Morning
Land at ATH
Athens International Airport Eleftherios Venizelos. The metro station sits above the terminal, so skip the taxi rank.
Metro Line 3 into the centre
The blue line runs from the airport to Syntagma and Monastiraki. Airport journeys need the higher airport fare, not a standard ticket.
Afternoon / Day
Check in: AthensWas
Dionysiou Areopagitou 5, on the pedestrian promenade under the Acropolis. Ask for a Parthenon-facing room; the roof restaurant looks straight at the rock.
Lunch at Ta Karamanlidika tou Fani
Sokratous 1 at Evripidou. A charcuterie counter you eat at — pastirma, soutzouki and cheeses from small producers, plus Cappadocian meze.
Anafiotika and Plaka
The whitewashed lanes clinging to the north slope were built by Cycladic masons from Naxos — a preview of where this trip is going.
Evening
Sunset from the Areopagus
The bare marble outcrop just below the Acropolis entrance. Free, no ticket, and polished slippery — go up the metal stair, not the rock.
Dinner at Taverna Klimataria
Plateia Theatrou 2. Around seventy years old, clay-pot cooking and bread baked on site; live rebetiko most nights, from 22:00 and 22:30 at weekends.
Morning
The Acropolis
Enter from Dionysiou Areopagitou with a pre-booked timed slot and take the first one of the day. There is no shade anywhere on the rock.
Theatre of Dionysus
On the south slope and inside the same ticket. Walk down through it instead of doubling back through the Propylaia crowd.
Afternoon / Day
Lunch at Dionysos Zonar's
Rovertou Galli 43. The terrace sits directly under the rock you have just climbed down from; order the grilled fish and stay for a coffee.
Acropolis Museum
Dionysiou Areopagitou 15. The top-floor Parthenon Gallery is set at the same angle as the temple, framed through the glass. Allow two hours.
Evening
Filopappou Hill
The pine-covered hill facing the Acropolis. The Roman monument on top gives the postcard view back at the Parthenon, and it never has a queue.
Dinner at Mani Mani
Falirou 10, Koukaki, in a two-storey neoclassical house. Cooking from the Mani peninsula — handmade pasta from a Gytheio cooperative. Book ahead.
Morning
Ancient Agora
Adrianou 24, Monastiraki. The Temple of Hephaistos at the top of the site is the best-preserved Doric temple anywhere in Greece.
Stoa of Attalos
The rebuilt second-century BC colonnade on the east edge of the Agora holds the site museum: jury ballots, water clocks, ostraka scratched with names.
Afternoon / Day
Lunch at O Kostas
Pentelis 5, off Syntagma. Pork souvlaki from a family stall trading since the late 1940s. Monday to Saturday, and they shut when the meat runs out — go before one.
Varvakios Central Market
Athinas 42. The nineteenth-century meat and fish halls, with the spice and herb shops on Evripidou outside. Open 08:00-18:00, closed Sundays.
National Archaeological Museum
28is Oktovriou 44. The Antikythera Mechanism and the Mask of Agamemnon; the Thera gallery here sets up Akrotiri later in the trip. Opens at 13:00 on Tuesdays.
Evening
Dinner at Vassilenas
Vrasida 13. The family started with a grocery-taverna in Piraeus in 1920; the kitchen now does creative modern Greek, tasting menu or a la carte. Monday to Saturday, evenings only, so reserve.
Book the Piraeus ferry
Blue Star sails Piraeus to Naxos daily. Reserve a numbered airline seat rather than deck class, and download the boarding pass tonight.
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Morning
Metro Line 1 to Piraeus
The green line runs Monastiraki to Piraeus in roughly twenty minutes. Allow an hour before sailing to find the right berth on foot.
Blue Star ferry to Naxos
Piraeus to Naxos calls at Syros and Paros and runs about five hours. Cars, cabins and numbered seats all sell out first in September.
Afternoon / Day
Check in: Hotel Grotta
I. Kambanelli 7 in the Grotta quarter, on the hillside above Chora. Sea-facing, five minutes downhill to the old town, and it looks at the Portara.
Evening
Portara at sunset
The unfinished marble doorway of a sixth-century BC temple of Apollo, on the Palatia islet at the end of the causeway from the port. Free, and the sun sets through it.
The Kastro and the Venetian Museum
The Della Rocca-Barozzi tower house in the citadel has been in the same family since 1704; it opens again 19:00-22:00 and stages concerts in the courtyard.
Dinner at Taverna Maro
Protodikiou (Court) Square in Chora. A magirio, not a tourist taverna: point at the trays of cooked dishes and pay island prices.
Morning
Pick up a hire car in Chora
The interior villages get only a handful of buses a day. Two days of a small car makes the whole island reachable — book before you arrive.
Halki in the Tragea
The old island capital, inland among the olive groves. Neoclassical facades, Byzantine chapels, and a square you can actually park beside.
Vallindras Kitron Distillery
On the Naxos-Apeiranthos road in Halki. Family-run since 1896, distilling kitron from citron leaves. Taste all three: yellow, white, green.
Fish & Olive, Halki
On the Halki village square. Katharina Bolesch throws the olive-motif stoneware, Alexander Reichardt makes the fish jewellery; open 10:00-16:30.
