Ancient Greece, Santorini & Corfu

Arrive in Corfu, check into your hotel in a beautifully restored 1820’s neoclassical building, in the heart of the city.

Meet up with Paula Benneian your Tour Leader, and your fellow travellers at our Welcome Dinner this evening.

Three private gardens today give a glimpse into the island’s unusual social and natural history. Deep understanding of Mediterranean flora by designer Jennifer Gay underlies the success of each garden.

Two traditional houses make up the Kassiopia Estate each with its own garden shaped by the environment. Naturalistic plantings link each house to its surrounding environment. All three gardens have a strong and emotive power of place.

Cassiopeia is open to prevailing wind, with views to the sea. Stone paths through the headland, are lined with native flowering shrubs.

Atolikos is protected with sheltered terraced spaces, good habitat for wildlife. Overlooking the narrow straits between Corfu and Albania, the distant view from Agnos House is unchanged since Roman times and provides a dramatic backdrop to the garden.

A series of parallel terraces are intensively planted with colour and textural harmonies. On the perimeter, the garden transitions gently from cultivated to wild. You won’t want to leave! Please note these garden visits are subject to change.

The Kapodistrias Museum of Corfu is dedicated to the life and the heritage of the first governor of modern Greece, Ioannis Kapodistrias, a highly regarded European politician and a staple of the Greek State.

Hosted in the old countryside estate of Koukouritsa, the museum immerses visitors into the life of Kapodistrias, from his early childhood years until his assassination in 1831.The hilltop garden has a rich flora and panoramic views. Grapes, olives, potatoes and citrus have been growing here since recorded history.

A wine tasting is included.

Morning flight to Athens. Transfer to your hotel, located in the famous Plaka district in the Old Town. Our guide will take us for an orientation stroll through the Old Town.

Enjoy time at leisure this afternoon to relax or to explore the labyrinth of pedestrian streets around your hotel before dinner this evening at a local restaurant.

Early start this morning to explore Athens with our local guide. First visit the Acropolis and its New Museum, a showcase of its surviving treasures. The collection covers the Archaic period to the Roman, with emphasis on the Acropolis of the 5th century BC, considered the apotheosis of Greek artistic achievement.

The triumphal Arch of Hadrian and Temple of Zeus (known as the Olympieion) are testaments to the grandeur of the past and a profound symbol of the rich Greek history and mythology. With its colossal columns, the Temple of Zeus dates to the 2nd century BC. See remnants of the Hadrian’s Library (132 AD) built by Roman Emperor Hadrian, as an offer to the city. The entrance to the Library overlooked the Roman Forum, founded by Julius Caesar in 10 AD and as an extension to the Ancient Agora.

Next stop is the Panathenaic Stadium built in the 4th century BC and restored for the first modern Olympic games in 1896. It’s said that at Hadrian’s inauguration in AD 120, a thousand wild animals were sacrificed in the arena. Later, the seats were rebuilt in marble by Herodes Atticus.

Our tour continues to Monastiraki Square, a neighbourhood that has been inhabited for six thousand consecutive years! It is among the oldest, historically significant neighbourhoods in Western Culture. The name “Monastiraki” was established during the Greek Revolution against the Ottoman Occupation.

Ermou Street is a major pedestrian thoroughfare, a vibrant shopping street that connects Syntagma Square to Monastiraki, passing through the city centre.

Syntagma Square is a major public square in Athens, located near the Greek Parliament building, and serves as a focal point for political activity and a gateway to the city’s shopping and entertainment scene. Time here for lunch (own expense).

Last stop today is the National Gardens, one of the most significant historic gardens in Greece, located next to the Hellenic Parliament, the former Palace of King Otto and Queen Amalia. Created during the reign of King Otto of Greece (1815-1867) from 1837 onwards according to the ideas of his wife Amalie, née Duchess of Oldenburg (1818-1875), it is an important work of European garden art, but also a testimony to the common German-Greek history and is closely connected with the development of Athens into the new Greek capital in the 19th century.

The National Garden is closely linked with the recent history of Athens and is a place where the collective identity and memory of the city is preserved and developed. Head back to your hotel.

Morning visit to Julia and Alexander Diomedes Botanic Garden, spanning 460 acres, a 20 min ride from the city centre. Alexander N. Diomedes (1875–1950), the founder of the garden and member of the Athenian Academy, was a professor and one of the patrons of the University of Athens. Before his death he left instructions for the establishment of a botanic garden to be used by the university and other institutions for the study, cultivation and development of plants, and to foster this interest for younger generations. The garden opened its doors to the public in 1975.

Afternoon visit to Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre. Sitting beneath a man-made slope above Faliron Bay and shaded by a ‘Magic Carpet’ roof covered with solar panels, this stunning Renzo Piano building, completed in 2016, is home to the Greek National Opera and the National Library. Surrounded by a huge park that was formerly a parking lot from the 2004 Olympic Games and planted with indigenous Greek plants, the project has restored the lost connections of the sit with the city and the sea. Travel back to your hotel.

