Classical Greece

Good itinerary, excellent driver, the superior hotels outside of Athens were lovely with generous and delicious dinner buffets! Enthusiastic and energetic tour guide who was always available, warm and friendly, and a wealth of information though the explanations often lacked substance and somehow weren’t as interesting as the official plaques posted around the sites. Worth the money for this reasonably priced tour! Points to improve / criticisms: One of our “superior” hotels in Athens was in a really sketchy neighborhood where we didn’t feel safe! We asked to change but response time via email from the company was quite slow. The group is spread out at various hotels and the meeting time is early so it’s necessary to rush in the morning but then drive around picking up others from various hotels. Especially the day tour in Athens and the first day of the longer bus trip, our hotel was less than 1km from the starting points of those days but spent the first hour on the bus zigzagging and looping around in rush hour traffic when we could have easily walked! I understand they have constraints but this was a huge drawback! More compelling stories and explanations by the guide could have been nice. One lunch stop was really terrible food! But the others were excellent. I didn’t appreciate being a bit rushed through the monument sites and then forced to visit gift shops along the route (supposedly “local workshops” but only 1 out of 3 actually explained and demonstrated their process). I assume the driver and guide were getting kickbacks from those. Worth it overall, though Athens especially is really run down and dirty and has the feeling of a ghost town, and that’s really tragic for this friendly warm country full of incredible history!

Fabulous destinations and tour guide Evie was terrific. Only complaint was lunches were not included .

Locations were great. Days were long. Not enough time in evenings. We were not expecting such a large tour bus with few English speaking people. This should have been made known up front. Lunches in big cafeteria style places were a disappointment.

Overall good to excellent. The guided tour of Athens and the 4 day classical tour was excellent with very comfortable travel arrangements, The hotel accommodation in Athens was bit basic and could have been better. The rooms were barely functional and had stale tobacco smell. However the accommodation for the classical tour was excellent . We were especially impressed with Thomas, our tour guide for the the classical tour. Thomas and George (the coach driver) were friendly and very courteous, Thomas was remarkebly fluent in English, was very knowledgable and informative.