Greece rewards travellers who go deep. Not just the islands — though the islands are extraordinary — but the mainland sites that explain why this small corner of the Mediterranean produced the philosophy, the architecture, the mythology and the games that shaped the Western world. Delphi, where the Oracle spoke and kings came to listen. Olympia, where the games were born. Mycenae, where Agamemnon's kingdom rose and fell. Meteora, where Byzantine monks built their monasteries on the tops of sheer rock towers above the plain of Thessaly.

And then there is the Aegean — and just beyond it, Turkey's Aegean coast, where the ancient Greek world extended seamlessly across the water into cities like Ephesus and Kusadasi that feel, even now, unmistakably part of the same story.

The packages in this collection are for travellers who want all of it. Land and sea, ancient and present, Greek and Turkish, island beach and mountain monastery. Each is a self-guided or cruise-based journey through some of the most significant and beautiful places on earth, with flights from Canada, accommodation and all transfers included. Come prepared to be astonished — repeatedly.

The Landscape of the Journey

Athens The beginning and the anchor of every itinerary here, Athens is a city that operates on multiple registers simultaneously. Ancient and frenetic, crumbling and gleaming, profoundly serious about its history and equally serious about its nightlife. The Acropolis remains the essential first experience — the Parthenon, the Erechtheion and the Propylaea seen together at close range are more affecting than any photograph prepares you for. The Acropolis Museum directly below is one of the finest archaeological museums in the world. Beyond the monuments, allow time for the Plaka and Monastiraki neighbourhoods — narrow lanes, Byzantine churches, flea markets, street food and kafeneions where the coffee arrives slowly and the afternoon lingers. The National Archaeological Museum, the Ancient Agora and the Roman Forum fill in the picture of a city that has been continuously inhabited for over three millennia.

Delphi Two and a half hours northwest of Athens, on the slopes of Mount Parnassus above the Gulf of Corinth, Delphi was considered by the ancient Greeks to be the centre of the world — the omphalos, the navel. The Oracle spoke here, and leaders from across the known world — kings, generals, city-states — sent delegations to consult her before any major decision. The archaeological site is extraordinary: the Sacred Way climbing through the ruins of treasuries and temples to the Temple of Apollo at the top, with the Castalian Spring and the Tholos of Athena below. The setting — wild mountain landscape, olive groves descending to the sea in the distance — amplifies everything. Allow a full morning at minimum.

Olympia In the western Peloponnese, the site of the ancient Olympic Games is one of the most evocative archaeological landscapes in Greece. The ruins of the Temple of Zeus, the original stadium (you can still walk through the stone tunnel the athletes entered), the Palaistra where wrestlers trained and the extraordinary museum — home to the surviving sculptures from the temple pediments — together make Olympia a full day's destination. There is something genuinely moving about standing in a place that has been sacred to human achievement for nearly three thousand years.

Mycenae The kingdom of Agamemnon, the city of the House of Atreus, the setting for the Iliad's aftermath — Mycenae sits in the hills above the Argolid plain in the northeastern Peloponnese, and it still feels like a place of weight and consequence. The Lion Gate, built around 1250 BC, is the oldest monumental sculpture in Europe. The beehive tombs, including the Treasury of Atreus, are architectural marvels of the Bronze Age. And the citadel itself, perched above the surrounding landscape, communicates the power of a civilization that the ancient Greeks themselves regarded as the age of heroes.

Meteora Nothing in Greece quite prepares you for Meteora. The rock formations rise from the plain of Thessaly in central Greece like enormous stone pillars, and on their summits — some hundreds of metres above the valley floor — medieval monks built monasteries that are still active today. Six remain accessible, connected by staircases and paths cut into the rock. The view from the monasteries across the valley is breathtaking; the view of the monasteries from below is almost surreal. Meteora appears on UNESCO's World Heritage list for both its natural and cultural significance. It is, simply, one of the most extraordinary places in Europe.

Naxos The largest island of the Cyclades and in many ways the most quietly satisfying, Naxos combines beautiful beaches with genuine agricultural and cultural depth. The Portara — a massive marble doorway standing alone on a small peninsula at the entrance to the harbour, the remains of an unfinished temple to Apollo — is the island's iconic image, particularly at sunset. The Chora (main town) has a well-preserved Venetian kastro and excellent museums. But Naxos is also the island that rewards getting in a car and driving inland: mountain villages like Halki and Apiranthos, Byzantine churches, ancient kouros statues lying unfinished in hillside quarries, and the Aegean's finest sandy beaches — Agios Prokopios and Plaka — along the western coast.

Rhodes Rhodes occupies a unique position in Greece: a Dodecanese island with a medieval walled old town so complete, so intact and so extraordinary that it was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988. The Street of the Knights — a cobbled medieval lane flanked by the inns of the crusading orders — is one of the best-preserved medieval streets anywhere in Europe. The Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes anchors the upper town. Beyond the walls, the island has excellent beaches at Faliraki and Lindos, and the ancient Acropolis of Lindos — reached by a steep path above the whitewashed village — offers one of the most spectacular views in the Aegean. Rhodes is a place that genuinely surprises — most first-time visitors arrive not knowing what to expect and leave having found one of their favourite places in Greece.

The Cruise: Greek Islands and Turkish Coast The Aegean cruise that forms part of several packages in this collection does something no purely land-based itinerary can: it puts you on the water between the destinations, which in Greece is where you understand the geography — and the history — most clearly. The sea routes between Athens and Rhodes, between Rhodes and Santorini, between Santorini and Crete and across to the Turkish coast are ancient trading routes, military corridors and pilgrimage paths. Sailing them, even on a modern cruise ship, gives you a visceral sense of why the Aegean was the centre of so much human activity for so many centuries.

