The 30 Greatest Holidays in Greece for 2025

If you’re planning a Greek odyssey this yr, you aren’t alone. With its pristine seas, family-friendly golden-sand seashores, world-class archaeological websites and myriad culinary delights, it’s no shock that the birthplace of democracy – and its greater than 6,000 idyllic islands – ranks fifth amongst hottest vacation locations for 2025 for British travellers in accordance with a current survey by ABTA, whereas WTM reported a 15 per cent improve in bookings for UK travellers for this yr.

So what’s it that makes Greece so enduringly standard? Whether or not it’s sultry Santorini with its black-sand seashores and towering volcanic caldera; bohemian Hydra with its traffic-free cobbled streets and stylish stone mansions; or Crete, the nation’s largest island, famed for its hospitality, every island has its personal particular appeal.

However the mainland has a lot to supply, too: capital Athens, framed by its age-old Acropolis and criss-crossed by labyrinthine streets, is a magnet for tradition seekers, whereas vigorous second metropolis Thessaloniki, clustered round its previous port and the crenellated turrets of its Fifteenth-century White Tower, is a meals lover’s paradise.

From hopping between islands on a local-run cruise to scaling Mount Olympus or diving to see shipwrecks, right here is our choose of 30 nice methods to expertise Greece and the perfect holidays to e book in 2025.

Finest for tradition seekers

1. Go to the Acropolis

Shining like a marble-clad beacon from the highest of its dramatic limestone crag, Athens’s historic citadel (Acropolis means “higher metropolis”) with its iconic fifth century BC temple the Parthenon is a magnet for many guests to Greece.

It’s properly well worth the hefty climb to see sights such because the temple devoted to goddess of victory Athena Nike and the 5,000-seat theatre that Roman senator Herodes Atticus in-built reminiscence of his spouse, Annia Regilla.

It additionally overlooks the port of Piraeus, and you may see the purple smudge of the Peloponnese peninsula past. Wily travellers who need to keep away from the cruise crowds will arrive early and purchase an Athens Metropolis Move, which supplies skip-the-line entry.

Athens Metropolis Move, together with free hop-on hop-off bus go, Turbo Move, from €70 per day.

2. Tour the Sacred Website of Delos

Backed by Mount Kynthos, mythological birthplace of Greek god Apollo, Delos lies in remoted splendour only a 30-minute ferry experience from Mykonos’s bustling previous city. As soon as deemed so sacred that no one was allowed to die or give delivery right here, this uninhabited islet is now a strikingly well-conserved open-air museum.

Guests come to walk across the Seventh-century BC Terrace of the Lions, with its lion head fountains and colonnaded porticoes, go to the gorgeous 7,000-seat marble-crafted amphitheatre, and marvel at pottery, collectible figurines and sculptures within the artefact-packed museum, earlier than climbing Mount Kynthos to take pleasure in a God’s-eye of Mykonos and its chaplet of surrounding islands.

Half-day guided excursions of Delos, leaving from Mykonos with native firm Delos Excursions, from €24.

3. Hang around with the knights on Rhodes

As soon as the legendary website of the Colossus statue – one of many historic world’s Seven Wonders – the dazzling Dodecanese island of Rhodes is dwelling to the biggest medieval city in Europe to have been regularly inhabited for the previous 2,000 years.

Entered through seven stone gates inside partitions that encircle the cobbled streets of your complete previous city, Rhodes, whereas nonetheless dwelling to some 6,000 residents, is a dwelling museum the place historic mosques, Byzantine church buildings and historic homes of the Knights Templar rub shoulders with memento souks, vine-shaded kafeneions and atmospheric boutique motels.

Ottoman-era boutique lodge Marco Polo Mansion (marcopolomansion.gr) has doubles from €100, breakfast included. Plan the right vacation in Rhodes with our journey information.

4. Discover the traditional theatre of Epidaurus

As soon as revered as a spot the place miracles had been commonplace, Epidaurus – about 19 miles east of the Peloponnese seaside metropolis of Nafplio – centres on the Sanctuary of Asclepius, the legendary god of drugs who is alleged to have introduced Hippolytus and others again from the useless.

