Greek itinerary in October

Rent car in Athens airport,drive drive to Nafplio, drive to Meteora, drive to Delphi, drive to Athens. Stay ovetnight at least one night in each place.

Thank you, Suki! Starting in Nafplio after arriving back in Athens, rather than driving to Meteora, would mean less travel time for that day. It would give me a little leeway in case the flight from Naxos to Athens was delayed. Also, I hadn't considered staying overnight in Delphi but that sounds like a good option.
According to the ferry schedule, it looks like there are ferries from Santorini to Naxos in early October. Has anyone done that trip?

Kathy, there are ferries from Santorini to Naxos daily year round ... the large open-deck BLUE STAR ferry goes at 15:30 (3:30) 365 days a year I think.... if you want an open-deck (for view of caldera on departure), the large Catamaran (car-carrying) CHAMPION JET that leaves at 10:45 to Naxos will run daily until Oct. 15.

I think Suki's drive itinerary makes more sense ... and gives you a bit more time to enjoy Nafplio, which Greeks consider THE most beautiful Old Town in all of Greece ... and the area around it is THE most crowded with ancient historical sites. In fact -- and feel free to disagree heartily -- but with your very limited time, unless you are deeply into Byzantine Monastery history and religion -- my recommendation is to skip Meteora and instead rent a really good color video of it from the Library. As it now stands, your drive itinerary is like The Amazing Race -- you dash dash dash headlong through sites, just to check them off y our list. But you won't get a million $$ if you get everything checked off, all you will get will be a blurrrr.

Instead, what I would advise, if you arrive at airport about mid-day on Day 6, then drive to Nafplio, wonderful easy modern highway until after the corinth canal, then turn south thru a valley of viney ards, citrus orchards and olive groves to Nafplio. You'll get there in time to explore the town and enjoy An AWESOME sunset from a cafe at the seafront (It's waaay better than Santorini's over-hyped sunset, in my humble opinion). Then use Day 7 for Nafplio and perhaps Mycenae ... on Day 8 EARLY drive to Epidaurus get there by 8:30 or so... the theatre is the Main THing, skp its museum, then head for Delphi -- the drive will take about 3 hours from Epidaurus. in October sometime, they will switch from extended hours (7pm) to closing @ 3. If you get there by 2, stop right at the museum & you can see it before 3pm, then walk downhill to see the Castelian Spring and the wonderful Tholos (round) temple of Athena (these are open 24/7). Enjoy sunset dinner on a terrace in the mountains -- Hotel Pan has great inexpensive rooms at rear that look waaay down the mountain to the sea. Day 9 In the morning @ 8 am enter Dellphi ruins site, then @ 10am drive back to Athens airport. probably by 1 pm. Turn in car, taxi to hotel. At 4 pm it's a lovely time to go up on Acropolis, sunset will be about 6:30? Day 10... do Ancient Agora, Acropolis museum, etc. Have a special last-night dinner (Mani Mani?).

We flew to santorini, ferried to Naxos , flew to Athens and drove to nafplio in late May/early June of this year. We returned to Athens airport and spent 2.5 days in Athens before flying home.

I would tend to agree with Janet to spend more time in nafplio. We were there four nights and enjoyed it very much. You do not want miss the fortress there. It was many of our party of 7’s favorite places. Mycanae is historically more important than epidauros but I would say that as a group we enjoyed epidauros more. There are some magnificent remains in mycanae but much requires a lot of imagination. In contrast, the theater is completely intact and you can climb to the top and enjoy the view while tour groups parade in.

Now my older son choose to drive to meterea rather than spend two additional days in Athens. He went for the scenery which is a bit other worldly. He absolutely loved it. Now this was a weekend in early June but he said the driving was difficult. Compared to the tollway towards nafplio, the drivers were much more aggressive and fast. He found the shorter section on two lane roads pretty intimidating. It is also four hours from Athen airport so lots of driving.

