Day 1: Overnight Flight
Depart from the USA.

Day 2: Athens
Arrive in Athens and get acquainted with this ancient city. Tonight, enjoy an orientation walking tour of the Plaka, Syntagma Square and the Parliament Building. Dinner provided.

Day 3: Athens
A morning sightseeing tour reveals the glory of Greece. Ascend the Acropolis for a visit to the Parthenon and enjoy entrance to the exciting new Acropolis Museum. See the Agora and the National Archaeological Museum's dazzling treasury of Greek art, including the Mask of Agamemnon, mighty Zeus, and remarkable murals buried for millennia by a volcano on Santorini. Breakfast is provided today and every morning while on tour in Greece. Dinner is on your own tonight.

Day 4: Athens
Drive to mythical Delphi, home of the great oracle of Apollo. A local guide is at our disposal. Explore the Archaeological Museum of Delphi and visit the Temple of Apollo (a bag lunch is provided today). Return to Athens where you will enjoy a Greek Taverna dinner with music and dancing. Breakfast, lunch and dinner provided.

Day 5: Overnight Ferry
Journey to the great Theater of Epidavros and visualize 14,000 ancient spectators who sat here all day long, held spellbound by the tragedies of Sophocles or comedies of Aristophanes. Then drive to Mycenae to see mainland Europe's oldest city, including the Lion Gate, Citadel and Royal Tombs before returning to Athens to board the overnight ferry to Santorini. Breakfast and dinner provided.

Day 6: Santorini
Arrive by sea at Santorini and see its whitewashed houses lining the tops of imposing cliffs. Transfer to your hotel with a stop in Fira for exploration time. You will have time to enjoy the views and discover relics of the island's 4,000 year old history. Breakfast provided. Dinner is on your own tonight.

Day 7: Santorini
This morning visit the Akroteri Archeological Site (if open to public) before your afternoon excursion to the beach. Or simply relax and window shop. Breakfast and a picnic lunch are provided today. Dinner is on your own tonight.

Day 8: Folegandros
This morning transfer to port for the ferry to Folegandros. Upon arrival enjoy a walking orientation tour of the main town of Hora including the Kastro district. Breakfast and dinner provided.

Day 9: Folegandros
Today is free to stroll Hora's leafy squares, lounge by the water, take a boat excursion to isolated swimming beaches or visit Ano Meria. Breakfast provided. Dinner is on your own tonight.

Day 10: Heraklion, Crete
This morning depart for Heraklion, Crete. Upon arrival transfer to your hotel; the rest of the day is free for swimming or exploring. Breakfast and dinner provided.

Day 11: Kato Zakros, Crete
Today, tour the Palace of Knossos with a local guide and visit the Heraklion Archeological Museum where you will see impressive treasures of the Minoan culture, the first civilization of Europe! Drive to Kato Zakros with a picnic lunch at Gournia Ruins en route. Breakfast, lunch and dinner provided.

Day 12: Kato Zakros, Crete
Today is free to take a swim in the Mediterranean, go on a hike in Zakros Gorge, or try Greek dancing lessons. Fixings for self-serve breakfast provided. Dinner is on your own.

Day 13: Kato Zakros, Crete
Today, visit the Minoan Zakros Palace site and journey to the Vai palm forest and the imposing Toplou fortress monastery. Tonight enjoy a Cretan Fiesta Dinner. Breakfast and dinner provided.

Day 14: Departure
Depart for the USA. Breakfast provided.

Please note: Travel involves the possibility of unexpected circumstances. While we do our best to adhere to this itinerary, circumstances may require modifications with little advance notice.

Athens  

On the Acropolis in Athens: the Parthenon above and the Caryatid Porch of the Erechtheion below

Pericles at left, Socrates on the right

Treasures of the National Archeological Museum.
Above: detail of a Grecian urn depicts Theseus slaying the Minotaur. Below: preclassical art. Cycladic idol at left and Kouros statue from the archaic or transitional period.