Maybe the true miracle right here is one among conservation: strolling round this fantastically preserved World Heritage website, with its temples and columns and sporting stadium clustered round a 14,000-seater amphitheatre constructed within the 4th century BC, is like stepping again in time. That is very true through the world-renowned Epidavros Arts Pageant, from Might to October, when – similar to Hippolytus – the traditional theatre returns to life as soon as extra.

Key Excursions have guided day journeys from Athens to Epidaurus and the neighbouring website of Mycenae from €56 per particular person.

5. Seek the advice of the Oracle at Delphi

Scattered like a large jigsaw puzzle amongst citrus-scented pine forests and silver-leaved olive groves 100 miles north of Athens, the sacred website of Delphi revolves across the salmon-hued Doric pillars of its Eighth-century BC Sanctuary of Apollo, which was as soon as dwelling to the celebrated Oracle.

In keeping with legend, this sacred website beneath the peaks of Mount Parnassus was the omphalos, or centre of the world, and pilgrims as soon as flocked right here to seek the advice of priestess Pythia earlier than taking essential choices.

A 14-room archaeological museum homes lots of the essential findings from this Pan-Hellenic sanctuary, together with the well-known bronze sculpture of the charioteer of Delphi.

Athens Delphi Tour runs guided Delphi excursions from Athens from €70 per particular person.

6. Go to the birthplace of the Olympic Video games

The fashionable Olympics is perhaps primarily based on the ideas of excellence, respect and friendship, however the historic video games, courting again to round 3,000 years in the past, had been fairly extra cutthroat: the one guidelines had been “no biting or gouging”.

The Unesco-listed archaeological website of Olympia – which gave the video games their title when the occasion was launched there in 776 BC – lies on the western coast of the Peloponnese peninsula of southern Greece and is a simple day journey from Athens.

The sunshine-filled museum, with its statue of Hermes of Praxiteles and the Nike of Paionios is properly value visiting; as is the marble-hewn temple of Zeus, which as soon as held a 43ft-high gold statue of the deity, to whom the video games had been devoted. However the largest thrill is to jog out alongside the 650ft/200m-long race observe, the place most of these Olympic occasions happened in antiquity.

My Olympia Tour gives full-day excursions from Athens from €80 per particular person.

7. Discover fascinating Syros

With its marble-paved streets, luxurious culinary specialities, and an opera home (stated to be modelled on Milan’s La Scala), Syros is probably the most fascinating Cyclades islands. Surprisingly, though it’s a favorite with Greeks this island, which is only a 30-minute ferry hop away from bling-loving sister Mykonos, isn’t on the radar of overseas vacationers. Working to preserve the island’s cultural legacy not-for-profit affiliation Hermoupolis Heritage organises a spread of distinctive excursions, together with countryside excursions in a classic Greek Mercedes and crusing journeys in a conventional wood trehantiri boat adopted by lazy lunch in a conventional seafood taverna.

Boat journeys in a conventional vessel with Hermoupolis Heritage from €30 per particular person, primarily based on 5 folks sharing a ship.

8. Uncover the Blue Metropolis and the archaeological website of Philippi

Referred to as the Blue Metropolis due to its picturesque previous city constructed on a rocky headland, which appears to drift within the glowing waters of the encircling Aegean Sea, Kavala has been a haven for refugees for hundreds of years. A melting pot of various cultures this fascinating Macedonian metropolis with its imposing stone fortresses, sweet-scented tobacco factories and meals specialities, starting from wine-cooked cuttlefish to wild boar stew, additionally sits on the coronary heart of a area which is plagued by fascinating archaeological websites. These embody the theatres and monumental temples of the Unesco World Heritage website of Philippi, which was based in 356BC by the daddy of Alexander the Nice.

Uncover Greece has five-day itineraries to Kavala and neighbouring island Thassos, together with strategies on the place to remain from €80 per particular person per night time.

Finest for {couples}

9. Expertise the buzzing nightlife of Mykonos

You’ll be able to count on to rub shoulders with the likes of Girl Gaga or Leonardo DiCaprio as you hop between the modern sand seashores and hip mega-clubs which have earned magical Mykonos its nickname of “Greece’s Ibiza”.