Leave Athens this morning, take the ferry to Hydra. The atmosphere of this island has seduced many visitors, making it a retreat for famous personalities, like Leonard Cohen, Charmian Clift, Maria Callas and Aristotle Onassis.

Elegant stone mansions have been restored, no cars and no new buildings allowed… and all set around picture-perfect waterfront. Option to visit the Byzantine Museum and the National History Museum.

Ferry back to the mainland to meet your coach for the journey to Nafplio on the Peloponnese Peninsula. Attached to mainland Greece by a thin isthmus, this rugged peninsula with its beguiling towns and rich history has a lot to offer. Check in to your hotel.

Explore Nafplio this morning. This beautiful old city was the first capital of Greece from 1823 to 1832. First stop is Palamidi, the fortress that dominates the city.

Acronafplia is next, Nafplio’s oldest castle that rises at the top of the old town. Once the whole city existed within these walls. Parts of the castle date to the Bronze Age, with remnants of these old walls in the western part of the castle. Acronafplia was later extended and amplified by respectively Romans, Franks, Venetians and Turks. The view is beautiful, well worth the climb.

Afternoon visit to Epidaurus, treasured for its archaeological sites, in particular its Ancient Theatre constructed in the late 4th century BC, regarded as the best-preserved ancient theatre in Greece in terms of its perfect acoustic and fine structure.

Travel on to Gythio, our base to explore the Peloponnese. This beautiful seaside town on the southern coast of Peloponnese, was constructed on the hill slopes around a natural bay, Gythio is the largest town in the region of Mani, a secluded barren place with ghost villages and wild landscape. Check in to your hotel for the next three nights.

Day trip to medieval Monemvasia, discovered by the Byzantines in the sixth century and occupied by the Crusaders, the Venetians and the Turks. This medieval tower town is located on the south-eastern coast of the Peloponnese.

We will explore this stone-built settlement, nestled at the edge of the giant citadel with our local guide and immerse ourselves in a unique medieval atmosphere!

Travel back to Gythio with time to relax before dinner.

A day to discover the Mani Peninsula, the southern tip of the Peloponnese, loved for its rugged, mountainous terrain, timeless rustic villages, and unique culture. First stop is the idyllic village of Kardamyli. Visit the old town and Museum of the Fortress
Patrick Leigh Fermor built a house from local stone and in the local style, in 1959 with his wife Joan. Fermor was made an honorary citizen of for his work with the Greek resistance during WW11. His books about his travels in Greece Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese (1958) and Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece (1966) are worth reading.

Close by is the Mediterranean garden of Katerina Georgi who was born in London, moved to Greece 26 years ago, setting up her own consultancy there. After studying and working with the renowned John Brookes (1933-2018), she expanded into garden design. Katerina has renovated old, stone houses like her own and created well designed, exquisitely planted, drought-tolerant Mediterranean gardens.

Lunch in Kardamyli before we travel down the west coast of the Mani Peninsula to Diros to visit the flooded caves, inhabited since Neolithic times. Board a small fishing boat to explore the caves.

Abandoned as human habitation in 4 BC after an earthquake, the caves were rediscovered in 1895. In 1949 the local husband-and-wife speleology team of Anna and Yiannis Petrocheilou began to systematically explore the caves, now estimated to be 14km long. Underwater exploration continues.

These caves are the most significant natural site in Greece. The Paleolithic and Neolithic artifacts found here indicate that the caves were one of the earliest inhabited places in Greece. Travel back to Gythio.

Travel back to Athens today. First stop in eastern Peloponnese, is the UNESCO archaeological site of Mycenae. Mentioned by the epic poet Homer and the geographer Pausanias, Mycenae was the most powerful town of its time and gave its name to an entire historical period, the Mycenaean period.

Experts did not believe that the town existed, they thought it was made up by Homer, until the 1870s when the amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann excavated the site of Mycenae. After the excavations of Mycenae, and of Troy and Tyrins, Schliemann was named the “father of Mycenaean Archaeology”.

Visit the Archaeological Museum, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Monument, that hosts many valuable items excavated from this site. Taste the fine food and wine of the Nemea Valley at lunch today. Vineyards in Neméa date to the 5th Century BC.

Transfer from your hotel to Pireus Port for our fast ferry to the stunning island of Santorini (included). Transfer to your hotel .

This unique landscape results from a fusion of black volcanic rock and the endless blue of the Aegean Sea. We will be ready for sunset drinks and dinner in Oia, nestled on the northern tip of Santorini’s caldera. This picturesque village is loved for its white-washed houses, blue-domed churches and breathtaking sunsets.

Discover Santorini today! First stop is Akrotiri with extensive ruins of its Bronze Age settlement enclosed within a bioclimatic roof. Suspended walkways enable visitors to walk above the excavated section of the Minoan port town. Because the town was covered in volcanic ash following a volcanic eruption in the 16th century BC, preservation of the settlement is exceptional.

Visit the Museum of Prehistoric Thera. Farewell lunch at Santo Winery in its prime location overlooking the caldera.

The remainder of this day is free for you to relax or explore.

Our tour ends after breakfast.