My wife & I just complete the two week tour with our fabulous guide Daphne. We arrived a few days early & rented a car in Athens & drove to Meteora & stayed sat the Diviani Hotel for 2 nights (loved the place). We took the recommended Visit Meteora sunset tour as well as the next day full tour of the awesome monasteries there & we enjoyed each recommended tour.
While in Athens staying at the Acropolis Select Hotel, a solid Rick Steves type place, we adored our meal the 1st night right up the street at Mani Mani. Daphne had us there together our last night in Athens as well.
The Rick Steves tour covered a lot of ground & there were long days on the bus which we did not enjoy, nor did we like the first few days of changing hotels after only one night, but… we loved each place we went, especially Monevasia & Hydra so we don’t have a good suggested way to improve either…other than maybe more quality than quantity.
We have a large library of RS travel books having visited Europe 2 dozen + times, but we had done only one other RS guided tour in Istanbul on our way to Africa 2 years ago. We loved that experience as well, but have the same comment…27 guests for one RS guide is a lot. We know economics rule.
I suggested to Daphne that she & other RS guides carry a 3D sketch of the Parthenon property and structure so she & Mama Ray, the local Parthenon great guide there could point out known locations where artifacts were found & displayed (if known) as we were seeing them in the museum. It was our 1st day of the tour & as all of us were just getting to know each other, we were shy & regrettably asked few questions about such things.
While flying to Naxos for 4 nights after our tour, we enjoyed our stay at Hotel Grotta. Great location & best breakfast while in Greece. We did not believe the recommended Naxos Cultural Tour island village food tour was worth the very expensive price of $250+/person. The next day we rented a car from Matha (a good company & value at E45/day) & drove around the island ourselves visiting villages. While in Naxos, we loved eating at Oasis, a family run friendly place as well as the recommended Doukato. Naxos was surprisingly tourist busy, especially down by the water, despite the “no cruise ships”. We enjoyed roaming the upper alleys there.
We also booked 9:55 AM ferry tickets to & 6 PM back on-line & went to Paros for a day & took a bus (E2.20/person) when we arrived to the town of Naousa. Seeing the local fishermen in action there was cool. After lunch, we bussed back to the port of Parikia. We do not think RS gives it as much credit as it deserves as roaming the upper alleys there & the nice walk-to beach was fun.
The Greek people were so friendly & generous with their time & suggestions, & none had their hand out expecting a tip; though we generally add 10% to each bill. The streets all felt very safe even at night, but it is sad that water is not potable in most locations as the number of discarded plastic bottle & general trash is county shameful. If you like Greek salads as much as I do at lunch & dinner, September is great for their fresh tomatoes and cucumbers. Sadly our days on the mainland were each 95 degrees plus while there from Aug 31 to Sept 21. All hotels had AC. The islands were a bit cooler & very breezy. Though Greece is probably not on our return list, we look forward to our next Europe adventure & yet another RS tour or at least another RS book to assist us. Bill Marshall & Amy Newman
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Southern Oregon
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Mani Mani is indeed a great restaurant, we only got it for the last dinner on the tour, you were lucky. The RS Greek tour guides seem to be uniformly great, we had Maria and she was superb. Glad you enjoyed the tour, most all of us agree that 27 or 28 is a big number and wish it could be smaller. You two did it the right way in getting there extra early and seeing Meteora and then a different island afterwards. Thanks for the trip report!