The lanes of the island’s compact capital Hora are the island’s nightlife hub, the place designer boutiques rub shoulders with glitzy champagne bars like Queen of Mykonos and Scarpa.

When the solar goes down over these celebrated windmills, the social gathering crowd heads for the seashore. Select from Nammos in yacht-studded Psarou Bay, the place the Amex Black card set come to sup on Mediterranean fusion meals; the dusky sands of Paradise seashore, plagued by cool golf equipment helmed by world-class DJs; or Paraga seashore, nestled between the 2, the place refined Soho Home-owned membership Scorpios gives distinctive cocktails and starry clientele.

Click on & Boat charters yachts for the day (and night time) from €1000. Plan the right vacation in Mykonos with our journey information.

10. Take a day journey to Hydra

Simply an hour’s ferry experience from foremost port Piraeus, the Saronic island of Hydra has attracted a bohemian crowd for many years: Picasso and Chagall got here right here to color, Maria Callas stayed in one of many magnificent stone mansions circling the harbour, and Leonard Cohen, who owned a home in Hydra’s maze of again streets, wrote Chook on the Wire right here.

Other than 300 church buildings and a handful of hip galleries, the true appeal of Greece’s reply to Porto Fino is the dearth of visitors: solely donkeys can climb the steep streets that rise from the waterfront, so peace is assured right here.

Buy tickets for the 85-minute ferry experience from Athens to Hydra at ferryhopper.com; from €38 one-way.

11. Hop on a Santorini sundown cruise

Seeing the solar set in a blaze of vanilla and raspberry over Santorini’s wax-white villages and celebrated volcanic caldera is a giant tick on most traveller’s bucket checklist, however one of the simplest ways to do it’s to eschew the crowds at Oia’s celebrated fort sundown spot, and hop on a half-day catamaran cruise as an alternative.

Leaving from Vlychada’s petite fishing port, roomy yachts whisk you out for a fast dip within the magma-heated sizzling springs close to the barren blacked Kameni islands – fashioned after a sequence of volcanic eruptions – earlier than gliding in a stately procession with different catamarans to Amoudi Bay, which offers a ringside seat for what is definitely one of many world’s most spectacular sunsets.

Santorini Crusing has a sundown cruise from €45 per particular person, together with drinks and snacks.

12. Go to the island of Mamma Mia!

Greeks in-the-know have flocked to the talc-soft seashores and pristine seas of Skopelos for many years, however this lush inexperienced island – dubbed “Mykonos of the Sporades” due to its stylish seashore bars and glass-clear seas – solely actually gained fame within the UK when Streep, Brosnan and co got here right here in 2007 to movie Mamma Mia!.

Even for those who’re not a fan of the film, a Mamma Mia!-themed boat tour – whose highlights embody a go to to pine-shaded Kastani seashore, the place many key scenes had been filmed, and a visit to the picturesque rock-top chapel of Aghios Ioannis Kastri, the place Donna and Sam lastly married – is an effective way to find the island.

Skiathos Cruises has Mamma Mia!-themed excursions from €45 per particular person.

Finest for households

13. Dive into Greece’s ‘Parthenon of Shipwrecks’

Dubbed ‘The Parthenon of Shipwrecks’, the Mediterranean’s first underwater museum on the Sporades island of Alonissos is dwelling to half a dozen ships that had been wrecked off this notoriously harmful coast, together with a service provider vessel that sank with its cargo of wine amphorae a while within the fifth century. Non-divers could have simply as a lot enjoyable exploring capital Hora’s labyrinthine alleys or heading out in a ship to discover pristine waters of the Nationwide Marine Park of Alonissos the place endangered Mediterranean monk seal come to breed.

Alonissos Sea Colors organises dives to see the Parthenon of Shipwrecks from €80, gear included.

14. Uncover the Durrells’ Corfu

The Ionian island the place Prince Philip was born is perhaps famend for its Unesco-listed Previous City, medieval monasteries and Venetian fortresses, however currently Corfu has been most within the limelight because of UK TV sequence The Durrells, which was primarily based on the real-life household’s experiences there from 1936 till the beginning of the Second World Battle.

