Hello,
I've been plugging away at planning an upcomin trip to Greece, it is coming together, but have come to realize that as of fairly recently (2024), most of the main sites and museums require pre-booked timed tickets for entry, and the tickets get rolled out in smaller batches for weeks of months not too far in advance. It has become a part time job checking and booking them as they come up so that I don't have to try and do this during the trip. One challenge is trying to work out when you will be someowhere and how well the timing might work, though there is some flexibility (15 mins if I recall around your timeslot for bigger sites, 1 hr for the others), thankfully. I'm sure this helps reduce lineups and floods of crowds during peak times, but it requires a bit more foresight on the behalf of travellers. The prices also are generally higher than what is noted in a few guidebooks.
At this point, I'm doubling down on trying to iron out whether some sites are worth getting tickets for or not...as it seems there is a slim chance of holding on to that flexibility until the day of or day before...most sites can be decided on, but some are challenging! For example:
When visiting Santorini for a couple days, apart from walking the choras for sure in Fira and Oia, and some of the standout museums such as the Museum of Prehistoric Thira for instance, is it worth visiting Akrotiri? Has anyone been and found it worthwhile? Just getting a glimpse at photos online, it looks like its still very "fresh" archaeologically in terms of beign uncovered. In comparison to something like Pompei, where it is easy to have your imagination be guided along, does this site leave you wondering what you're looking at or might it give you a worthwhile sense of life at the time? The Museum, if I understand, contributes greatly to context. Thoughts and experiences?