http://www.eurotrip….

I know, that was me before…I was just hoping to illicit some more specific responses by focusing on the two areas that have been giving me trouble. I’m sorry if I’m clogging up the boards too much.

If I only had 4.5 days in Greece, I’d skip it altogether or at least skip Athens and fly directly to one of the islands. The logistics of ferry transportation mean that a hefty percentage of your two days of “island time” will be spent in ferry terminals (you’re usually supposed to be at the terminal 2 hours before departure time) and on boats. Mykonos and Santorini are fairly easy (relatively close with frequent ferry service) to get to from Athens.

As for Switzerland, I didn’t care much for Zurich — cities aren’t really the reason to go to Switzerland.

There are several islands easy to get to from Athens.
The Saronic Gulf: http://www.athensgui…
Or perhaps Corfu. We spent a few days on Corfu, it is a beautiful, green island.
ETA:
Islands such as Crete, Santorini and Rhodes are in easy reach by air, as well.
Others may have still more recommendations.

Ordinarythoughts,

Cil brings up a good point: focus on a small part of the country, and keep it short and sweet.

You can completely avoid flights, and have a great itinerary, maybe something like this:

1. arrive Corfu (by ferry from Italy), 2-3 days
2. bus to Metéora (via Ioánnina) 1 day (possible 1 night)
3. but to Thessaloníki, 1-2 days
4. train to Belgrade

Cil suggests some great itineraries as well. If you fly into Athens, you can quick-visit the nearby Saronic Islands, or fly to Rhodes, and fly back to Athens.

Unfortunately I’m flying into Athens from Edinburgh (I have an engagement in Edinburgh beforehand), so the ferry from Italy won’t work out, but I will check out Corfu and the other islands mentioned! Thanks so much for the help.

Metereo is beautiful.. breathtaking! If you are in Corfu, make sure to route there for one day.. Check train in Greece! it ‘s cheap and fast if they have the route where you want to go.. bus in Greece is slow and painful. We took the bus from Delphi to Metereo, which suppose to be only 4+ hours, turned out to be 10 hour and 4 connection, all in the language we don’t understand; Thessaloniki, in my opinion is ok! there are more beautiful places in Greece to spend time for..would skip!

Ordinarythoughts,

Keep in mind the travel logistics, the distances, and your time contraints. I usually suggest Corfu as an excellent stopover for people coming from Italy to Athens. In your case, it’s a bit different: going to Corfu will be out of the way, but highly worth it should you choose to go there; you also have other equally worthwhile options like Rhodes, Santoríni, Zakynthos, etc.

On one hand, Athens is centrally located within the country, so that’s to your advantage. You can take a short flight or overnight bus to Corfu and spend a couple days, or you can fly to Rhodes, or ferry or fly to a Cycladic Island, or visit the Peloponnese region and Saronic Islands (you can do a tour: Nafplio/Epidurus/Mycenae, then Poros/Spetses/Hydra, then back to Athens); you have all these options; just keep it simple, don’t plan too much within your shirt stay. However, the disadvantange that I see here is that if you are planning on flying out of Athens, you will be required to backtrack back to Athens; this will reduce the amount of places within Greece you can see, as opposed to doing, say, a “sweep” of this sort: Italy —> Corfu —> Metéora —> Thessaloníki —> Belgrade.

Do you think you’d be able to add a day to Greece?

Right now I’m thinking I might just limit myself to the Saronic Islands…I might be able to add a day if I decide not to fly into Belgrade. Is there good train service from greece to serbia? My goal is to work up to Budapest and then over to Zagreb for the puppet festival. I wanted to take the train originally, but couldn’t figure it out practically using my Eurail booklet.