The easiest way to find the island by the eyes of its most eccentric household is to hop on a half-day Durrell tour, the place highlights embody exploring the alleys of Corfu’s Previous City in Gerry’s footsteps, and visiting the White Home the place Lawrence Durrell as soon as lived with enigmatic spouse, Nancy.

Blue Excursions gives a non-public half-day Durrell island tour from €94 per particular person primarily based on a bunch of six contributors. Plan the right vacation in Corfu with our journey information.

15. Hunt down genuine Greece on an idyllic cruise

Working crusing journeys all through Greece for greater than 5o years, local-owned firm Selection Cruises supply a variety of expert-led adventures. Whether or not it’s themed cruises to sip and pattern the wines of Greece adopted by connoisseur pairing dinners onboard, cultural voyages to uncover archaeological highlights together with Mycenae and Monemvasia, or crusing adventures taking in a plethora of lesser-known islands, that is the right method to absorb a giant slice of genuine Greece.

Selection Cruises gives a seven-day Unexplored Greece cruise from €2,700 per particular person from Athens, together with full-board.

16. Get off the crushed observe in Kimolos

Inside straightforward attain of Santorini and Mykonos – and solely 50 minutes’ ferry hop from the white volcanic atoll of Milos – the Cyclades island of Kimolos isn’t on vacationer radar. Named for the kimolia (chalk) that has been mined right here since antiquity, the Cyclades’ smallest island has one small foremost city with just a few retailers and tavernas, together with a string of blissfully peaceable seashores, resembling Prassa, with its pale silver sands and translucent turquoise seas, and Agioklima, the place mineral-rich sizzling springs bubble up within the water. Lots of the island’s conventional fishing huts, referred to as syrmata, have been repurposed as distinctive self catering lodging, good for households who need to keep proper on the seashore.

Thalassa Seashore Home, a syrmata with self catering amenities near the ocean, might be rented from €156 per night time.

17. Climb aboard the Kalavryta rail

A exceptional feat of engineering for its time, the small gauge railway, which runs from the pebble-lined bay of Diakopto within the northern Peloponnese to the resort of Kalavryta within the Helmos mountain, is one among solely 50 cog railways on this planet. Carved from the encircling slopes by Italian labourers within the Eighteen Nineties, the three-carriage electric-powered prepare travels alongside 75cm-wide tracks, crossing deep ravines and whistling by low tunnels till it reaches the village of Zachlorou the place it climbs the final 20 kilometres utilizing a rack-and-pinion system that permits it to sort out the steep gradient.

Tickets for Kalavryta’s Odontos rack railway can be found from Hellenic Practice, from €7.

18. Meet the Minoans at Knossos

Whether or not you’re for or in opposition to Sir Arthur Evans’s controversial reconstitution of the 1,300-room Palace of Knossos, it doesn’t alter the majesty of this 2000 BC Minoan website. Only a brief drive from Cretan capital Heraklion, that is the positioning the place Theseus killed the fearsome Minotaur – or so the legend goes.

Testomony to the sophistication of this mysterious civilisation, which reached its peak some 4,000 years in the past, there are shrines, storerooms and banquet halls and Europe’s oldest throne room.

To see the ornate frescoes – together with the celebrated dolphin murals – which as soon as adorned the partitions of this historic advanced, you’ll have to move to Heraklion’s two-storey archaeological museum, which homes the world’s finest assortment of Minoan artefacts.

Knossos Palace Tickets gives mixed tickets for Knossos Palace and Heraklion archaeological museum from €23 per particular person.

19. Go island hopping within the Cyclades

What could possibly be extra thrilling than skipping over dolphin-studded seas to a special island each few days? The as soon as grungy port of Piraeus – now dwelling to a string of hip artwork galleries and linked to the centre of Athens by metro – is a cosmopolitan hub for dozens of island ferries, which journey commonly between islands.

From crusing into the center of Santorini’s volcanic caldera to arriving in Ios’s tiny beach-lined, café-dotted port, or chugging previous the cypress-furred hillsides and sandy coves of Corfu, island hopping is definitely the final word – and in the end sustainable – Greek journey.

