Your Seven Day Itinerary in Greece



We are so excited to share with you our seven day itinerary in Greece! This was our third time going back to Greece and we just love the culture, history, scenery and, of course… the food!!  We have already been to Santorini and Crete, which are two of my favorite Greek Islands and I’d highly recommend- but this trip we wanted to stay inland and experience some of the well known historic landmarks that Greece is known for!  Here is our trip broken down by each day and what we did!


 

Day 1: Fly into Athens

Arrive into Athens in the morning. Forgo a nap and get right to sightseeing. Yes, you will be tired, but pushing through that first day will be the best way to adjust to the time change. Exhaust yourself so you can sleep through the night


Mars Hill: This is right in front of the Acropolis and has a great view of the Parthenon and the city of Athens. It is free to enter and takes just a few minutes to climb to the top for a beautiful view. Watch your littles carefully, it can be dangerous at the top. 


Acropolis: please don’t miss this historic landmark if you go to Greece. We would highly recommend going an hour before sunset to get the best golden hour photos.  Entrance into the site is 20€ for adults and 10€ for kids over 5 years. If you have a stroller, they have a building to store it while you visit the site.


Plaka: This area is amazing to just walk around and buy Greek food and grab a coffee frappe. 


Temple of Olympic Zues & Hadrian’s Arch: These ruins are amazing and right near the area where the Acropolis is located. The temple is the biggest in all of Greece, so definitely worth seeing.


Acropolis Museum: We did not visit the museum this time but did 8 years ago. It is worth a visit though!! I did see that you need to present your vaccine records to enter, so make sure to have that with you if you want to go! 

Day 2: Visit a Greek Island! 

We really wanted to take the ferry to Hydra- a beautiful Greek Island about 2 hours from Athens, however we missed the ferry… Oops!! We ended up visiting Aegina, which is only an hour ferry ride from Athens and it was AMAZING



Aegina Harbor: Aegina has the most beautiful harbor surrounded by mountains, cute little restaurants, fish markets, shopping and more! 


Eat lunch in town: We highly recommend getting fish and picking up some pistachios at a market in town.  The pistachios there are specific only to Aegina and they are the best! 


Beach: Looking at the city from the harbor, to your left you will find the perfect beach, about a 5 minute walk, with chairs and umbrellas you can rent for only 7€ and super cheap snacks and drinks. The water was calm, warm and you could walk out forever without getting too deep. The kids loved building sand castles and having races along the shore line. 


 

  


Ruins: When you leave the beach, walk only 1-2 minutes away from the harbor to a beautiful archeological site and museum. It’s only 4€ per adult and well worth the view from the top of the ruins to see the harbor and town. 


 


Ferry at Sunset: Catch the ferry back to Athens. It is just breathtaking to watch the sun set behind the beautiful Greek islands and Mediterranean Sea. 


Day 3: Rent a car and drive outside Athens to more archeological sites and a different town.


Mycenae: This ancient city on a hill is so great to explore around and check out the view from the top!  If you don’t know the history about this people group, you may have heard of the Trojan War.  The army was trying to enter the city walls of Troy (in Turkey) to liberate the captured prisoner, Helen.  They made a wooden horse, the Trojan Horse, which they hid inside and put right outside the city wall. The Trojans saw the horse outside the wall and that next morning they brought it in to inspect, of course not realizing that their enemy was inside of it. Once inside the walls, they attacked Troy and won!! The conquerors were from Mycenae!  To enter Mycenae, it costs 12€ per person and is a 2.5 hour drive from Athens. 


   


Nafplio: This gorgeous Greek city along the water is fun to wander around the old curvy quaint streets. There are a LOT of toy shops, just saying, and it’s fun to see what types of toys they sell in Greece!! We are right near the city square and ate amazing authentic Greek dishes while the kids fed the wild cats. 


 


Epidavros: A famous ancient theater that is still in use today!! It closes at 6:30pm, we arrived at 6:35pm; and begged the ticket lady to let us just quickly drive up to take a quick picture. She obliged and it was amazing to run out there, the only people on the site and scream “echo” to hear the acoustics, which was fascinating!! 



Day 4: Leave Athens and drive to Meteora, with a stop at Olympia on the way. Be prepared to pay a lot of tolls along this route! 


Olympia: 3.5 hours west of Athens is Olympia, where the first Olympics started back in 2500 BC and lasted for 1000 years at this location. It was sooo fascinating to walk around the ruins and imagine what it must have been like to watch all the different Olympic events. Of course the kids had to race at the famous stadium. We spent about 1.5 hours and we could have spent more time but we had a 5 hour drive to Meteora ahead of us. 


 



Meteora: Arrive in Meteora in the evening and check into your next hotel for three nights. We stayed at Divani Meteora Hotel. It was the perfect hotel in the perfect location. 


Day 5-6: Explore Meteora. Give yourself at least two or three days in Meteora in case you get bad weather, like we did.  You definitely want to experience the cliffs in clear weather to see the breathtaking views!


 


Meteora is simply gorgeous- think Grand Canyon but better.  They have the most beautiful rock formations we’ve ever seen. And back in the 11th century, the monks built these amazing monasteries on the top of them.  Talk about the perfect location for peace and solitude. These monasteries are still active, however, tourists are permitted to visit them for a small price. 

Some tips if you visit a momentary in Meteora: 

•Women must wear long skirts and have their shoulders covered to enter. You can purchase a shawl to wrap around your waist if you need. 

•Masks are most likely required anytime you are indoors at the monastery.  

•Some monasteries have a lot of stairs to climb (like 150-300 steps). If you are traveling with littles, Agios Stefanos is the best monastery because there is just a little bridge you would need to walk over after parking your car.



Seeing Meteora with kids was easy because the whole area is driveable so we didn’t have to worry about the kids getting tired doing a big hike but we were still able to experience the amazing views.  Also, it was nice to have the kids in the car because there were a bunch of spots where Matt or I would want to jump out to take a picture or video but it wouldn’t be safe for our kids to walk around because of the steep cliffs. 


   


Day 7: Drive back to Athens before flying out the following morning. If you have time, stop at the 300 year war museum and Marothon on your drive into Athens. 



Yes, we had an early morning flight and would endure 20+ hours of travel that next day, but Matt convinced us to go out that last night in Athens and it was sooo fun! We were in the Monastiraki area and the night life was wild!  So many people out and different restaurants to chose from! It was great! 



Overall, 7 days in Greece is TOTALLY doable!  Of course, we would love more time, but it’s sometimes just not feasible to pull the kids out of school or miss too much work. We definitely felt like we had a good taste of everything and we were really pleased with the mixture of island beach, city, ruins, and nature that we were able to experience in Greece! 

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