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Trip Report -- 13 days in Greece

Posted by (Seattle, WA) on

Accidentally posted this in the wrong forum. Whoops!

Hey travelers, my husband and I just returned from Greece and I wanted to share our experience. We abbreviated Rick's suggestion from his book and made some changes that fit for us. We were really happy with what we were able to do and see.

General reflections: Really glad we rented a car -- we drove only about 3-4 hours per day and were easily able to stay on schedule. Please note that the tolls on our routes added up to about 35 euro in total and we spent about 100 euro on gas. We usually like to use airbnbs for cost effectiveness and getting local flavor, but this didn't seem to work as well in Greece as it did in Italy. We had 2 hosts completely fall through on us, and found that the cheap hotels were less expensive than airbnbs and still gave a very nice local flavor with family owner/operators. Being in Greece in the off season was really really great for us. We got reduced prices and the sites were not very crowded. Athens was still pretty crowded in November, so I can only imagine how it gets in the summer time. We ran the Athens Authentic Marathon, and it was a great experience, but very very crowded. The runners usually thin out over most road races, but this was very crowded throughout. Still, extremely well organized and there were frequent water stations.

We got in late so spent the first night in Athens.
Hydra - 2 nights
Delphi - 1 night
Olympia - 1 night
Monemvasia - 2 nights
Nafplio - 2 nights
Athens - 4 nights
We felt we spent just the right amount of time in each location and were really happy we didn't spend any more or less time at any place.

Posted by
5 posts

Hi, travelingrunner!

I enjoyed your trip report. My husband and I are doing something very similar this summer. We are staying the first three nights in Athens, at an AirBnb. Then we will rent a car. We have two hotel nights in Delphi, one hotel night in Monemvasia, three hotel nights in Nafplio, two AirBnb nights in Aegina and two more AirBnb nights in Athens.

The only thing that concerns me is that you said some of your AirBnb hosts fell through. It would be highly unlikely that we have any of the same places booked, but were either of yours in Aegina or Athens? I read the reviews for the properties I rented, but one property was brand new and only had one review.

Thanks for your help.

Posted by
11 posts

Hi stephaniecobb01,

One of the places that fell through for us was in Athens. I don't remember the exact listing, but I do remember that the situation was that we booked it and then followed up about a week before our trip to touch base about getting the key. We didn't get a response, but my experience with using AirBnB internationally is that sometimes people don't respond as quickly as I'd expect as an American, but that it usually turns out ok. This time, we should have gone with our gut that it wasn't going to work out. We never heard back from the host. We went to the listed address and it was locked up, looked as if no one had been there in a long time (newspapers and flyers piled up outside). That was our first night in Athens. We were easily able to find a clean, affordable, conveniently located hotel instead. When we returned to Athens for 4 days at the end of our trip, we stayed at a great AirBnB near the temple of Zeus. I hope you have a great trip!

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