There are two ways to fall in love with Greece. The first is on land — walking the marble streets of Athens at dawn, standing in the silence of Delphi, looking out from the clifftops of Santorini at a sea that seems to go on forever. The second is from the water — watching an island materialize on the horizon as your ship cuts through the Aegean, pulling into a harbour in Turkey or Patmos or Crete as the morning light catches the whitewashed buildings above the port. The best Greek journeys find a way to do both.

This collection of packages combines iconic city stays with island hopping, mainland history with Aegean cruising, and the flexibility of self-guided travel with the ease of having everything arranged for you. Whether you want a compact nine-day introduction to Greece, a deep dive into classical antiquity followed by days at sea, or a sweeping multi-stop adventure that crosses into Turkey and back, there's a route here that fits. Flights from Canada and all transfers are included throughout.

Athens: Where Every Greek Journey Begins

Every package in this collection passes through Athens, and it deserves more than a single day. The city is ancient and modern at once — the Acropolis and the Parthenon rising above a capital that also has excellent restaurants, a thriving arts scene, and neighbourhoods that reward wandering without a plan.

The Acropolis is the non-negotiable first stop. No photograph prepares you for the scale of the Parthenon seen in person, and the Acropolis Museum directly below it — one of the finest archaeological museums in the world — provides the context that makes the ruins fully come alive. The ancient Agora, the Roman Forum, and Hadrian's Arch fill in the picture of a city that has been continuously inhabited and continuously remarkable for three thousand years.

Beyond the monuments, Athens has a deeply enjoyable street-level life. The Plaka neighbourhood, curling around the base of the Acropolis rock, is all narrow lanes, Byzantine churches and open-air cafés. Neighbouring Monastiraki has one of the city's great flea markets and some of its best street food — souvlaki, spanakopita and loukoumades (honey-drenched fried dough) eaten at a pavement table while the city goes about its business around you. For evening, the rooftop bars along Adrianou Street offer Acropolis views with your drink, and the restaurant scene in Koukaki and Psiri has quietly become one of Europe's most exciting.

A day trip to Cape Sounion — a 70km coastal drive south — brings you to the Temple of Poseidon, one of antiquity's most dramatically sited monuments, perched on a sheer cliff above the sea at the tip of the Attic peninsula.

The Islands:

• Ios is one of the Cyclades' most appealing contrasts — a genuinely beautiful island with long sandy beaches and a picturesque hilltop Chora, that also happens to have some of the liveliest evenings in the Aegean. The old town, reached by a steep walk above the port, is a tangle of whitewashed alleys, small churches and terrace bars that come alive after dark. The beaches, particularly Mylopotas, are among the finest in the Cyclades.
• Paros sits at the heart of the Cyclades and feels like the island that has everything in the right proportion. The harbour town of Parikia has a beautiful Venetian-era kastro, a celebrated Byzantine cathedral and a relaxed waterfront that invites long breakfasts and slow afternoons. Naoussa, on the north coast, is one of the prettiest fishing villages in Greece — a tangle of lanes above a small harbour where the evening tavernas fill with locals and travellers alike. The beaches here are exceptional: Kolymbithres, where granite boulders have been sculpted by the sea into extraordinary formations, is unlike any other beach in the Cyclades.
• Mykonos needs little introduction, but it consistently exceeds expectations. The Chora is a maze of whitewashed lanes and bougainvillea that manages to be both incredibly photogenic and genuinely atmospheric. Little Venice — buildings cantilevered directly over the water — is the place to be at sunset. The iconic windmills above the town are best at dawn, before the day begins. And the short ferry to Delos, the uninhabited sacred island just offshore, is one of the most rewarding excursions in the Aegean — a vast open-air museum of temples, ancient streets and extraordinary mosaics.
• Santorini is the Cyclades' most dramatic act — a crescent of cliff-face villages perched on the rim of an ancient volcanic caldera above one of the deepest, most intensely blue bodies of water in the Mediterranean. Oia is the famous village, its sunsets justifiably celebrated, its marble lanes lined with galleries and boutiques. The caldera hike from Fira to Oia — three to four hours along the rim — is one of the great walks in Greece. A sailing cruise around the volcanic islands, stopping at the hot springs and the extraordinary Red and White Beaches, is the day most travellers remember longest.
• Patmos is one of the Aegean's most spiritually significant islands and one of its most beautiful. This is where St. John wrote the Book of Revelation in a cave above the port, and the Byzantine Monastery of St. John — a fortress-like structure dominating the hilltop Chora — has been an important pilgrimage site since the eleventh century. Beyond its religious heritage, Patmos is simply a lovely island: quiet, unhurried, with excellent beaches at Psili Ammos and Grikos and a Chora that is among the most beautiful in the Dodecanese.
• Crete (Heraklion) is the gateway to Greece's largest and most historically layered island. The Palace of Knossos, just outside the city, is one of the most important archaeological sites in Europe — the centre of the Minoan civilization that flourished here more than 3,500 years ago, with frescoes and architecture that feel astonishingly sophisticated for their age. The Heraklion Archaeological Museum, housing the greatest collection of Minoan artefacts in the world, is the essential companion to the palace visit. The city itself has a handsome Venetian harbour, a lively central market on 1866 Street and excellent Cretan cuisine at the tavernas around Lions Square.
• Kusadasi, Turkey is one of the Aegean's great surprises on a cruise itinerary — a lively, welcoming port town that serves as the gateway to Ephesus, one of the best-preserved ancient cities in the world. The Library of Celsus, the Great Theatre and the marble-paved colonnaded streets of Ephesus give you an extraordinary sense of what a prosperous Roman city actually looked and felt like. Kusadasi itself has a colourful bazaar and excellent seafood along the waterfront.