I never got to either Delphi or meterea. I will have to return to Greece!
Beth

Thank you, Janet and Beth for taking the time to respond to me. You are both correct - rushing through the sights just creates stress but it is hard to decide what NOT to do! I am convinced that I want to spend 2 nights in Nafplio. I just need to decide with my husband what will be the best experience. And the hotel and restaurant tips are appreciated!

We were in both Mycenae and Epidaurus last week and preferred Myceneae. We booked a private guide for Mycenae so that may have made a difference in the experience. I love ancient civilizations so the opportunity to go deep with the guide really enhanced the visit. The museum at Mycenae has relatively new displays and provided a lot of great supporting material for the visit. It's not difficult to do both sights, although they're in opposite directions from Napflio and the three form a sort of triangle. We also really enjoyed the Palmidi fortress in Napflio. The views from there over the city and the sea were quite beautiful.

I think a private guide would have made a huge difference in our experience. Some of our group were reading every sign while others had no patience for it. Perhaps you could share how you found a guide.

Beth

We pre-booked a guide for Mycenae through Niki Vlachou at Olympic Tours. I think her contact info is in the RS guidebook. Here is the Olympic Tours website: http://www.olympictours.gr/ Niki was already booked that day but had a colleague who was available. Niki also found a guide for us for Knossos. The prices were reasonable and we had the guide all to ourselves.

At Mycenae I didn't see 'free' guides waiting for a customer (this was in early June). We picniced there before entering the site so had some time to watch the comings and goings. At Knossos it seemed like it would be pretty easy to find a guide on the spot. After buying your ticket there is a small booth just past the cafe on the opposite side where available guides appear to wait. But after traveling that far, I wanted to be more selective about the guide and so we contacted Niki for a Knossos guide and were happy to find that she could recommend someone for that site as well. We were happy with both guides, for their enthusiasm, great information, and punctuality.

Lia is correct ... In a number of visits to both Mycenae and Epidaurus, I have never seen guides collecting by the entry, while it does happen at Knossos. I believe that's because there are a certain number of licensed guides living in Crete, not going elsewhere for guiding duties and Knossos has a reliable number of independent travelers "popping in" from ships or from holidays nearby, without the background or prep to tour the site themselves.

There used to be an agency IN Nafplio that covers both sites in 1 day; that's how I saw them first. Alas, no more. Locals told me that most tourist today arrive either via Athens bus tour with its own licensed guide or from day-stop of cruise ship ditto. This may be rationalization, but Nafplio-based bus tours disappeared during the big 2007 - 11 downturn and have not returned.

As for private guides, Lia says "prices were reasonable," and that's true when you realize the person makes a living this way. In my experience in places like Delphi, a standard charge is about €60-70 per hour (it can be a group of up to 6 people), 2 hr minimum (but note: Delphi guides typically live 15 minutes from the site & can meet you at the gate -- you have to travel to Mycenae a 30min+ drive, so it would be at Minimum 3 hours) You don't have to go thru Olympic Tours tho u can. There's an outfit called Viator that lists independent guides for Greece. Most are Athens-based, but by putting in "Mycenae" in search slot & scrolling down I found ONE excellent-sounding guide In Nafplio (17 years experience; she & her family moved there to bring up their children). She has glowing reviews and charges €50 per hour for 1-10 people. https://tourguides.viator.com/tour-guide-smaragdi-dize-9527.aspx Unless Olympic Tour local is waay under that, I think you should snap her up.

I agree that Epidaurus is enjoyable without a guide... read up ahead of time & take photocopies along. The site itself is a scenic area of rubble, not well-signaged. The Museum is forgettable & skippable (all the good artifacts from here are in the Nat. Arch. Museum in Athens). The theatre is self-explanatory & awesome, and it inspires Performances! For some reason, to test acoustics, people stand at center stage and bellow their national anthems! Also, May in Greece (as in US) is Prime Time for tour of Greek schoolkids. Once we watched & laughed while a bunch of 14-year-olds blushed and giggled their way through a scene of Lysistrata (remember, that's the play where women ended a war by refusing men in the bedroom unless fighting stopped).

Thank you for the tour information!