15-Day Greece Undiscovered with Crete Extension - Small Group 2027

Highlights

• 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 savory 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.
• Chania: Join your Small Group for dinner in a traditional Cretan restaurant. The menu features local specialties and seasonal ingredients, typically including dishes built around olive oil, vegetables, herbs and local cheeses, with regional wine served alongside.
• Athens: Visit the Acropolis Museum with your Local Expert 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 Expert 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 Expert, 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.
• Athens: Walk the Acropolis with your Local Expert, examining the Parthenon’s Doric columns, the Caryatids of the Erechtheion and the gateway of the Propylaea. You’ll understand how these structures expressed Athenian political power, religious devotion and architectural precision during the 5th century BC.
• Athens: See Hadrian’s Arch, built in AD 131 to mark the boundary between ancient Greek Athens and the Roman city rebuilt under Emperor Hadrian. Its inscription reflects the city’s dual identity during the Roman period.
• Thermopylae: View the monument to King Leonidas, erected near the site of the 480 BC battle between Greek forces and the Persian army of Xerxes I. The statue commemorates the Spartan-led defense of the pass, where terrain played a decisive role in delaying the Persian advance into mainland Greece.
• Metsovo: A mountain town in the Pindus range with a long Vlach heritage and a strong tradition of trade across the high passes of Epirus and Thessaly. Built on steep slopes, the town is known for stone-built houses, carved timber balconies and small churches that reflect its 18th- and 19th-century prosperity.
• Ioannina: Cruise across Lake Pamvotis to the Island of Ioannina, a rare example of an inhabited lake island. Once ashore, the lanes lead past small churches and monastic sites that connect directly to the city’s Ottoman-era history, including places linked to Ali Pasha.
• Nafpaktos: See how Nafpaktos marks the Battle of Lepanto on its waterfront, with memorial inscriptions near the Venetian harbor and a statue of Miguel de Cervantes, who fought in the 1571 naval battle. The harbor’s enclosed shape and defensive walls remain the clearest present-day reminder of why this port mattered strategically.
• Delphi: Explore Delphi with your Local Expert, following the Sacred Way past the Treasury of the Athenians and the Polygonal Wall as the sanctuary climbs the slope of Mount Parnassus. You’ll reach the Temple of Apollo and learn how the oracle’s consultations shaped decision-making across the Greek world for centuries.
• Nafplio: Join your Travel Director for an orientation of Nafplion. See why this town was chosen as Greece’s first capital after independence, with neoclassical public buildings and waterfront promenades set beneath the Palamidi fortress.
• Archaeological Site of Mycenae: Explore Mycenae with your Local Expert, entering through the Lion Gate and walking the citadel where Cyclopean walls protected one of the most powerful centers of the Late Bronze Age. You’ll visit tholos tombs and learn how archaeology connects the site to Mycenaean society, trade and kingship.
• Corinth Canal: See the Corinth Canal, opened in 1893 to cut a 6.3-kilometer passage through the Isthmus of Corinth and link the Aegean with the Ionian. From the crossing point, you’ll view the steep limestone sides and the narrow channel that shortened sea routes around the Peloponnese.
• Heraklion: Take an internal flight to Crete, your home for the next four nights
• Heraklion: Join your Travel Director for an orientation walk in Heraklion, introducing the city’s Venetian and later layers. You’ll view key landmarks including the Koules fortress on the harbor, the Venetian Loggia and Morosini Fountain, then pass Agios Titos, the Cathedral of Agios Minas and the former Monastery of St. Catherine.
• Heraklion: Visit the Heraklion Archaeological Museum with your Local Expert to view artifacts from Knossos and other Cretan sites. You’ll see Minoan ceramics, jewelry, seals and fresco fragments displayed in chronological order, offering a clear view of craftsmanship and daily life across the Bronze Age.
• Rethymno: Walk through Rethymno’s old town and see how Venetian and Ottoman layers sit side by side. You’ll follow cobbled lanes past Venetian-built houses and civic buildings, then notice Ottoman domes and minarets added after the 17th-century conquest.
• Chania: Explore Chania with your Local Expert, beginning in Splantzia. View the Church of Agios Nikolaos, built in the 14th century under Venetian rule and later converted into a mosque during Ottoman occupation, with a minaret added. Continue to the Etz Hayyim Synagogue in the Jewish quarter, restored in the 20th century and one of the few surviving Jewish monuments on Crete.
• Thessaloniki: Join your Local Expert for an introduction to Thessaloniki’s historic center, exploring key districts shaped by successive empires. You’ll move through the city streets before continuing to the Upper Town for views across the harbor 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: Meet Anthony and Sophia at their family’s organic beekeeping facility in Arcadia, where three generations have tended bees with care and curiosity. Put on a beekeeper’s suit and step into the hives to witness these remarkable pollinators in action, before enjoying a guided tasting and discovering why Greek honey is prized around the world for its purity and flavor. Your visit directly supports United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 15: Life on Land.
• Nafplion: Stop at a local olive grove to learn the steps from harvest to pressing, including how timing and temperature affect flavor. You’ll taste olive oil and learn how producers assess fruitiness, bitterness and peppery finish as markers of freshness and quality.
• Choose between two carefully selected activities
• Thessaloniki: Join your Local Expert for an introduction to Thessaloniki’s historic center, exploring key districts shaped by successive empires. You’ll move through the city streets before continuing to the Upper Town for views across the harbor 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.