The Mediterranean
Greece
Six thousand islands, of which two hundred and twenty-seven are inhabited, and a mainland almost nobody visits.
- Capital
- City
- Destination
- Greece
Greece is more mountain than island by area, and the mainland — Epirus, the Pindus, the Peloponnese — is emptier and greener than the postcards suggest. The islands divide into groups with different architecture, food and weather; the Cyclades are white and windy, the Ionians green, the Dodecanese medieval. Everything closes down in the afternoon heat and reopens at six, which is not laziness but sense.
Getting around
Ferries are the network: fast catamarans and slow open-deck boats, both booked online and both cancelled by wind. Domestic flights save a day to the far islands. The mainland needs a car; the Athens metro is excellent and has an archaeological museum inside a station.
When to come
May, June, September and early October are the sweet spot: swimmable sea, open tavernas, tolerable ruins. August is the whole of Greece and half of Europe on the same ferries. Many island businesses close entirely from November to April.
Worth knowing
- Ferry cancellations for wind are common and not negotiable; leave a buffer day before a flight home.
- Many older buildings ask you to bin paper rather than flush it — follow the sign.
- Archaeological sites close early in winter and midday shade is scarce; go at opening.
At the table
- Whatever is in the pot that day — ask to see the kitchen, which is normal
- Greek salad with no lettuce, and bread to finish the oil
- Wine from Santorini's assyrtiko and Naoussa's xinomavro, both serious and both cheap here
Travel regions
3 editorial regions, each opening onto its cities.
Region
Athens & the Peloponnese
The classical core: the Acropolis, Mycenae, Olympia and a peninsula of castles and empty coast.
Region
The Islands
Cyclades, Dodecanese, Ionian and Crete — related, and not remotely the same.
Region
Northern Greece
Meteora's monasteries on rock pillars, Epirus's stone villages, and Thessaloniki's food.
Popular destinations
The destinations we have written most about, which is not the same as the ones most people go to — and is the only ranking we can honestly compute.
Athens
A sprawling modern capital with a 2,500-year-old temple on a rock in the middle and a food scene that got very good, quietly.
Nafplio
Greece's first capital: Venetian, neoclassical, under two fortresses, on a gulf in the Peloponnese.
Delphi
The navel of the ancient world, on a terrace of Mount Parnassus above a sea of olive trees.
Naxos
The largest Cycladic island: mountain villages, marble quarries, a working agricultural interior and long sandy beaches.
Santorini
The rim of a drowned volcano, with villages on the edge of a 300-metre cliff and vines grown in baskets on the ground.
Chania, Crete
A Venetian harbour with an Ottoman quarter behind it, on an island large enough to be its own country.
Experiences here
A sample of what is listed across Greece.
The Acropolis Museum, third floor
The Parthenon frieze laid out at actual scale and orientation, with plaster casts where the British Museum holds the originals — the gaps are the argument.
The acoustics at Epidaurus
Sit in the top row and have someone whisper on the orchestra floor. Built in the 4th century BC and still unexplained in full.
The sacred way at opening
The site opens at eight and the coaches arrive at ten. Two hours of Delphi alone is a different place from Delphi at noon.
The interior, not the beach
Half the island is farmland at altitude — cheese, potatoes and Venetian towers, twenty minutes from the sand.
Vines grown in baskets
No trellises: the vines are woven into circles on the ground to shelter the fruit from wind and catch night moisture.
Down the Samaria gorge
Sixteen kilometres, one direction only, ending at a boat because there is no road out. Open May to October.
Round the island by boat
Half the coast has no road to it. A day boat from Adamas is the only way to see Kleftiko and the southern coves.
A panigiri that ends at dawn
A village saint's day: one long table, live violin and lute, dancing in a circle, and food priced to cover the church roof.
Journeys through Greece
The Journey Planner holds all 25 of these destinations and the real distances between them. It opens on 49 days, which is the shortest stay this atlas records for each of them added up — change the length, the month, the budget or the pace and build it again.
Stories set here
The case for going in October
Europe's crowding problem is not the number of visitors. It is that they all arrive in the same eleven places in the same six weeks.
What a pilgrimage is for when you do not believe
Three hundred thousand people a year walk to Santiago. Most of them do not describe the reason as religious, and the Camino has absorbed that without much difficulty.
Fixed points in the year
The record
What we hold about Greece, where each figure came from, and when it was last checked. The score says what this country is for, not how good it is — it is useful once you are already interested and is not a reason to be.
- Capital
- Athens
- Currency
- EUR — euro
- Languages
- Greek
- Population
- 10,716,322 (2019) — Natural Earth 1:50m admin 0 countries
- ISO codes
- GR · GRC
- Time zone
- EET/EEST (UTC+2/+3)
- Membership
- European Union, Schengen area, Uses the euro, European Economic Area
- Typical day
- €55–140 per person
- Best months
- June, July, August, September
- Quieter months
- May, October
- Facts checked
- not verified why this matters
Europe Experience Score
How this is calculated — derived from our own tagging, not from measurement. It says what a place is for, not how good it is. The tick on each bar is the median across the whole Atlas, so a bar short of it is a dimension this place is not for.