Changing of the guard
at the Greek Parliament building

Athens
One in four Greeks lives in this bustling Greek capital city of four million people. The city underwent a facelift in preparation for hosting the 2004 summer Olympic games. We will spend three nights in Athens, visiting sites in the city and making day trips to important historical locations elsewhere on the Greek mainland.

In the 5th century BC, Athens was the center of the Greek classical world. Athens controlled a large trading empire in the eastern Mediterranean and Black Seas. Under the leadership of Pericles, democracy grew in Athens, and the city was a magnet for the greatest writers, artists, and thinkers of the age. Pericles said, "Great indeed are the signs and symbols of our power. Future generations will wonder at us as the world wonders at us now."

Greeks fought two major wars during the classical period, the first against the great Persian Empire to the east, a war the Greeks eventually won to maintain their independence from foreign control. The second was the Peloponnesian War between two Greek alliances, one led by Athens and the other by Sparta. After 27 years of conflict, Athens was defeated and went into decline.

But it was a much earlier war that did most to shape Greek identity. Greeks of the classical age were steeped in knowledge of the Iliad and the Odyssey, Homer's epic poems about the Trojan War and its aftermath. These stories - part myth and part history - instructed Greeks in the eternal verities of life, and they inspired a great outpouring of literature during the Greek classical age. While the Trojan War was a real event, it was only a dim Bronze Age memory to the classical Greeks who were as far removed in time from the Trojan War as we are removed from the Crusades.

Our stops in Athens include:
The Acropolis ("high city" in Greek) and its cluster of buildings including the Parthenon, a temple to honor Athena, goddess of wisdom and the patron goddess of Athens. Pericles built the Parthenon after the previous temple was destroyed in the sack of Athens during the Persian Wars. Famed for its beauty and proportion, the Parthenon is perhaps the most influential building in the history of Western architecture. It has served as a model for classical-style buildings the world over including the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.

The Agora was a shopping district and meeting place for ancient Athenians including the philosopher Socrates who would gather here with his students to discuss how best to live one's life. Socrates summed up the Greek philosophy of humanism when he said, "The unexamined life is not worth living."

Housing the world's finest collection of Greek antiquities, the National Archeological Museum in Athens provides us with a preview of ancient cultures we will encounter throughout our journey. The classical period produced the bronze statue of Zeus pictured at the top of this page and polychrome pottery depicting mythical tales and everyday life.

From the earlier Bronze Age citadel at Mycenae come tablets bearing the first Greek writing and royal death masks made of gold. Also on display are remarkable wall murals buried for millennia under volcanic debris on the island of Santorini, and from an even earlier era in the southern Aegean Sea we encounter enigmatic and futuristic-looking figures from the Cyclades Islands. To learn more about these historical periods, view an illustrated timeline or read a brief history of ancient Greece.

The Plaka is a pleasant modern-day, pedestrian-only commercial district in central Athens filled with shops and restaurants. This is the place to buy your plaster bust of Socrates or your replica Hoplite warrior's helmet. Merchants can help with shipping your purchases home.

The Greek Parliament building features a colorful changing-of-the guard ceremony with soldiers attired in traditional Greek dress. You won't find shoes like theirs at Bloomingdale's; they come equipped with big steel studs on the bottom and fuzzy black pom-poms on top.

Delphi - Day trip from Athens -
Situated on the slopes of Mount Parnassas, Delphi was considered by the ancients to be the "navel" or center of the universe. Located here is a sacred spring, ruins of the picturesque Temple of Athena, a mountain-top stadium, and several large columns and a foundation that remain from Delphi's most revered site, the Temple of Apollo.

It was in the bowels of this building that Pythia, the oracle of Delphi, inhaled hallucinogenic vapors rising from a fissure in the earth enabling her to foretell the future. A procession of buildings known as treasuries still wind up the hillside to the temple; they once contained rich offerings of thanks to Apollo for victories in war attributed to the prophecies of his oracle.

The oracle's pronouncements were couched in riddles. One of the better known of these advised a ruler that if he went to war against the Persians, he would destroy a great kingdom. To his dismay, the kingdom he destroyed was his own.