Ferry Hopper sells tickets for a number of routes from €26 per particular person.

Finest for journey

20. Go to the monasteries of Meteora

Rising from the luxurious Thessaly plains close to Kalambaka like big dollops of Play-Doh, the Meteora – with its extraordinary sandstone pillars housing 24 Byzantine monasteries – is one among Greece’s most magical pure monuments.

Clinging to the very best pinnacle overlooking the storied Corinthian Gulf, the 14th-century Holy Monastery of the Metamorphosis, with its frescos representing the transfiguration and its artefact-packed museum, is the lynchpin of this holy advanced, finest explored through a community of mountaineering trails which were utilized by the monks for hundreds of years.

Go to Meteora has full-day journeys from Athens by prepare from €80 per particular person.

21. Hunt down Zakynthos’s shipwreck bay

It is perhaps one of many world’s most Instagrammable shipwrecks, however that doesn’t detract from the sheer splendour of this website on Zakynthos’s wild west coast. Right here, dramatically steep cliffs body a sandy cove the place the rusted hulk of MV Panagiotis was washed up within the Nineteen Eighties.

Skinari, on the island’s northern tip, is the start line for half-day boat excursions to Navagio – because the seashore is thought regionally – and boats typically cease off on the Blue Caves, so-called due to the vivid turquoise hue of the encircling seas. It is usually potential to drive to the Navagio viewpoint close to Volimes village, from which views of the shipwreck are spectacular.

The Potamitis Brothers supply half-day excursions to Navagio from €25 per particular person. Plan the right vacation in Zakynthos with our journey information.

22. Make a beeline for the Huge Blue Island

Famed for the translucent turquoise waters that introduced Luc Besson right here to movie his basic diving opus The Huge Blue again within the Nineteen Eighties, the Cyclades island of Amorgos has a lot to supply moreover its dazzling seashores.

Excessive above Aghia Anna seashore (the place many scenes had been filmed), the Tenth-century Panagia Hozoviotissa monastery, reached by 350 steep and slippery steps, juts from the rock face like a mediaeval fortress. Within the foothills of Krikellos, the island’s highest mountain, the village of Lagada is famed all through Greece for its conventional kafeneia cafés the place you may be part of locals ingesting honey-flavoured native alcohol psimeni raki and saucers of mezesnacks.

Aegialis Resort & Spa has cosy rooms with panoramic views close to Katapola seashore, from €228 per night time, together with breakfast.

23. Climb Mount Olympus

Legend has it that no human may climb Mount Olympus, legendary dwelling of the 12 Olympian gods – and it wasn’t till 1913 {that a} workforce of Swiss climbers lastly managed to succeed in the 9,570 ft-high peak.

It’s nonetheless a difficult climb to succeed in Mytikas peak, however beginner hikers who’d prefer to expertise a style of journey can drive to Prionia – the very best location that’s accessible by automobile – then make the strenuous hike to Skala, one of many decrease peaks, to get a glimpse of the spectacular views that after upon a time solely the Gods may take pleasure in.

Path Path gives small group two-day mountaineering excursions, leaving from Thessaloniki, from €180 per particular person.

24. Heal in sizzling springs

There are greater than 700 pure sizzling springs in Greece, wealthy in minerals, together with potassium and sodium, and plenty of of them have been accredited with therapeutic properties since historic instances. Overlooking the bay the place Agamemnon’s fleet stopped on their approach to battle the Trojan Wars, the seaside city of Edipsos on Evia island has a number of communal bathing areas, together with a dozen motels which have their very own sizzling spring swimming pools. Nearer to Athens in the seaside resort of Vouliagmeni, the spring-fed lake is alleged to heal every part from eczema to arthritis, whereas the thermal waterfalls of Pozar, which gush out of the mountainside at round 39C, are stated to be a tonic for melancholy.

Thermae Sylla Spa & Wellness Resort has rooms from €248, together with breakfast.

