Greek island holiday

adonis10

Gf and I looking to do around 10 days in 1-3 areas but really struggling to decide where and how to go about it (package/separate booking of flights etc.). We're going in late August, 27 and 31 years old looking for awesome beaches, decent sights and history, scuba diving and great food!

ANY tips appreciated!

richardw

Book the flights, ferries and hotels all separately.

adonis10

richardw wrote: »

Book the flights, ferries and hotels all separately.

Cool, cheers.

Best places to fly from and to? London is best for us, or Bournemouth.

richardw

There are lots of flights to Crete and Athens and ryanair is starting STN to ATH so the competition is heating up.

Ryanair has Chania and Rhodes from BOH, Thomson has Corfu and Rhodes from BOH

Lots of responses http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowTopic-g189422-i244-k2999868-What_are_the_best_islands-Cyclades.html

lea2012

It depends which Island you start from I suppose, here are a few suggestion.

Corfu- nearby islands include Paxos and Anti Paxos. From Paxos you can take a ferry to Igoumenitsa on the mainland and then out from there to other islands or drive down to Lefkada. The choice then would be to drive down to Athens (a good few hours) or ferry back to Corfu and home

Fly into Santorini - you could get to Naxos and Paros from here and then on to Mykonos to fly back to UK.

Kos- nearby islands include Kalymnos, Patmos and Nisyros. You can also combine a stay in Bodrum, Turkey with Kos. Ferries also run to Rhodes taking about 4 hours.

Lots of different options really it all depends on where you intend to fly into and how much time you want to spend travelling around.

deva

I planned out a trip that involved flying in and out of Mykonos and then using ferries through some of the Cyclades.

Was relatively straight forward and plenty of options including places of pilgrimage

adonis10

All sounds interesting, now to price it up! Obviously August is expensive, but what sounds like a realistic figure?

DomRavioli

I'd recommend Zante (Zakynthos) as they have Loggerhead Turtles - Kalamaki seems to be a good place to view them but I'm no expert. Great for a couple of days, Zante on the whole has great food (although Laganas is very Club 18-30!), culture and its around 4 hours from the UK - I got flights with Thomas Cook (cheapest I could find) for around £170 return with 15kg baggage. There's also a shipwreck off the coast of Zante - I think its in Tsilivi but I can't remember - which is very popular with divers.

Corfu wasn't up to much for me, just seemed very busy and I didn't like the food choices in both Sidari and Corfu Town.

Mainland - Only been to Athens, it was wonderful!

Kos - Lots of army people with guns as its 4 miles from Turkey (no-one pre warned us!) but a lovely island overall, food here was really good, sea was crystal clear and great for diving.

I've been to Rhodes and Crete as well, Crete was like God's waiting room, so many zimmerframes; there are lovely places to go but it wasn't my cup of tea. Rhodes was seriously quiet, and very greek (was about 6 years ago so probably changed a little) but was only for a long weekend.

Price wise, depends on the hotels you want to stay in; you can do a 10 day 3 centre holiday for around £2.5k staying in decent hotels, including flights.

A word to the wise though - always research how far the hotel/resort is from the airport; I was quoted £275 each way for 7 adults and a child from Zante Airport to Kalamaki - its 10 minutes, and costs about 20 euros per cab - they can be a total rip off!

Might be worth having a look at some dive schools on the islands you're looking at, to see if its what you want.

Hope it helps a bit - if you're stuck deciding, try youtube as they have a few diving videos specific to each island - helped when I was deciding what to do.

Niki

jewlls

DomRavioli wrote: »

I'd recommend Zante (Zakynthos) as they have Loggerhead Turtles - Kalamaki seems to be a good place to view them but I'm no expert. Great for a couple of days, Zante on the whole has great food (although Laganas is very Club 18-30!), culture and its around 4 hours from the UK - I got flights with Thomas Cook (cheapest I could find) for around £170 return with 15kg baggage. There's also a shipwreck off the coast of Zante - I think its in Tsilivi but I can't remember - which is very popular with divers.

Corfu wasn't up to much for me, just seemed very busy and I didn't like the food choices in both Sidari and Corfu Town.

Mainland - Only been to Athens, it was wonderful!

Kos - Lots of army people with guns as its 4 miles from Turkey (no-one pre warned us!) but a lovely island overall, food here was really good, sea was crystal clear and great for diving.

I've been to Rhodes and Crete as well, Crete was like God's waiting room, so many zimmerframes; there are lovely places to go but it wasn't my cup of tea. Rhodes was seriously quiet, and very greek (was about 6 years ago so probably changed a little) but was only for a long weekend.

Price wise, depends on the hotels you want to stay in; you can do a 10 day 3 centre holiday for around £2.5k staying in decent hotels, including flights.

A word to the wise though - always research how far the hotel/resort is from the airport; I was quoted £275 each way for 7 adults and a child from Zante Airport to Kalamaki - its 10 minutes, and costs about 20 euros per cab - they can be a total rip off!

Might be worth having a look at some dive schools on the islands you're looking at, to see if its what you want.

Hope it helps a bit - if you're stuck deciding, try youtube as they have a few diving videos specific to each island - helped when I was deciding what to do.

Niki

Hi, could you tell me what part of Zante you went to and where you stayed as we want to go to Greek island but cannot decide which on to go to was looking at crete but haven't got a clue

LadyL2013

I think the south med islands would be best for you. Lots of culture and beauty around Rhodes, Symi, Crete and Santorini and easy to travel to with ferries or small planes. The western islands are great too. Zakynthos and Kefalonia are particularly stunning as long as you stay away from Laganas and Tsilivi and then you can easily get the ferry over to the mainland which is very green and beuatiful in that area.

Diving is best around Rhodes, Crete, Karpathos and Cyprus further out as there are lots of wrecks and better marine life.

I think your cheapest option would be to Easyjet or Ryanair it to the start then book hotels and ferries and cars seperately. The above airlines fly to most of the popular islands so it would be wise to make those your start and finish locations.

I always think September is the best time to go, tbe heat is still hot but not boiling and everything is still open without hordes of tourists.

natbags

I've been going to Crete (western side) for over 10 years and never, ever seen a zimmerframe there!
There are more flights in and out over the eastern side (Heraklion) and although there are some great places to visit Elounda is beautiful and very close to spinalonga (the leper colony featured in the Victoria Hislop book 'The Island') I much prefer the western side. The white mountains are stunning and lots and lots to see and do. Ferries also come into Souda Bay, so if you are island hopping that may also be an option. Midway around Rethymon is great too. Not so keen on Corfu, Rhodes very nice, Samos, Zante etc... all great, but one Island worth a trip to is Santorini - simply stunning!