When the Athenians were threatened with Persian invasion, the Delphic Oracle advised them to trust in a "wooden wall." The Athenians were confused by these words until one man suggested that the Oracle was referring to the Athenian fleet of wooden warships. In the sea battle that followed, the Greek navy destroyed the Persian fleet, an event some historians have called the battle that saved Western Civilization.

Delphi has a fine small museum that includes among its artifacts the much-admired bronze statue of the "Charioteer."

Epidavros - Day trip from Athens, includes Mycenae -
Epidavros and Mycenae are located in the eastern Peloponnese, the peninsula connected by a thread at Corinth to the larger Greek peninsula to the north. The Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta is named after the Peloponnese peninsula where Sparta is located.

Epidavros was a famed healing center in ancient times. Today it is the site of the largest and best preserved ancient Greek theater, where classical plays are still performed and where ancient actors had no need for microphones due to the amazing acoustics of this huge stone parabolic reflector built into a hillside.

The classical Greeks invented theater as we know it, and are therefore indirectly responsible for movies and television. Beginning as a celebration to honor the gods, theater evolved during the classical period into a public forum for exploring flaws in Greek society and politics and in human nature itself.

Euripides' tragedy Medea, for instance, considered the plight of women in ancient Greece who lacked an identity and livelihood independent of men. And in Aristophanes' comedy Lysistrata, wives frustrated by the seemingly endless Peloponnesian War pledged to stop making love to their husbands until the men agreed to stop making war on each other.

Mycenae

Mycenaean "Linear B" script,
the first Greek writing


Schliemann said,
"I have gazed upon the face of Agamemnon."

Mycenaean "beehive" or tholos tomb

"Lion Gate" entrance to the citadel
surrounded by Cyclopean architecture

Mycenae (pronounced my-SEEN-ay)
As we travel from Epidavros to Mycenae, we cross a major divide in time. We leave behind the familiar classical Greek world of Socrates and Pericles to enter the world of the preclassical Greeks. These are the people who originated Greek culture and fought the wars that became the myths that Homer recounted in the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Mycenae was the hill-top fortress of Agamemnon, the king of kings who led the allied Greek army into battle at Troy. The Mycenaeans were a Bronze age warrior culture that dominated southern Greece and the eastern Mediterranean from about 1600 to 1100 BC, roughly a thousand years before the classical Greek period.

The Mycenaeans adopted an early written language known as "Linear B" which has been deciphered and is recognized as the first truly Greek writing. Mycenae's fortunes declined during a general collapse of Bronze Age Greek culture often termed the Greek Dark Age (not to be confused with the later "Dark Ages" that marked the beginning of the Medieval period in Europe following the fall of Rome).

With writing lost, stories from the Mycenaean period were handed down orally until writing reappeared centuries later. As best we can tell, Homer was a great bard of the oral tradition who lived when writing was reappearing in Greece, and he is responsible for transforming the oral stories of the Trojan War into the written epic poems we know as the Iliad and Odyssey.

The Trojan War was considered entirely a myth by modern people until archeological evidence of the conflict was unearthed in the late 1800s, particularly by the flamboyant German-American businessman and amateur archeologist Heinrich Schliemann. Schliemann excavated the site of ancient Troy in western Turkey and the citadel here at Mycenae. His discoveries established the field of Bronze Age Greek history and earned him a reputation as the foremost founding figure of archaeology.

Among Schliemann's finds at Mycenae were vertical "shaft" burials containing spectacular gold death masks of Mycenaean royalty, one of which he proclaimed to be the "Mask of Agamemnon," although we know now it dates from centuries before the Trojan War. Near the citadel at Mycenae are "beehive" or tholos tombs, an early and successful attempt to construct large domed structures without internal supports.

The architecture at Mycenae is notable for great stone blocks that form the approach to the citadel climaxed by the "Lion Gate." These blocks are so huge that later people concluded they must have been laid in place by a race of giants. Thus the classical Greeks termed this "Cyclopean" architecture after the one-eyed giants unhappily encountered by Odysseus on his 10-year journey home from the war in Troy.

