserved beneath their earthen mounds.

In the Museum of Aigai, your Local Specialist explains the 1977 discovery that reshaped understanding of Macedonian royal history, funerary ritual and court art at Greece’s first capital.

Stroll the Venetian harbour of Nafpaktos, a crescent of quays and defensive walls and bastions that still cradle fishing boats. Spot the statue of Miguel de Cervantes, wounded here before he wrote Don Quixote.

Place the Battle of Lepanto (1571) in its geographic setting, where the gulf’s narrows favoured oared galleys and coalition fleets. The stones and sea explain strategy better than any map.

At Delphi, follow the Sacred Way past the Treasury of the Athenians and the enduring Polygonal Wall to the Temple of Apollo. Your Local Specialist unpacks how the oracle’s counsel shaped decisions across the Greek world for centuries.

After the ruins, join a hands-on pie-making class with a local chef, rolling thin pastry and filling it with herbs and cheeses from the mountains. Share a rustic lunch, tasting a culinary tradition born of hillside gardens and village ovens.

In the Peloponnese heartland, tour vineyards and cellar before you sample Agiorgitiko wines across styles—from bright, unoaked reds to age-worthy cuvées. A light lunch pairing highlights how acidity, tannin and fruit meet local cheeses and cured meats.

Meet an expert sommelier to discuss soil, altitude and barrel regimen that define Nemea. The encounter traces the arc of Greek wine from antiquity to a confident present.

In rural Arcadia, put on a beekeeper’s suit and step into the hives with Anthony and Sophia, a family devoted to organic practice and pollinator health. Learn how Cretan thyme and mountain flora influence nectar and wax.

Conclude with a guided honey tasting, comparing texture, aroma and finish while discovering how your visit supports SDG 15: Life on Land. Sweetness here carries a measurable conservation impact.

Join an orientation walk in Nafplion, Greece’s first capital, where neoclassical facades line café squares and promenades trace the bay. Look up to the Palamidi fortress and seaward to the Bourtzi sea tower anchoring the harbour.

Your Travel Director highlights civic buildings and lanes that reflect 19th-century optimism as an independent nation took shape beneath Venetian and Ottoman strongholds.

Enter through the Lion Gate to walk Mycenae’s Cyclopean walls and tholos tombs—monuments of a Late Bronze Age power whose myths seeded Homeric epic. Continue to the Epidaurus theatre and its acoustics, designed for clarity amid sacred healing grounds.

Later, meet producers at a nearby grove to taste extra-virgin olive oil. Learn how harvest timing, milling temperature and varietal shape fruitiness, bitterness and pepper on the palate.

See the Corinth Canal from the crossing point, where a narrow 6.3-kilometre cut links Aegean and Ionian. Gaze at the sheer limestone walls that plunge to the waterline and feel the rush of vessels threading the strait.

Opened in 1893 after centuries of schemes, this feat shortened circumnavigation of the Peloponnese. It’s a perfect place to pause for photos and consider ambition chiseled into stone.

Within Ioannina’s walls, walk the castle quarter past mosques, Byzantine chapels and stone mansions that mirror Ottoman prosperity and Epirus craft. From the promenade, the lake mirrors peaks and reeds stir with waterfowl.

Board a small boat to cruise Lake Pamvotis, landing on the Island of Ioannina. Monasteries and workshops recall the Ottoman-era heritage of Ali Pasha, while cafés serve syrup-glossed pastries from old family recipes.

Join an orientation walk in Heraklion, taking in the harbour’s Koules fortress, the arcaded Venetian Loggia and Morosini Fountain. Streets open onto squares where markets, cafés and bakeries frame daily life.

Pass Agios Titos, the Agios Minas Cathedral and the former Monastery of St. Catherine to trace how Venetian rule, Ottoman presence and modern Crete shaped the city’s rhythm and skyline.

Share a Cretan welcome dinner built around orchards, gardens and the sea—think dakos and kaltsounia, garden greens, grilled local cheeses and fragrant herbs.

As you raise a toast with raki, your Travel Director introduces island table customs and seasonal cooking that prize simplicity, freshness and island hospitality over flourish.

With your Local Specialist, explore the Palace of Knossos—the Throne Room and Central Court—while fresco reconstructions like the ‘Prince of the Lilies’ evoke Minoan ceremony, trade and myth on Crete’s Bronze Age stage.

Continue to the Heraklion Archaeological Museum to study ceramics, seals, jewellery and sculpture arranged chronologically, linking palace imagery to the crafts and beliefs of Minoan society.

Walk Rethymno’s old town along cobbled lanes where Venetian facades and Ottoman domes sit side by side. Shaded alleys lead to the waterfront and its lighthouse, once a mariner’s beacon.

Above the harbour, the Fortezza crowns a rocky headland, recalling 16th-century fortification when the Republic of Venice guarded Crete’s coasts against corsairs and empire rivals.

Explore Chania’s old town beginning in the Splantzia quarter, where plane trees shade squares and cafés cluster. See the Church of Agios Nikolaos with its minaret, a rare sign of shifting faith and empire.

Continue to the Etz Hayyim Synagogue to learn how restoration safeguarded the memory of Crete’s Jewish community. Lanes spill towards a Venetian harbour that still anchors the city’s daily rhythm.

Gather for a farewell dinner in a traditional Cretan restaurant, where seasonal mezze, slow-cooked stews and wood-oven breads showcase the island pantry.

As you sample regional wines and share highlights, expect relaxed service, warm conversation and the easy cadence of a Mediterranean evening—the perfect moment to raise a final toast.

Join an optional evening in Psiri, slipping into a neighbourhood of murals, cafés and tavernas for a traditional taverna dinner. Expect sharing plates, grilled favourites and local wines amid atmospheric lanes and lively tables.

This experience is at additional cost and bookable with your Travel Director on tour. It’s an easy way to taste Athenian nightlife and neighbourhood flavours with friends old and new.

Discover Athens’ classical heart as you walk the Acropolis with a Local Specialist, pausing at the Parthenon, the Caryatids of the Erechtheion and the Propylaea. From this limestone plateau, take in the city’s sweep and consider how stone, proportion and setting expressed civic pride in the 5th century BC.

Continue to the Acropolis Museum, where light-filled galleries align with the Parthenon’s orientation. Examine sculpted friezes, metopes and everyday finds that trace Athenian religion, craftsmanship and the flowering of democracy under Pericles.

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