Greece Island hopping

cimea

Myself and few friends are going island hopping to Greece this summer for 3 weeks at the end of June! We have a flight booked to Athens and trying to decide now what islands to go to! We are thinking of finishing up in Crete and flying home from there! Has anyone been Island Hopping before and have any recommendations of where is best to go for activities, nightlife and nice beaches? We are girls in our early twenties so looking for mixture of everything!

Can anyone give me some information on the boats? I've tried looking it up on-line but it seems to be hard to find any concrete information on fares, times and journey durations.

Re-athens I've heard there are a few different areas and some to be avoided, has anyone been to Athens before with recommendations of what areas to stay and how long you would need to see the city before heading to the first island!

Any island hopping advice would be greatly appreciated!

sgb

The old town of Rhodes is worth a visit especially in the evening when the food stalls are in the market and I found the people so freindly

The Davestator

Rhodes is lovely but Santorini is unmissable!.

Mykonos is lovely, corfu is meh

All in my opinion of course.

bills

We went island hopping last year & went to Mykonos, santorini & paros.
Paros was much quieter than the other too. Recommend staying on the caldera in Santorini- one of these villages- fira, oia, firostefani.

As for athens, we stayed in plaka, nice safe area & loads of good restaurants in the evening for dinner. Also near shopping area & market area.

pegasus1

Re the ferries in athens, the ticket offices are in between the piers on the inside of the perimeter wall, we nearly missed it and just got them in time...

Taxis are very greedy and will ask for as much as they think they will get away with...:mad: if you think you are overcharged say to the driver that the hotel will pay when you get there!!
the plaka near the acropolis is a good place to find food and to get a cheap hotel..go to see the acropolis in the morning as it gets so hot..

dont bother buying the slushies at the enterance to the acropolis as they put way to much cordial in them and you cant bring them inside with you..

when you buy tickets for the ferries they do it in a way of seat no.'s, well for the fast ones anyway, and there may be a possibility of not sitting beside each other..

Oia in Santorini is totally unmissible, so much so that returning again this year for another 2 week stay and flying direct this time, via eayjet..:)

RubyK

I can't help with advice on Athens sorry, but we did spend 1 night in Santorini (Fira) before getting a ferry to Naxos for 7 nights (St. Georges Beach) and then heading back to Santorini (Kamari) for 6 nights. We hope to get a bit more island hopping done some day.

If you are planning on flying home from Crete, you might look at island hopping around the cyclades, and getting the ferry from Santorini to Crete. Here's a link to some ferry info http://cretetravel.com/To_and_from_Crete/Ferries_Crete_Santorini.htm

From north to south, you could go Athens-Mykonos-Paros-Naxos-Ios-Santorini and then onto Crete. Ios and Mykonos would have the most party life, Naxos and Paros would be quieter, but have lovely beaches, and a nice mix of restaurants and bars. Santorini very scenic, but doesn't have the golden sands that the other have (more pebbly beaches, but gorgeous clear water for swimming), and it's definitely worth visiting, as the views are fabulous.

A good guide is the Thomas Cooke Island Hopping Guide. You can get it from Amazon.

I'd love to be ye

bullpost

Syros is a lovely island and worth considering.
Its got lovely beaches and a town centre with a big square which is great for eating out at night. Some really cool architecture there as well.
Really nice fishing villages to visit and you can easily cover the island is a couple of days.