Santorini
We board a ferry at Pireaus, the port of Athens, for the overnight voyage to Santorini, which lies in the Cyclades island group in the southern Aegean Sea. Probably the most popular tourist destination among the Greek islands, Santorini (or Thira) might also be the most beautiful. Whitewashed towns scattered along Santorini's high cliffs overlook the water-filled crater (or caldera) of a still geologically active volcano - a volcano that sank most of the island over three millennia ago in one of history's most violent seismic events.

On the crescent of land that remains, archeologists have unearthed the ancient town of Akroteri. It was so advanced that one modern historian has speculated that had the culture on Santorini survived the volcano, civilization might have advanced to its present stage by the time of the Roman Empire. Does this sound familiar - an advanced ancient civilization sinks beneath the waves? Could this be the source of the legend of the lost continent of Atlantis? Many historians think it might well be.

We will visit the Akroteri archeological excavation if it has reopened by the time of our tour. It has been under renovation since 2005 when a portion of the roof collapsed. We will plan to visit the Museum of Prehistoric Thira, which houses examples of pottery, figures, and wall paintings recovered at Akroteri. Many important finds from Akroteri, including most of its beautiful wall murals, are on display at the National Archeological Museum in Athens.

We will also pay visits to the busy main town of Fira at the caldera's edge and the smaller community of Oia (or Ia, pronounced WEE-uh). Oia is a great place for a stroll, is friendly to dogs and humans, is characterized by distinctive barrel-vault architecture, and boasts the island's only English-language bookstore along with lots of shops and restaurants. Plan for some beach time while at Santorini.

Folegandros

Welcome to Folegandros.
Road at right ascends from the small port of Karavostasi to the main town of Chora.

Terraced hillside with its latticework of stone retaining walls

Above and below: the Kastro area

See more doorways of Folegandros

Folegandros (pronounced foe-LEG-an-dros)
We arrive in Folegandros by ferry from Santorini. Like its bigger neighbor to the east, Folegandros is a member of the Cyclades Islands, but unlike Santorini, it is bypassed by large tour groups and cruise ships because it lacks the facilities to support them. There isn't even a bank on the island, although an ATM machine is available. Aside from the members of our group, you might not encounter another American on Folegandros, although you may run into visiting Brits or Germans.

Folegandros is an oblong island with a narrow waist at the middle, just 8 miles long and 2.4 miles across at its widest point. The island's perimeter is encircled by swimming beaches with crystal-clear waters, some of which are only accessible by boat. As the southernmost island in the western Cyclades, Folegandros is one of the last stops in Europe for migratory birds heading to the warmer climes of Africa in the fall before reversing their journey and returning to Europe via Folegandros for cooler weather in the spring.

Typical of Greek islands, Folegandros is dry, rocky, and steep. Many hillsides are covered by terraces built to provide level ground for holding back moisture and growing crops. The human effort required to construct these stone-walled terraces was monumental, a testament to the harshness of the land and the grit of its people. Agriculture on the island today is limited, but locally grown produce is of high quality and includes figs, honey, wine, olive oil, and goat cheese.

Beginning in Roman times, Folegandros was used as a place of banishment due to its remoteness and difficult living conditions. In the 20th century, left-wing political agitators and pro-democracy advocates were exiled to Folegandros including a well-known Greek author and an influential publisher. Stories are told that some of the political exiles remembered the policemen and politicians who sent them to Folegandros by naming the island's donkeys in their honor.

There were no cars on Folegandros until 1970. Local people traveled about the island on foot, by boat, or on the backs of donkeys and mules, modes of transportation still favored by some residents. In that year a port was built where the ferries now dock, and footpaths were paved-over to establish roads. Some of the traditional, hand-built stone footpaths remain; they, along with dirt paths form a network of trails that offer visitors a number of hiking opportunities.