The Turkish stops — typically Kusadasi and the ruins of Ephesus, one of the most complete ancient cities in the world — add a dimension that purely Greek itineraries miss. The Aegean world of antiquity did not stop at the modern Greek border; it extended seamlessly across the water into what is now Turkey, and the ruins of Ephesus, with its Library of Celsus, its Great Theatre and its colonnaded marble streets, are as Greek in character as anything on the islands. Kusadasi itself is a lively, welcoming port town with good bazaars and excellent seafood along the waterfront.

When to Go

These are longer, more ambitious itineraries — combining mainland travel with island hopping and cruising — and they operate best across a slightly different seasonal window than a purely island-focused trip.

• May and early June are ideal for the mainland portion. Delphi, Olympia, Mycenae and Meteora are best visited when the heat is manageable, the landscape is green and the sites are not overwhelmed with summer visitors. Temperatures on the mainland in May sit between 18 and 26°C — warm enough to enjoy but not yet the searing heat of midsummer. The Aegean is fully warm enough for swimming from late May onward.
• June and September offer the best conditions across the whole itinerary — land and sea. The islands are lively, the sea is warm, the cruise experience is at its best, and the heat is more comfortable than August. September in particular brings a golden quality to the light across the Aegean that makes the already beautiful islands look extraordinary.
• July and August are the peak months — the Aegean buzzes, the cruise atmosphere is electric and the islands are at their most vibrant. The mainland sites, however, require early starts and good sun protection in midsummer, and must-see spots like Delphi and Meteora are best visited before 10am to get ahead of both the heat and the crowds. All accommodation and cruise berths should be booked well in advance for this window.

Your Packages:

Gems of Greece | Athens · Classical Greece mainland · Aegean cruise · Greek islands

The cleanest expression of the land-and-sea formula in this collection, Gems of Greece takes you through the highlights of classical Greece on the mainland before setting you loose on the Aegean. The land portion covers Athens and the key ancient sites that give the island experience its full context — so that when you arrive at a temple ruin on a Cycladic hillside, you understand what you're looking at and why it matters. The cruise that follows offers lots of time to explore at each stop, with the iconic Greek islands appearing one by one across the sparkling sea. Flights from Canada, all accommodation and transfers are included throughout. A genuinely rounded introduction to what Greece is about.

Apollo Treasures | Athens · Naxos · Aegean cruise with Greek islands and Turkey

Sixteen days, named for the god of sun, light and music — and the itinerary lives up to the name. Apollo Treasures is one of the most expansive packages in the collection, combining a stay in Athens, time on the beaches and in the villages of Naxos, and a full Aegean cruise that takes in the most celebrated Greek islands alongside vibrant stops on Turkey's Aegean coast. The cruise portion is the heart of the package: a procession of extraordinary harbours, ancient sites, beach afternoons and evenings at sea as the islands slide past on the horizon. The non-guided format means you set the pace at each stop — there are no group schedules to keep, just well-arranged logistics and the freedom to spend each destination as you choose. For the traveller who wants Greece and Turkey in one sweeping, unhurried journey, this is the itinerary.

Fabled Places | Athens · Meteora · Delphi · Greek islands

Greece is a country built on stories — myths, legends, histories and half-remembered epics that blur together into something that feels older and more true than history alone. The Fabled Places package is structured around the places where those stories are most powerfully felt. Meteora, where Byzantine monks built their monasteries atop impossible rock formations and where the landscape itself seems to belong to another world. Delphi, where the Oracle spoke from her seat above the Gulf of Corinth and where the ancient Greeks believed a god was physically present in the earth. And then the islands — whose spectacular beauty, as the itinerary itself acknowledges, defies all imagination. Moving between these places over the course of the package, you accumulate something more than sightseeing: a genuine sense of why Greece has occupied the human imagination for so long, and why it continues to.

Olympian Voyage | Athens · Delphi · Mycenae · Aegean cruise with Greek islands and Turkish coast

Named for the gods and worthy of them, the Olympian Voyage is the package for travellers who want antiquity and island life in equal measure, each informing the other. The land portion opens with Athens and moves through two of the most significant ancient sites in the Greek world: Delphi, sanctuary of Apollo and home of the most famous oracle in history, and Mycenae, the Bronze Age kingdom of Agamemnon, where the Lion Gate and the great beehive tombs still communicate the extraordinary power of a civilization that flourished here 3,500 years ago. Then the cruise begins — and with it, the Greek islands at their most spectacular, the Aegean at its most beautiful, and several memorable stops on Turkey's coast, where the ruins of Ephesus and the warmth of Kusadasi add a dimension that purely Greek itineraries miss. Ancient sites, beautiful islands, rich Turkish history: a voyage, as the name suggests, fit for gods.

Panoramic Guided Tour | Athens · Delphi · Rhodes · Santorini · Turkey

The classic of the collection — popular for years and popular for good reason. The Panoramic Guided Tour offers a guided, expertly sequenced journey through Greece's main must-see sites, moving from land to sea in a way that builds naturally from city and ancient site to island and harbour. Athens opens the journey, followed by Delphi and the oracle's sanctuary on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. Then the sea begins: Rhodes, the island of the Knights, whose medieval walled old town is among the finest in Europe; the Turkish coast, with its ancient cities and lively port bazaars; and Santorini, that unforgettable crescent of cliff-face villages above the flooded caldera, to bring the journey to its close. The guided format means you experience every site with the depth of expert commentary alongside the freedom of your own responses — and the logistics, as ever, are entirely taken care of. A perfect blend of cultural visits and genuine leisure time, across one of the most beautiful and historically layered corners of the world.

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