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11 night trip in June

Posted by on

I've been through many of the forum posts on Greece, and have found them very helpful. I was hoping to get your sage advice on a belated honeymoon my wife and I are planning for June. We are hoping to get a broad cross section of what Greece has to offer; ancient sites, scenic views, R&R, and more active things to do like hiking. The only thing set in stone right now is our flight - we depart Boston early afternoon on 6/5, arriving in Athens the morning of 6/6, and we fly out of Athens the afternoon of 6/17. Our current tentative itinerary is as follows:

6/6: Take metro to Pireaus, take ferry from Pireaus to Hydra, explore Hydra town
6/7: Relax in Hydra, visit a beach
6/8: Hike interior of Hydra
6/9: Ferry back to Pireaus, get a rental car near Pireaus and drive to Nafplio. Explore Nafplio town.
6/10: Explore Nafplio fortresses, maybe go to a beach if we finish early
6/11: Take day trip to Mycenae and Epidauros
6/12: Drive to Kardamyli, explore Kardamyli town. Maybe relax on a nearby beach.
6/13: Hike near Kardamyli or explore Mani peninsula by car
6/14: Drive to Piraeus, drop off rental car, take metro in to Athens. Walk around a couple neighborhoods near hotel.
6/15: Explore ancient sites and associated museums
6/16: Visit nation archaeological museum, and do more walking around Athens
6/17: Take metro back to airport, fly home

I have the following questions:
- Any recommended tweaks to the itinerary?
- Do you guys think we are allowing sufficient time to appreciate everything we're visiting, or will we feel rushed?
- I've noticed in other threads that people recommend waiting to buy ferry tickets until in Greece as there was little risk of selling out, but the advice was usually geared towards Santorini, Crete, or other farther flung island. Does the advice still hold true for Hydra in mid-June? We would be buying our ferry tickets immediately prior to boarding.
- What is people's preference with hotels - book with a booking site (e.g., hotels.com or booking.com) or with hotel? Pay in advance or at hotel? I would lean towards paying in advance so that I don't have to worry about having as much cash on hand, but then it would stink if they said they didn't have my payment.

Thank you all for any help, I'm really looking forward to my first time in Greece!

Posted by
2305 posts

Is there a way you could rent a car in Napflio? The RS Greece tour takes a ferry from somewhere near Napflio to Hydra. I'm thinking that might be an option to back-tracking to Piraeus.

I like your itinerary for what you say you want to do. I can't help with the timing for buying ferry tickets in June because we were there in May and on the tour. We usually book with the hotel, confirm before we leave the states and then pay at the hotel. Be aware that Greece prefers cash transactions for just about everything, but we never had trouble finding ATMs.

Posted by
2 posts

If I could make a ferry to Nafplio work that would be ideal, but if it's doable then my google-fu is not strong enough to figure out how. I haven't found any ferries going from Hydra to Nafplio, so I'd have to go to Porto Cheli or Ermioni... neither of which appears to have car rental. I could take a bus from one of those towns to Nafplio, and at a glance it looks like Avis rents cars there - but when I checked out Avis's website it didn't seem possible to reserve a car in Nafplio. That's how I wound up looking at the Piraeus option, but if I'm missing something please let me know!

Posted by
3262 posts

We're planning a trip to Greece soon though we're not going to Hydra. If you have a copy of Rick Steves' 2013 guidebook for Greece (or can get one from the library), look at his suggestions for getting to/from Hydra from Athens and/or the Peloponnese (Hydra Connections p. 410.) There may be other possibilities for getting to Nafplio. There is also information about buying ferry tickets in that section of the book.

I'm using Booking.com for some hotels and reserving direct for others. Some hotels offer a discount for booking direct and showing the Rick Steves' guidebook.

I think your itinerary looks pretty good though since we haven't been there yet I probably shouldn't comment. We're skipping Hydra and are including Mondmvasia for a couple of nights then, driving north to Olympia and Galaxidi from Kardamili.

Safe travels!!

Posted by
3149 posts

Keep in mind that using a 2-year-old guidebook can create problems when it comes to any published schedules and routes for public transportation such as a bus, ferry, train or plane. Be sure to go to bus (KTEL), ferry company and airline company websites for the most current timetables.

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