Greece Tour Feedback: Hill Climbing

I took this tour last year and almost everything is walking up and down. Sometimes steps, sometimes hills or hilly paved paths, and sometimes quite rough paths. This includes daily scheduled activities (Acropolis, Delphi, and others), sometimes walking from bus to lunch, or bus to hotel, hotel to 'town'. The hotels in areas outside of Athens are walkable in-town, but most are a hillside walk (paved) of a few to several blocks to attractions. Stepped areas are often rocky, irregular, and rough. My opinion is this would be a hard tour for a person with knee problems.

Thanks so much Lynn.

Just for a grin: after climbing (natch) up a Greek street to where we'd parked, I said to the grey-haired
lot attendant, "All of Greece is up and down!" He didn't miss a beat, smiled and said, "All of life is up
and down."

Lot's of climbing, both steps and hills. Some of the longer and more strenuous climbs are optional. We had an 80 year old woman on our tour. She opted out of several activities but otherwise seemed to have a good time. Read the description and call the tour department to discuss. They are very helpful with these sorts of concerns.

I took this tour a few yrs back. There were at least a few areas i would call steep and better managed with walking poles and fairly average knees.
Best ck with Rick steves customer service on the fine details. Also there are uneven pavement or cobbles to be aware of. Monevasia island is very steep narrow village paths. Some of us skipped that hike up and down.

I'm torn because we did this tour 3 years ago and my husband ( late 60s at the time) has a number of orthopedic issues and still loved it, but it is one of the more strenuous RS tours. While we opted out of the more strenuous climbs, there was a lot of walking and there were lots of hills. What kind of elevation gain are you used to doing on your hikes? Since you've done RS tours, you have an idea of what you're in for. We took collapsible trekking poles and used them a couple of times on the descent, but good shoes with adequate traction were really all we needed. He had such a good time that it minimized any discomfort. One other fellow on our tour introduced him to the cane that folds into a seat -it takes the stress off standing during any lecture stop.

Probably the best advice is to talk to someone at the tour office.

These are all immensely helpful. I'll confer with the people at Rick S tomorrow as suggested and then confer with my wife to see if this tour seems manageable for her. Thanks to all of you...

As i recall, there was some climbing on that tour but I didn't have the impression it was overly strenuous. I'm also in the "older" demographic so don't hike as well as I used to, but I didn't have any problems. Some activities that come to mind on the Greece tour.....

• the hike to the top of the mountain in Monemvasia. I had the impression that it was going to be quite strenuous, but I found it quite easy.
• the hike to the large olympic field in Delphi. From what I remember that was more of an uphill path so walking it wasn't difficult as one can walk at whatever speed is comfortable.
• the hike from Kardamyli up to the Church of Agia Sophia. That was steeper and a narrow trail in parts so it was more of an effort. However that hike is completely optional so you'd probably enjoy going to the beach instead. That's an optional "free day" activity.
• the hike up to the Parthenon in Athens. I don't remember that being particularly difficult.

Keep in mind that you can certainly opt-out of any activities that you're not comfortable with. As others have mentioned, the RS tour department will be able to give you all the information you need.

Uphill is harder on the lungs, but downhill can be murder on the knees.