Classical Greece

1. Day 1

   Arrival in Athens

   On arrival

   Athens International Airport

   Met after baggage reclaim and driven into the city privately. Check in at your four-star hotel and settle in before the coach days start.

2. Day 2

   Athens sightseeing

   Morning

   The ceremonial city, by coach

   A half-day seat-in-coach tour with a guide. It opens at the Panathenaic Stadium, the marble horseshoe rebuilt in Pentelic marble for the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, then the Hellenic Parliament and the changing of the guard at the Monument to the Unknown Soldier, where the Evzones do the drill in full dress.

   Seen from the coach

   Passing sights rather than stops: the surviving columns of the Temple of Olympian Zeus, Hadrian's Arch on the old boundary between the Greek city and the Roman one, the neoclassical run of the Academy, the University and the National Library, and Syntagma Square.

   Acropolis and Acropolis Museum

   The two stops where you get out and walk. Up the rock for the Parthenon, the Propylaea, the Temple of Athena Nike and the Erechtheion, then down the hill to the museum built to hold what came off it, with the Parthenon gallery on the top floor aligned to the temple itself.

   Afternoon

   Free. Entrance fees at the sites and museums are in the package, and the rest of the day is your own.

3. Day 3

   Athens at leisure

   Full day

   Nothing scheduled before the tour leaves. Markets, museums and a long lunch, or an early night ahead of the drive south.

4. Day 4

   The Corinth Canal, Epidaurus, Nafplio and Mycenae

   Overnight: Olympia

   Morning

   Out along the coast

   The coach leaves Athens on the coast road and stops at the Corinth Canal, a six-kilometre cut through solid rock with the water a long way below the bridge.

   Epidaurus

   The fourth-century theatre in the sanctuary of Asklepios, built into the hillside for fourteen thousand and acoustically good enough that a voice from the orchestra floor reaches the top row unaided. Guides demonstrate; the demonstration works.

   Nafplio

   A short stop in the first capital of the modern Greek state — Venetian and Ottoman streets under the Palamidi fortress, and the small island fort of Bourtzi out in the bay.

   Afternoon

   Mycenae

   The citadel of Agamemnon in the legend and one of the principal Bronze Age sites anywhere in Europe in fact. Through the Lion Gate into the walls, then down to the Treasury of Atreus, a beehive tomb whose corbelled dome held the span record in Europe for a millennium and a half.

   Evening

   Across the Peloponnese to Olympia, arriving in time for dinner and the night at a four-star hotel.

5. Day 5

   Olympia, then north to Delphi

   Overnight: Delphi

   Morning

   Ancient Olympia

   The site and its museum with the guide: the sanctuary of Zeus, the workshop where Pheidias built the chryselephantine statue, and the stadium with its stone starting line still in place. The games ran here for something over a thousand years.

   Evening

   North to Delphi for dinner and the night at a four-star hotel.

6. Day 6

   Delphi, then north to Meteora

   Overnight: Kalambaka

   Morning

   Delphi

   The sanctuary on the flank of Parnassus that the Greeks held to be the centre of the world. Up the Sacred Way to the Temple of Apollo, where the oracle answered, then the museum below it and the bronze Charioteer.

   Evening

   On north to Kalambaka, under the rocks of Meteora, for dinner and the night at a four-star hotel.

7. Day 7

   Meteora, then back to Athens

   Morning

   The monasteries

   Six working monasteries left of the twenty-four built on these sandstone towers from the fourteenth century on, reached in their first centuries only by rope ladders and nets. The tour visits them and the guide takes the history; steps and modest dress are the practical part.

   Afternoon

   The long drive south to Athens and the last night at your four-star hotel.

8. Day 8

   Departure

   Morning

   Breakfast at the hotel, then a private transfer to Athens International Airport for your flight home or onward.

Entry rules, tourism taxes and health requirements change without notice and depend on your passport. Everything above is confirmed by our operations desk before your booking is finalised.