Hi Bob. Well, I did the Athens tour last October and thoroughly enjoyed it. I didn't even mind the good old Hotel Stanley as much as some of the others seemed to. However, the hotels did get increasingly good as we moved around, and there were a couple of real gems along the way. The one in Olympia was good but sadly we only spent one night there. The one in Nafpaktos was even better and the whole visit to that town was great.
I enjoyed the day sailing from Athens to the three different islands. A great atmosphere on the boat with a brilliant buffet style meal and live music. Another meal on one of the islands was also great - sardines featured highly, and attracted what seemed to be all the cats of the island! A pod of dolphins accompanied us for part of our trip, which was unexpected and really good.
Overall, the food was fine, but I'm not very interested in food generally so I wouldn't remember much about it. The ancient historical sites were all amazing, of course. The little train ride was interesting and the town at the top was good for a walk around and lunch. One of the highlights for me was the cookery lesson which took place in a lovely place high up in the hills, where the weather was much cooler. We had a log fire and a really lovely welcome with great, traditional food (even I remember that!) The last night, in a taverna in old Athens, was a lovely end to the trip, wandering the little streets and all the local souvenir shops, etc., plus a nice atmosphere for the meal.
We did a fair few kilometres - we actually had a competition on the last leg back to Athens to see who could get closest to the distance clocked by our driver (I can't remember, so no clues from me!)
Weather wise, it was warm, but not unbearable. But it was October, not September.
