Hello - My wife and I along with our eleven year old daughter are planning a trip to Greece over Christmas. We know that strikes off beaches so we're going mostly for history and atmospherics (walking around cute towns, eating good food, etc.). We did Egypt last year so our daughter is used to these complicated itineraries with lots of historical sight-seeing but she's still 11 so it can't be all museums all the time.
Here's my dream:
Day 0: Fly to Istanbul
Day 1: Arrive Istanbul
Days 2 & 3: Istanbul (and day trips)
Day 4: Fly to Athens and then keep flying to Crete
Day 5 & 6: Crete. I know two days in Crete isn't a ton, but we'd focus on Knossos - maybe we have a chance to get to Chania? Maybe we fly into one and fly out of the other?
Day 7: Get to Nafplion. Is the only way to go back through Athens again? There isn't some charming ferry back from Crete directly to the Peloponnese and then we can meander through Sparta and get to Nafplion? We have to go back through the Athens airport and then drive out to Nafplion?
Day 8: Tour Epidaurus & Mycenae
Day 9: Other fun Nafplion stuff?
Day 10: Drive to Athens through Corinth. See - I'm already doing this drive. So I'm not wild about having to do it twice.
Day 11 & 12: Athens & Delphi
Day 13: Fly home
This way you get 3 nights in Istanbul, 3 nights in Crete, 3 nights in Nafplion and 3 nights in Athens. We pack light.
One issue is that my daughter gets a little carsick so we'd like to do as much > 2 hours on trains/planes as possible. I know there's no train to Delphi or Nafplion from Athens which is a drag.
What does everyone think? Is this a doable thing? It's just the having go back and forth through Athens that I don't like.
Also - any thoughts on doing this over Christmas? Is that a terrible idea?
Thanks!