Situated atop a cliff in the main town of Chora (or Hora, population 316) is the centuries-old Kastro (castle) district, which is the remains of a fortress built by a Venetian ruler in the 1200s to provide protection against pirates. One Greece travel writer has described Chora as "one of the oldest traditional medieval towns in the Cyclades." The narrow lanes and overhanging balconies and arches of the Kastro provide some indication of what the living town of Akroteri might have looked like thousands of years ago before it was buried under volcanic debris.

Chora is a good place to slow down and settle in at a table in one of the town's leafy squares for a romantic dinner, order the island's distinctive beverage "rakomelo," and contemplate your good fortune at enjoying the sweet life on one of Greece's loveliest islands. Or you might consider hopping a town bus for a visit to the island's small port of Karavostasi with its nearby beaches, or the hill-top community of Ano Meria where donkeys still outnumber cars. Or consider joining a pleasant full-day boat excursion to five of the island's more remote beaches.

Knossos, Crete

In search of the mother goddess. "Snake Goddess" figure from the Palace of Knossos


Undeciphered Minoan "Linear A" Script


Bull imagery abounds at Knossos including the bull mural behind the columns.



At the Heraklion Archeological Museum:
Above: The "Bull Leaping" mural
Below: Elegant bull libation vessel
held liquid offerings to the gods

Crete (or Kriti)
European civilization began on Crete, the largest of the Greek islands. Crete is virtually a country unto itself with its own proud heritage and local variations on Greek culture. Not all of Crete's history lies in the distant past; during World War II Crete's resistance fighters so tenaciously fought Nazi occupation that they inspired resistance movements elsewhere in Europe. Some of these fighters were former political exiles who escaped from Folegandros to join the resistance.

We will spend a day visiting the Heraklion/Knossos area of northern Crete and three days at the small seaside settlement of Kato Zakros on the eastern edge of the island. We arrive in Crete by ferry from Folegandros, disembarking in the port city of Heraklion (or Iraklio), Crete's largest city. (It seems every location in Greece has at least two names.) If you need any essential supplies like toothpaste or cash, better get them here in Heraklion because they won't be available at Kato Zakros.

Knossos
In the outskirts of Heraklion lies the Palace of Knossos, chief palace and administrative center for the ancient Minoan civilization that flourished on Crete from approximately 2700 BC to 1450 BC, making it the first civilization of Greece and the oldest in Europe. Minoan culture was strongly influenced by the even older civilization of Egypt, just a few hundred miles across the Mediterranean to the southeast.

Minoan Crete was a seafaring culture that traded extensively with Egypt and the Middle East. Its cultural influence - perhaps its dominance - extended to islands in the Aegean Sea and to the southern Peloponnese. Santorini's buried city of Akroteri is frequently referred to as a Minoan city. Like Akroteri, Minoan culture is characterized by exceedingly fine examples of artistic expression including wall murals, jewelry, and graceful pottery designs.

Surprisingly, the Minoan cities of Crete - many situated close by the sea - appear to have thrived without the protective walls needed by other ancient societies to fend off seafaring mauraders. The absence of fortifications has led some observers to speculate that Minoan culture might have been unusually peaceful...or so powerful that none dared to attack.

Many Minoan sites exist on Crete along with several palace complexes, but none as grand as Knossos. When Heinrich Schliemann - of Troy and Mycenae fame - died before fulfilling his plan to excavate Knossos, the site was acquired by British archeologist Sir Arthur Evans, who completed his excavation of Knossos in 1905. We have Evans to thank for the colorful restored facades at Knossos, which some scholars consider more fanciful than historical.

The cream of Minoan artifacts are on display at the Heraklion Archeological Museum, where we encounter the intriguing "Snake Goddess" believed to be a fertility figure associated with an important Minoan goddess cult. Evans and others have suggested that a Cretan mother goddess was likely the source for goddesses of the ancient Greek pantheon including the primal earth mother goddess Gaia as well as Athena, Aphrodite (goddess of love,) Artemis (goddess of the hunt,) Demeter (goddess of the harvest,) and Hera (queen of the gods). Today Crete is a pilgrimage destination for those seeking an earth goddess spirit representing an earlier, more nurturing, and less warlike counterpoint to male-dominated society.

