Planning for my christmas trip to Greece

[chen]

Hi folks,

I've bought the round-way tickets to Greece for this Christmas holiday, and am now trying to set up a plan. I guess some chaps here may have already visited this beautiful country, or even better are there some Greek members in our forum. So any suggestions or reminders, please?

As for general itinerary, I'll have 6 days in the country, beginning from Dec 25th in Athen and ending there as well. The capital and Thessaloniki are the places I must visit. Around Athen I'm also thinking of Piraeus and Corinth, where I guess one can go and return to Athen within 1 day.

I'll probably also go to an island, but to which one is not decided yet (not Crete for sure unfortunately, but Santorini most likely). The 8-hour ferry (for one way) seems a bit time-consuming to me, while its view found over internet is just too tempting...

When going to Thessaloniki from Athen by train, I don't know if one will be able to have a stop in Thermopylae. Most comments available by googling say that this place is hard to reach by car and has few things to enjoy. But I'm just not sure how worthy a standing in the most famous battle field could be.

At last, I'm particularly looking for all kinds of Balkan War/WW1/WW2 remains (museums, monuments etc) in this country, as I have a project including both sides of the Battle of Greece 1941, and am very interested as well in the history of Allied occupation of Salonika during WW1.

Any advice, suggestions and ideas are appreciated. Many thanks in advance, mates.

cheers
chen

[franznap]

Hi Chen
Fresh Hotel in Athens very good design one, not too expensive, the pool on the terrace looking the akropolis......
my last visit 2 years ago.

[ModernKiwi]

From my time in Athens (13 years ago), I'd have to recommend avoiding it as much as possible. Get the tourist stuff out of the way ASAP and just use it to get into and out of the country.

The Greek islands are awesome and totally worth any time spent on the ferry. The rest of the country is great too and the Greek people are wonderful.

Since you already speak at least 3 languages, I'm sure you'll cope well if you learn a little Greek before you go.

Have fun, I am envious.

[0wlbear]

Delphi.........
I was told it is very beautifull.....

[chen]

Thanks mates!
There seems to be one problem, that my trip is in winter. I guess the activities in the sea won't be too possible in December, so if necessary I'll be satisfied enough if I'm able to visit enough on land.
As Chris have adviced, I am learning a little Greek now. Thanks to my structural physics courses I can now translate Greek letters into Latin, which is perhaps the only good thing offered by this boring course I've hated so much.

chen

[Paul]

One small piece of advice. Relax and have fun
Oh, and photos of anything historic.