25. Hike Crete’s Samaria Gorge

Stretching for 10 miles from excessive in the Lefka Ori (White Mountains) to the pebbles of AgHia Roumeli’s peaceable seashore far under, Samaria Gorge, Europe’s longest canyon, is only a brief drive from the harbour of Crete’s second city, Hania.

However be warned – you’ll have to be pretty match to sort out the five-hour hike by this spectacular boulder-strewn ravine; a better various is to take a ship from Hora Sfakion to Aghia Roumeli and hike by the underside finish of the gorge.

Entrance tickets to Samaria Gorge price from €5.

Finest for curious gourmands

26. Take a foodie tour of Greece’s second metropolis

Typically neglected in favour of Athens, the port metropolis of Thessaloniki – radiating out in an easy-to-navigate grid of streets from its historic centre and Ladadika district – has lengthy been referred to as connoisseur heaven by Greeks.

Since Greece is the house of the wholesome Mediterranean weight loss plan, foodie indulgence is pretty guilt-free, which is simply as properly: from cinnamon and custard filo pastry bougatsa – finest loved on the century-old pastry store Bantis – to the meat-skewer deal with souvlaki and meze snacks served in a string of low-key family-owned taverna referred to as koutoukia, there’s a lot to tempt these tastebuds.

Eat and Stroll runs half-day meals excursions of Thessaloniki from €40 per particular person.

27. Style meze within the Cretan capital

Whether or not it’s vlita (steamed wild herbs served with a squeeze of lemon and lashings of olive oil) or crispy twice-baked dakos barley rusks smothered in tomato pulp and sprinkled with salty myzithra cheese, Cretan meals specialties abound – however it may be powerful to search out them with out assist.

A 3-hour connoisseur strolling tour with an skilled native information by the busy backstreets of Crete’s capital metropolis Heraklion is the right approach to familiarize yourself with the meals: you may cease off to satisfy the person behind town’s finest tripe restaurant, pattern the island’s succulent thyme honey, and eat loads of meze snacks en route.

Excursions By Locals runs full-day Cretan Weight-reduction plan Previous and Current personal meals excursions from €124 for a bunch of 4. Plan the right vacation in Crete with our journey information.

28. Discover the island the place moussaka was invented

Discovered on each Greek taverna’s menu, iconic béchamel-sauce-topped moussaka really hails from the Cyclades island of Sifnos, which can be famed for its golden sand seashores. Invented by local-born chef Nikólaos Tselementes, who wrote Greece’s first cookbook in 1910, there are many tavernas serving the ever present dish. Greeks, nonetheless, flock to Sifnos for chickpea stew revithada and different conventional one-pot dishes slow-cooked in ceramic casserole dishes referred to as skepastaria. Pattern them your self at family-run taverna Drakakis, earlier than working off these energy alongside one of many island’s panoramic mountaineering trails.

Sigma Residences has rooms with spectacular sea views from €254, together with breakfast.

29. Meet the ladies of Karpathos

Perched on the highest of Profitis Ilias, one of many highest mountains on the Dodecanese island of Karpathos, the village of Olympos is inhabited by the members of a matriarchal society which is exclusive in Greece. On this distant village, which was reduce off from the remainder of the island till a highway was constructed within the Nineteen Seventies, women nonetheless put on the colorful conventional costumes – together with the stivania kidskin boots which are made right here – they usually nonetheless converse an historic Doric dialect.

Olympos Archipelagos Resort has clear snug villa lodging close to the primary sq. from €100 per night time, together with breakfast.

30. Study to reside the lengthy life on Ikaria

Referred to as “the place the place folks overlook to die”, Ikaria is one among solely 5 Blue Zone areas on this planet – locations the place folks reside longer than common – with one in three Ikarians dwelling till properly into their 90s.

Other than its laidback lifestyle and a tough mountainous terrain that makes train inevitable, consultants say the key to the islanders’ longevity is their weight loss plan, which incorporates lavish use of greens, entire grains, olive oil and goats’ milk.

These substances come collectively in dishes resembling soufiko (the native equal of ratatouille), and prasino kolaro me patates (wild greens with potatoes), accompanied by just a few glasses of Ikaria’s sturdy purple wine.