Because we can't read their "Linear A" writing, we don't know what Minoans called themselves, but Evans named this culture after the mythical King Minos, who kept a Minotaur (half man, half bull) in the labyrinth beneath his palace. During his excavations at Knossos, Evans found numerous art works depicting bulls and a warren of underground chambers that reminded him of the labyrinth.

According to the myth, Athenian youths were brought to Knossos yearly and sacrificed to the Minotaur until the Athenian hero Theseus entered the labyrinth and slayed the monster. He had help from King Minos's daughter Ariadne who fell in love with the young Athenian visitor and gave him a ball of string to unravel as he entered the maze. By following the string, Theseus was able to retrace his steps and escape the labyrinth.

Modern historians have theorized that the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur might symbolize the period of history when Athens broke free of Minoan influence. Minoan culture underwent a catastrophic decline in the 1500s BC; no one is sure why, but possibilities include foreign invasion or the after-effects of the volcanic eruption on Santorini, which undoubtedly generated a giant tidal wave that devastated the northern coast of Crete. Apparently control of Crete then passed to the war-like Mycenaeans from the mainland as suggested by the appearance in Crete of tholos tombs and Linear B script.

To some, the ascendancy of the Mycenaeans represents the triumph of an aggressive warrior culture over the gentler spirit of the Cretan earth mother.

Kato Zakros, Crete

The Minoans traded with Egypt and the Middle East from this bay in eastern Crete.
See an enlarged view.

Ruins of the Minoan Zakros Palace

Only remaining residents of Zakros Palace

Apartment at Stella's largely obscured by foliage.

Entrance to Dead's Gorge

(All photos this page by Mike Maxwell)

Kato Zakros
Some might say we saved the best for last. Thirty-six hundred years ago. this was a busy Minoan seaport and the site of one of Crete's four major palace complexes. Today Kato Zakros is a seaside settlement of 24 people.

A pamphlet from the Ministry of Culture notes that the Minoan palace of Zakros stands "In a sheltered bay on the east coast of Crete, oriented politically and commercially toward the major civilizations of the Middle East." Although only discovered in 1961, the site has been rich in artifacts, many of which are now housed at the Heraklion museum. Compared to the palace of Knossos, Zakros is a modest archeological site, but its solitude leads to a more contemplative experience.

The modern community of Kato Zakros has been spared development by its isolated location on the eastern coast of Crete and because the Greek Government has declared much of the area an archeological preserve. The little available private land has been in the hands of local families for years. Scattered lodging properties and a few seaside tavernas account for the only commercial activity. Historians believe olive trees were first cultivated in Minoan Crete, and today olive oil from this region wins international competitions bolstering a claim that eastern Crete produces the world's finest olive oil.

Four restaurants line the bay at Kato Zakros serving fresh Cretan cuisine only a few paces from pristine swimming beaches. Several day hikes are available in the area (locals call it trekking) including a walk through Dead's Gorge, so named for the many caves it contains that once served as burial sites. The slightly more adventuresome may wish to add a side hike that climbs to the mountain-top ruins of a castle that once commanded the valley and provided a refuge against attack by land or sea. We also plan a day trip to the imposing Toplou fortress monastery and the nearby Vai Palm Forest, the largest in Europe.

High on your list of fond Greek memories will undoubtedly be the beautiful stone studio apartments nestled in a verdant botanical paradise where we will be staying while at Kato Zakros. Our gracious hosts are Stella and her husband Elias, who supply the fixings for daily breakfast as well as advice about trekking. Stella keeps the larder stocked to be sure we never go hungry or thirsty. She might even be willing to give us Greek dancing lessons in preparation for a Cretan fiesta on the last night of our idyllic stay at Kato Zakros.

From Kato Zakros, we drive back to Heraklion for the flight home to the USA.