10 DAYS IN GREECE: ATHENS, NAXOS, PAROS, SANTORINI (PART I)

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GREECE ITINERARY: ATHENS, NAXOS, PAROS, SANTORINI

Recommended 10-Day Greece Itinerary:

Athens (2 nights)

Naxos (2 nights)

Paros (2 nights)

Santorini (3 nights)

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Total days: 10

Before I start on this itinerary, I just want to point out that this is very fast paced. Also, it is mostly geared towards US travelers that do not get a ton of time off from work and have expensive flights to the EU. Greece is not like any other European destination. It is about the experience. When you go to Greece, be prepared for down time and relaxation. This can be unlike other European cities where there is so much to see and not a lot of time to do it in so you are go-go-go. If you show this itinerary to a European that has a ton of time off and has 25 euro flights, they will most likely scoff and say that you can easily spend 2 weeks in Naxos alone. That being said, as a US citizen with a full-time job and not as much PTO as is standard for European countries, we don’t have the luxury of flying 14 hours to spend two weeks on one island in Greece.

Any who - off my soapbox! Haha! This is the itinerary that my cousin and I did when we went to Greece this past October. It was amazing and perfect for us! We didn’t feel like we moved too much or too little. This was the end of the season though so a lot of things were beginning to close up for winter. This made visiting the little villages and getting around a lot faster than dealing with the crowds during the high season. It also meant that several of our tours ended up canceling due to weather (too windy). If I were to go back, I would choose to go the first or second week in September when it is the beginning of off-season, but not too windy and you can still swim.

ATHENS

DAY 1:

Arrive into Athens and get settled into your hotel. If you’re like us, then your flight probably arrives very early in the morning. We were exhausted! I had reserved our hotel room for the night prior so that we could check in and freshen up/nap (who are we kidding?? We we straight to bed haha!) before heading out to explore for the day.

After waking up from our nap about noon, we stopped to grab some lunch at a gyro place (did not disappoint) and then headed straight to the Acropolis to see the famous Parthenon. Fun fact - in Greece, they put fries in their gyros! 😋

The views of the city from the Acropolis are gorgeous! It’s definitely a can’t miss in Athens! We walked straight up and bought skip the line tickets. Although, I’m not sure how necessary that was as we were traveling during COVID so there wasn’t much of a line to begin with. We spent the rest of the time wondering around the city. We tried to go to A for Athens (they have an amazing rooftop bar with great city views) but they were having a private event so we didn’t stay.

We made our way to The Clumsies though which had some super interesting cocktails and tapas options to snack on.

After chilling at The Clumsies and watching the bartenders flare, we walked around and did some light shopping. We had to get a cat shirt. If you’ve ever been to Greece, then you know what I’m talking about! The cats 🐈‍⬛are everywhere! Big ones, small ones, some as big as your head.. 🤪 They are seriously everywhere to the point when we went to Santorini and didn’t really see as many, we didn’t feel like we were in Greece anymore.

For dinner, we were going to head to Cafe Avissinia for meza and live music and then dinner at Kuzina for great city views. We were so exhausted that we decided to have dinner at our hotel that night. We stayed at Academias Hotel Athens and ate at their Nyx Rooftop restaurant, which also has amazing views of the Parthenon. We were not disappointed at all!

naxos

DAY 2:

The next morning, we woke up bright and early for our quick flight to Naxos. By quick flight, I mean it was about 30 minutes. You land at this tiny airport and walk off the plane via stairs. There is one baggage claim area that is outside. We grabbed our bags and a taxi and made our way to the Naxian Utopia Luxury Villas & Suites. We booked the Two Bedroom Petite Villa Sea View with Private Pool & Outdoor Jacuzzi. This place would be perfect for families as it is a short walk into town and the villa was very spacious.

In order to tour the island, I highly recommend renting a car. The hotel had a local company bring a car over for our stay. This was super convenient as we didn’t have to walk anywhere to pick it up or drop it off.

After checking in for our stay, we walked into town and grabbed lunch at a traditional Greek restaurant called Giannoulis. I had my first real Greek salad. If you didn’t know, traditional Greek salads do not come with lettuce but they come with a huge block of feta cheese. It was yummy!

For dinner, we ate at Apostolis and ordered entirely too many carbs with cheese haha!

DAY 3:

Naxos is a great place for people that love to hike! Today, we took our rental car up into the mountains for a quick day hike. We didn’t bring the proper shoes so we didn’t get too far. It had started to rain and the rocks were very slick so we turned around. On the way back into town, we stopped at a restaurant with panoramic views of the valley and watched the sunset. It was gorgeous! If you decide to include Naxos in your Greece Itinerary, make sure to stop here!