The Cruise Experience

Several packages in this collection include a cruise component — typically four days at sea — and it transforms the trip entirely. A cruise through the Aegean solves the logistical puzzle of visiting multiple islands without the effort of arranging individual ferry connections, hotel check-ins and transfers. You unpack once, and the islands come to you: waking up each morning in a new harbour, spending the day ashore exploring, and returning to the ship in the evening as the lights of the port recede behind you. The Aegean cruise routes typically include stops at iconic Greek islands alongside calls in Turkey, offering a genuinely different perspective on the region — one that reveals just how interconnected this part of the world has always been across the water.

Your Packages:

Land & Sea Duo | Athens with 4-day Aegean cruise

The most straightforward introduction to Greece's two great pleasures: the energy and history of Athens on land, followed by four days exploring Greece's stunning islands and coastline from the water. Time in Athens gives you the Acropolis, the Plaka, the markets and the rooftop bars. The cruise that follows takes you through the Aegean at its most beautiful, with stops at iconic Greek islands along the way. Everything is arranged — flights from Canada, accommodation, cruise berth and all transfers — and the pace is relaxed enough that both experiences can be properly enjoyed rather than rushed through. An ideal first Greece trip, and a deeply satisfying one for returning visitors too.

Aegean Splendour | Athens · Mykonos · Kusadasi (Turkey) · Patmos · Crete (Heraklion) · Santorini

Nine days, six destinations, and a sweep across the Aegean that takes in Greece's most iconic stops alongside a memorable detour into Turkey. The Aegean Splendour packs a remarkable amount into its itinerary without ever feeling rushed — it's a self-guided package, meaning there are no group schedules to keep, just well-arranged transfers and the freedom to spend each stop as you choose. Athens opens the journey with the Acropolis, the shopping of Monastiraki and the nightlife that makes the city one of Europe's most enjoyable capitals. Then the Aegean begins: the cosmopolitan energy of Mykonos, a call at Kusadasi for the extraordinary ruins of Ephesus in Turkey, the sacred quiet of Patmos, the Minoan history of Crete's Heraklion, and the unforgettable caldera views of Santorini to close. A genuinely complete Greek experience in under two weeks.

Aegean Bliss | Athens · Ios · Paros · Aegean cruise with stops in Turkey and surrounding islands

The Aegean Bliss package takes the land-and-sea formula and gives it an island-hopping heart. Before the cruise begins, you'll spend time in Athens uncovering the city's historical landmarks alongside its more neighbourhood-level pleasures — the lovely districts of Plaka and Monastiraki, the street food and the rooftop bars. Then two island stays bring the Cyclades to life: Ios, with its vibrant clifftop Chora, long beaches and famous evening atmosphere; and Paros, charming and unhurried, with picturesque views and the kind of tavernas where a long lunch turns naturally into an even longer afternoon. The Aegean cruise that follows adds a further dimension entirely — stopping in Turkey and at islands dotted across the sea, giving you a sense of the broader region that a purely land-based itinerary can't match. This is Greece experienced in layers, each one different, all of them worth savouring.

Classical Greece & Cruise | Athens · Olympia · Delphi · Kalambaka & Meteora with 4-day Aegean cruise

This is the package for the traveller who wants to understand Greece, not just visit it. The Classical Greece & Cruise itinerary divides neatly into two halves, each extraordinary in its own way. The first takes you through the landmarks of ancient and Byzantine Greece by land: Athens and the Acropolis, then westward to Olympia — birthplace of the Olympic Games and home to one of antiquity's most evocative archaeological sites — then north to Delphi, the spiritual navel of the ancient world, perched dramatically on the slopes of Mount Parnassus above the Gulf of Corinth. The journey continues to Kalambaka, at the foot of the extraordinary Meteora rock formations, where medieval monasteries cling to vertical cliff faces hundreds of metres above the valley floor. This is one of the genuinely unmissable sights in all of Greece — and in all of Europe.

Then the cruise begins, and the mood shifts entirely. Four days at sea through the Aegean — stopping at iconic Greek islands and along Greece's beautiful coastline — offer a glorious counterpoint to the intensity of the mainland journey. After the weight of history at Delphi and Meteora, there is something deeply pleasurable about arriving into a sun-lit harbour with nothing required of you but to enjoy the island in front of you. Twelve days, two completely different experiences of Greece, and a trip that leaves you with a genuinely rounded sense of why this country has captivated the world for so long.

When to Go

All four packages operate through the main Greek travel season, from late April through October. The sweet spot for the land-and-cruise combination is May, June or September — warm enough for swimming and outdoor sightseeing, without the intense heat and crowds of midsummer. July and August are the most vibrant months on the islands and bring the Aegean cruise experience to life fully, but book well in advance as both cabins and island hotels fill quickly. The Classical Greece mainland portion — Delphi, Meteora, Olympia — is particularly rewarding in May and early June, when the landscape is green, the light is soft and the sites are at their most peaceful.

All packages include return flights from Canada and all land, ferry and cruise transfers. Contact us for current departure dates, gateway cities and pricing by calling 1-800-665-4981.