Afternoon / Day
Apeiranthos
A marble-paved mountain village with four small museums — archaeological, folk art, geological and natural history. Check which are open before the drive up.
Kouros of Apollonas
An abandoned colossal statue still lying in its quarry above the fishing village of Apollonas, on the north coast. The drive up the east side is the point.
Evening
Dinner at Taverna Axiotissa
On the Chora-Alyko road near Kastraki, in the southwest of the island. A long-running taverna that cooks to whatever the season brings, so the menu shifts nightly. Book for evenings.
Sunset at Mikri Vigla
Twin sandy bays split by a granite headland, five minutes from dinner. The north side is the kitesurfing one; the south side is calm.
Morning
Mount Zas
The highest peak in the Cyclades at just over 1,000 m, southeast of Filoti. Start from the Agia Marina chapel, carry water, and be off the summit before midday heat.
Cave of Zas
On the same trail at 630 m. Digs here turned up material from the Neolithic through to Roman times. Bring a torch.
Afternoon / Day
Agios Prokopios beach
About 4 km from the port, and the island beach everyone names first. Fine pale sand, shallow water, sunbeds at one end and nothing at the other.
Plaka beach
Dune-backed sand running south from Agia Anna, backed by cedar and tamarisk. Walk far enough down it and the umbrellas simply stop.
Evening
Dinner on the Chora waterfront
The row of tavernas along the Naxos Town seafront, looking back at the harbour. Pick one showing the day's catch — the last-night table before the boat.
Drop the car, pack for the boat
Return the hire car in Chora tonight. The Santorini ferry leaves from the same quay you arrived at, a short walk from the hotel.
Morning
Naxos old market lanes
The vaulted alleys under the Kastro. Naxian graviera, thyme honey and a bottle of kitron travel home better than a fridge magnet.
Afternoon / Day
Ferry to Santorini
Naxos to Santorini is roughly two hours and docks at Athinios, a switchback road below Fira. Arrange the hotel transfer — taxis vanish when three boats land together.
Check in: Aressana Spa Hotel
Fira, a couple of streets back from the caldera rim. You get Fira without the cruise-ship crush on the rim path outside.
Evening
Caldera path to Firostefani
The paved rim walk heading north out of Fira. Twenty minutes on foot and the crowd thins with every bend.
Atlantis Books
Now at the Nomikos Cultural Centre in Firostefani after two decades in an Oia cellar. Founded in 2004 by a group of friends, and still run by them.
Dinner at Metaxi Mas
Exo Gonia, right beside the church of Agios Charalambos. Inland and local, with parking nearby — phone to book once you are actually on the island.
Morning
Akrotiri archaeological site
A Bronze Age town buried by the eruption and now walked on raised gangways under a bioclimatic roof: two-storey houses, paved streets, drains, no bodies.
Akrotiri lighthouse
The end of the road at the island's southwest tip. The caldera seen from outside the ring, and almost nobody there before noon.
Afternoon / Day
Lunch at To Psaraki
Above the marina at Vlychada. Whatever the boats landed that morning, with vegetables off their own farm; the ceviche is the order.
Perivolos black sand
Kilometres of volcanic sand down the southeast coast. It gets genuinely too hot to cross barefoot — keep something on your feet.
Evening
Oia castle at sunset
The ruined fortification at the western tip of Oia, part of the old Venetian defensive line. It is the famous view and it is mobbed — arrive an hour early or watch from the path below.
Down to Ammoudi Bay
Roughly 300 steps below Oia to a red-rock fishing cove ringed with fish tavernas. Walk down before dark and take the road back up by taxi.
Morning
Museum of Prehistoric Thera
Fira. The wall paintings, gold and pottery lifted from Akrotiri, hung as they decorated the buildings. Hours are seasonal and it shuts one weekday — check before you go.
Cable car down to the Old Port
Three minutes from the Fira rim down to Skala at the water. The alternative is the switchback stair shared with the mules, which is worse than it sounds.
Afternoon / Day
Nea Kameni and the hot springs
Caldera boats land at the cove of Erinia on the black volcanic islet; a hot walk past the lava to craters thrown up in 1940, then a swim in the sulphur springs of Agios Nikolaos off Palea Kameni.
Evening
Tasting at SantoWines
The cooperative winery on the ridge above Pyrgos. Flights of Assyrtiko and Vinsanto with the whole caldera in front of you — book the sunset slot.
Dinner at Selene
Fira, inside a restored eighteenth-century Catholic monastery. Open since 1985 and still the island's serious kitchen, on Santorinian ingredients and wine.
Caldera Morning, Ferry Home
Morning
Last rim walk to Firostefani
Fira to Firostefani along the caldera path one more time, before the day boats arrive and the path fills up.
Check out, bags to reception
Athinios is a twenty-minute drive down the switchbacks and the road jams before every sailing. Leave Fira well ahead of the departure.
Afternoon / Day
Fast ferry to Piraeus
Athinios to Piraeus: the high-speed catamaran takes around five hours, the conventional Blue Star closer to eight. Take the fast one if a flight is waiting.
Evening
Metro to the airport
Line 3 runs from Piraeus through to Athens International Airport, but not every train goes the whole way — check the destination on the front.
Fly out of ATH
Leave a generous gap between boat and plane. A swell in the Cyclades cancels the high-speed catamarans first and the big ferries last.
