The Cyclades: Santorini and Mykonos
Santorini and Mykonos back to back is the pairing every client asks for and the one most likely to disappoint: two crowded islands, four days, and a ferry in between. Putting Naxos in the middle solves it, and costs nothing.
On Santorini we work against the cruise curve: inland at midday among the assyrtiko vines and the Bronze Age streets of Akrotiri, on the caldera at six when eight thousand day visitors have gone back down to the port.
Mykonos is treated as what it is: a good harbour town with an exceptional archaeological site half an hour away. Delos in the early boat, before the heat and before anyone else, justifies the island on its own.
A night in Plaka, with the Acropolis museum in the late opening hours and the rock itself the next morning.
The short flight south, into a cave house at Imerovigli, and the caldera path north as the light goes.
Akrotiri’s Bronze Age streets under the roof, then assyrtiko vines trained into baskets and a long lunch in Pyrgos.
A private caique across to Thirasia for lunch in the port, and the hot springs at Nea Kameni on the way back.
North by fast ferry, into the marble villages of the Tragaea, and a table where the cheese is made upstairs.
The unfinished kouros lying in its quarry, the Byzantine chapels of Chalki, and an afternoon on the Plaka sand.
The morning ferry across, then the first boat to Delos for the terrace of the lions and the mosaics of the merchant houses.
A last morning in Chora before the flight back to Athens and the connection home.
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