Greece Undiscovered with Crete Extension (Small Group)

Arrive in Athens, home to the Acropolis and the Parthenon, monuments that have defined the city's skyline since the 5th century BC. After settling into your hotel, meet your Travel Director and fellow Small Group travellers.

This evening, gather with your group for dinner at a local restaurant featuring Greek dishes shaped by regional produce and long-standing culinary traditions.

Explore Athens with your Local Expert, beginning at the Acropolis Museum to view Parthenon sculptures and Acropolis finds, including frieze panels and architectural fragments. Continue past Hadrian's Arch and the Temple of Olympian Zeus, marking the scale of Roman Athens. View the Panathenaic Stadium, reconstructed in marble for the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. In Syntagma Square, see the Parliament Building and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, then pass the 19th-century neoclassical Trilogy of Athens.

This evening, you may choose to join an Optional Experience for dinner in Psiri.

Travel north from Athens to Thermopylae, the narrow coastal pass where King Leonidas and 300 Spartans resisted the Persian army in 480 BC. You'll stop to see the modern memorial marking the site and learn how the landscape shaped the battle strategy. Continue to Ancient Dion, a sacred city of the Macedonians at the foot of Mount Olympus. With your Local Expert, explore the archaeological park, including sanctuaries, theatres and Roman-era villas.

Later, arrive in Thessaloniki, Greece's second city, where you'll enjoy dinner with your small group.

Explore Thessaloniki, a port city shaped by Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman rule and long recognised as a cultural crossroads of northern Greece. See the city's sights with Insight Choice. You may join a Local Expert for a city tour that traces Thessaloniki's layered history, moving from Roman remains and Byzantine churches towards the Upper Town for views across the Thermaic Gulf. Alternatively, join your Travel Director for a guided food walk, tasting regional specialities that reflect the city's trading heritage and diverse influences.

The afternoon is at leisure to continue exploring at your own pace. Perhaps walk the waterfront promenade to the White Tower, browse the Modiano and Kapani markets for spices, olives and sweets, or head up to Ano Poli for views over the Thermaic Gulf.

Travel to Vergina with your Local Expert to the ancient Macedonian capital of Aigai. You'll explore the Royal Tombs, including the burial chamber traditionally identified with Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great. Continue to the Museum of Aigai to view finds from the royal cemetery and palace site, including gold grave goods, weapons, jewellery and painted tomb elements.

Later, travel into the Pindus Mountains to Metsovo. Enjoy time at leisure, browsing cheese shops known for Metsovone and other smoked local varieties, visiting the Tositsa Folk Art Museum or stopping at a local winery connected to Metsovo's modern wine production. Continue to Ioannina for dinner at your hotel.

Explore Ioannina, a lakeside city shaped by Ottoman rule and regional trade across Epirus. Walk within the castle walls of the old town, where mosques, Byzantine churches and stone houses reflect centuries of layered authority.

From the lakeside promenade, take in views across Lake Pamvotis before boarding a small boat to the Island of Ioannina. Once ashore, you'll have time to explore independently. You might visit the monastery associated with Ali Pasha, sample traditional syrup pastries such as baklava made to Ottoman-era recipes or see examples of the silverwork that established Ioannina as a centre of metal craft.

Begin in Nafpaktos on the Gulf of Corinth, a fortified harbour town shaped by its position at the narrow entrance to the gulf. You'll spend time around the Venetian harbour and the defensive walls that rise from the waterfront towards the castle above, a clear outline of how the town was organised for maritime control. Offshore, the Battle of Lepanto was fought in 1571, and your visit places this major naval clash in its geographic setting. Later, arrive in Galaxidi for a two-night stay and join your small group for a seafood dinner.

Visit Delphi, long regarded as the centre of the ancient Greek world. With your Local Expert, ascend the Sacred Way, once lined with votive buildings, passing the Parian marble Treasury of the Athenians and the Polygonal Wall, whose interlocking stones remain intact after thousands of years. Approach the Temple of Apollo, where the Oracle of Delphi delivered pronouncements for some 14 centuries.

Later, join a local chef in Delphi, making Greek pies, a long-established staple in this mountainous part of Central Greece. Then sit down together for lunch, sharing the pies you created with your small group.

Enter the Peloponnese and pause in Nemea, one of Greece's leading wine regions, known for reds made from the Agiorgitiko grape. You'll enjoy a light lunch followed by a tasting that compares styles shaped by vineyard site and ageing approach.

Later, join a MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® Experience with a local beekeeping family dedicated to pollinator conservation and sustainable honey production, learning how hive care supports both biodiversity and agriculture. Continue to Nafplion, Greece's first capital after independence, set beneath the Palamidi fortress with the Bourtzi sea tower in the harbour. Walk the old town with your Travel Director before settling in for the evening.

Visit Mycenae with your Local Expert and explore one of the key centres of Bronze Age Greece, associated with the Mycenaean civilisation that dominated the mainland in the late 2nd millennium BC. Enter through the Lion Gate and walk the citadel, examining the Cyclopean walls built from massive limestone blocks and visiting tholos ‘beehive' tombs used for elite burials. Continue to Epidaurus to see the 4th-century BC theatre, designed for clear sightlines and acoustics as part of a sanctuary dedicated to Asclepius.

On the return to Nafplion, stop at a local olive grove to follow the steps from harvest to pressing, then taste olive oil and learn how producers assess quality through aroma and flavour.

Cross the Corinth Canal, opened in 1893 to create a direct passage between the Aegean and Ionian seas, then fly to Crete for a four-night stay in Heraklion. On arrival, join your Travel Director for an orientation walk through the historic centre. You'll view the Koules fortress at the harbour, the Venetian Loggia and Morosini Fountain, then pass landmarks that reflect the city's layered rule, including Agios Titos, the Cathedral of Agios Minas and the former Monastery of St. Catherine.

This evening, join your Small Group for a shared Cretan dinner built around olive oil, local cheeses and island specialities, finishing with a first toast of raki.

Visit Knossos with your Local Expert and explore Crete's largest surviving Minoan palace complex, first established in the Bronze Age and rebuilt after earthquake damage. You'll move through the Central Court and the Throne Room and see reconstructed frescoes including the ‘Prince of the Lilies'. Continue with your Local Expert to the Heraklion Archaeological Museum to view objects recovered from Knossos and other Cretan sites, including ceramics, jewellery, seals and sculpture from the Minoan period.

Spend the morning in Rethymno, a Cretan port town shaped by Venetian rule and later Ottoman administration. Join a walking tour through the old town, moving along cobbled lanes where Venetian facades sit alongside Ottoman domes and minarets. You'll pass courtyards and shaded alleys, then continue towards the waterfront to view the lighthouse and the 16th-century Venetian fortress above the harbour.

Later, continue to Chania for the night, a former Venetian stronghold known for its preserved old town and working harbour that remains central to the city's daily life.

Explore Chania with your Local Expert, focusing on the old town's layered neighbourhoods. Begin in Splantzia, the former Ottoman district, and walk through Splantzia Square to view the Church of Agios Nikolaos, a landmark shaped by changing religious use over time. Continue into the Jewish district to understand the city's long multicultural history through its streets and surviving communal landmarks.

The afternoon is at leisure. You might walk the Venetian harbour to the lighthouse, visit the Maritime Museum of Crete for the island's seafaring story or browse the covered market halls for Cretan products such as thyme honey, herbs, olive oil and graviera cheese.

Transfer to the airport, saying goodbye to your Small Group and Travel Director at the end of your journey through Greece and Crete.