The Best Beaches

Nafplio (Peloponnese): After a vigorous and tiring day of sightseeing, this small municipal beach can seem like the best in Greece. Handy changing rooms and showers make this a great place for a quick break between exploring the ruins at Mycenae and heading off to take in a play at Epidaurus.

Plaka (Naxos, Cyclades): Naxos has the longest stretches of sea sand in the Cyclades, and Plaka is the most beautiful and pristine beach on the island. A 3-mile stretch of mostly undeveloped shoreline, you could easily imagine yourself here as Robinson Crusoe in his island isolation. If you need abundant amenities and a more active social scene, you can always head north to Agia Anna or Agios Prokopios.

Paradise (Mykonos, Cyclades): Paradise is the quintessential party beach, known for wild revelry that continues through the night. An extensive complex built on the beach includes a bar, taverna, changing rooms, and souvenir shops. This is a place to see and be seen, a place to show off muscles laboriously acquired during the long winter months. Don't miss the opportunity to experience the pure unrestrained hedonism on which Mikonos has built its international reputation.

Grammata (Syros, Cyclades): Grammata possesses all the elements of a vision of paradise. The small beach is enclosed by a lush oasis of palm trees at the outlet of a natural spring, sheltered and hidden by a rocky promontory extending into the bay. The beach is only accessible on foot or by boat, so it's rarely crowded. 

Lalaria Beach (Skiathos, Sporades): This gleaming white pebble beach boasts vivid aquamarine water and white limestone cliffs, with natural arches cut into them by the elements. Lalaria is not nearly as popular nor accessible as Skiathos famous Koukounaries, which is one of the reasons why it's still gorgeous and pristine.

Megalo Seitani (Samos, Northeastern Aegean): Megalo Seitani and its neighbor, Micro Seitani, are situated on the mountainous and remote northwest coast of Samos. There aren't any roads to this part of the island, so the only way to reach the beaches is a short boat ride or a rather long (and beautiful) hike. You won't regret taking the trouble, since both beaches are superb: Micro Seitanis crescent of pebbles in a rocky cove, and Megalo Seitani's expanse of pristine sand.

Vroulidia (Chios, Northeastern Aegean): White sand, a cliff-rimmed cove, and a 
remote location at the southern tip of the island of Chios combine to make this one of the most exquisite small beaches in the Northeastern Aegean. The rocky coast conceals many cove beaches similar to this one, and it's rare for them to become crowded.

The Acropolis (Athens): No matter how many photographs you've seen, nothing can prepare you for watching the light turn the marble of the buildings, still standing after thousands of years, from honey to rose to deep red to stark white. If the crowds get you down, remember how crowded the Acropolis was during religious festivals in antiquity.

Nemea (Peloponnese): This gem of a site has it all: a beautifully restored stadium, a handsome museum, and picnic tables with a view of the romantic Doric temple with its three long-standing columns. If you're lucky, you may see Nemea's archaeologists lovingly reconstructing and re-erecting columns from the temple's north facade in an ambitious restoration project.

Olympia (Peloponnese) and Delphi (Central Greece): Try to visit both Olympia, where the Olympic Games began, and Delphi, home of the Delphic Oracle. That's the only way you'll be able to decide whether you think Olympia, with its massive temples and shady groves of trees, or Delphi, perched on mountain slopes overlooking olive trees and the sea, is the most beautiful ancient site in Greece.

Palace of Knossos (Crete): A seemingly unending maze of rooms and levels and stairways and corridors and frescoed walls--the Minoan Palace of Knossos. It can be packed at peak hours, but it still exerts its power if you enter into the spirit of the labyrinth, where King Minos ruled over the richest and most powerful of Minoan cities and, according to legend, his daughter Ariadne helped Theseus kill the Minotaur and escape.

Delos (Cyclades): This temple city, on a tiny isle just 2 miles offshore of Mykonos, was considered by the ancient Greeks to be the spiritual center of the Cyclades and its holiest sanctuary. Although in ruins, much of this remarkable site still remains in testament to its former grandeur. From Mount Kinthos (really just a hill, but the island's highest point), you can see the whole archipelago on a clear day. The 3 hours allotted by excursion boats from Mykonos or Tinos are hardly sufficient to explore this vast archaeological treasure.

Vergina (Northern Greece): In the brilliantly designed museum here, you can peek into what may have been the tomb of Alexander the Great's father, Philip of Macedon, and see the more than 300 burial mounds that stretch for miles across the Macedonian plain.

The National Archaeological Museum (Athens): This stunning collection has it all: superb red and black figured vases, bronze statues, Mycenaean gold, marble reliefs of gods and goddesses, and the hauntingly beautiful frescoes from Akrotiri, the Minoan site on the island of Santorini.

The Museum of Greek Popular Musical Instruments (Athens): Life-size photos of musicians beside their actual instruments and recordings of traditional Greek music make this one of the country's most charming museums to visit.

The Archaeological Museum of Iraklion (Crete): Few museums in the world can boast of holding virtually all the important remains of a major culture. This museum's Minoan collection is just that, including superb frescoes from Knossos, elegant bronze and stone figurines, and exquisite gold jewelry. The museum also contains Neolithic, Archaic Greek, and Roman finds from throughout Crete.

The Archaeological Museum of Chania (Crete): Let's hear it for a truly engaging provincial museum, not one full of masterworks but rather of representative works from thousands of years, a collection that lets us see how most people probably experienced their worlds. All this in a former Italian-Renaissance church that makes you feel you're in a special place.

The Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki (Northern Greece): This is the place to go to see the gold star of Vergina, a profusion of delicate gold wreaths, and the gold box that may have held the bones of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great-all found in the royal tombs at and around Vergina. These Macedonian treasures tend to draw the crowds, so you may find that you have the rest of the collection--including fascinating exhibits on the early history of Thessaloniki--almost to yourself.

The Best Museums, Monuments, and Archaeological Sites

 Nightlife

Theater Under the Stars (Athens and Epidaurus, Peloponnese): If you can, take in a performance of whatever is on at the Herodes Atticus Theater in Athens, the theater at Epidaurus, or the theater at Dodona. You'll be sitting where people have sat for thousands of years to enjoy a play under Greece's magical night sky.

Mykonos (Cyclades): Mykonos isn't the only island town in Greece with nightlife that continues through the morning, but it was the first and still offers the most abundant, varied scene in the Aegean. Year-round, the town's narrow, labyrinthine streets play host to a remarkably diverse crowd--Mykonos's unlimited ability to reinvent itself has assured it of continuous popularity. The spring and fall tend to be more sober and sophisticated, while the 3 months of summer are reserved for unrestrained revelry.

Rhodes (Dodecanese): From cafes to casinos, Rhodes has not only the reputation, but also the stuff to back it up. A good nightlife scene is ultimately a matter of who shows up--and this, too, is where Rhodes stands out. It's the place to be seen, and, if nobody seems to be looking, you can always watch.

Skiathos (Sporades): With as many as 50,000 foreigners packing this tiny island during the high season, the many nightspots in Skiathos town are often jammed with a mostly younger set. If you don't like the music at one club, just move across the street.

Corfu (Ionian Islands): If often-raucous nightspots are what you look for on a holiday, Corfu offers probably the largest concentration in all Greece. Most of these are at beach resorts frequented by younger foreigners. Corfu town, however, also offers more sedate locales. Put simply, Corfu hosts a variety of music and dancing and "socializing" opportunities.