Greece: Best Places to Visit for Couples [2024]

Are you planning a romantic getaway to Greece? We visited Greece for the first time in 2022 on a cruise and returned for a second, more intense, land-based visit in 2024. We loved Greece so much, that we can’t believe we waited until our 70s to visit. If you haven’t been to Greece, we highly recommend you put Greece on the top of your bucket list. This post will help you decide on the best places for couples, or for anyone, where to visit in all of Greece.

Greece: One of the Best Places to Visit!

Greece is the perfect place to visit if you are looking for romantic dining, spectacular sea views, ancient ruins, and picturesque villages.

It is a country rich in history, culture, and natural beauty. Here are five compelling reasons to visit:

1. Warm Hospitality: Greek people are known for their warm welcome and friendliness. This makes visitors feel at home. We felt this everywhere we went.
2. Culinary Delights: Greek cuisine is famous for its diversity and flavor, with dishes like moussaka, souvlaki, and gyros.
3. Historical Richness: With a history that spans millennia, Greece is home to ancient temples, historical sites, and artifacts.
4. Vibrant Nightlife: From festivals to nightclubs, Greece offers a lively nightlife, especially during the summer months. However, it might be better not to visit the islands during the peak season (Middle of June until August). It can be very crowded and perhaps too hot for some tastes. We did both trips in May, and loved it.
5. Natural Landscapes: The country boasts stunning beaches, rugged mountains, and beautiful islands, with blue waters offering spectacular views and relaxation.

These are just a few of the many reasons that make Greece a must-visit destination. Whether you’re looking for a cultural journey, a gastronomic adventure, or simply a place to unwind, Greece has something for everyone.

Greece: Best Places to Visit for Couples, a UNESCO World Heritage Site

Greece’s collection of UNESCO World Heritage Sites is indeed impressive and reflects its rich historical and cultural heritage, but it’s not the largest collection in the world. Greece has 19 sites, which is much less than Italy, China,, France and Germany, all having more than 50. We think the Greeks are getting a raw deal.

Anyhow, we managed to visit five of them and they are truly spectacular:

• Acropolis in Athens
• Archeological Sites at Delphifor Couples
• Meteora
• Delos
• The Old Town of Corfu

Seems we definitely need to return to visit a few more. One of the sites we didn’t visit is The Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae. It is considered by UNESCO to be one of the best preserved monuments of classical antiquity. We guess quality is better than quantity,

Perfect Time to Visit the Best Places in Greece

We made both of our visits to Greece in the month of May. This is considered the shoulder season. The weather is generally more pleasant, but can be colder than might be expected. The good news is that is not as hot or as crowded as it is in the summer. The summer months from the middle of June to the end of August are the busiest. It get so busy that it is difficult to move around.

Best Greek Islands to Visit for Couples

What are the best islands? Are they the ones with beautiful beaches? Or, the ones with a rich history? We will present both. Answering this question is more a matter of personal taste. For me, it is Santorini. Not just because it is a popular island. But, because i felt it had so much to offer. It had the best views and plenty of different best things to do. For Robin it was Mykonos. She fell in love with Mykonos Town and its romantic dining.

Strangely, in both places people told us we needed to visit Crete. It is the largest island and also a very beautiful place. It spans an impressive 3,219 square miles (8,336 km²) and is known for its significant historical sites, diverse landscapes, and vibrant culture. We’ll need to place it high on our bucket list. Anyway, here is a description of each of the islands that we did visit.

Santorini, Cos’s Favorite Island in Greece

Santorini is a beautiful island that in many ways is Greece’s version of Capri in Italy. In fact, the two Islands are similar in many ways, as the more developed parts of the islands are high up in the mountains. They are both overwhelmed with day tourists especially during the high season. This can be a great time to visit. However, getting around in July and August is difficult and can make enjoying the island somewhat unpleasant.

Santorini has been on Cos’s DIY Travel bucket list for a long time. Cos was so enamored with the pictures of the island, that he actually commissioned a painting. The picture of the island hangs in his home today. He was not disappointed when he finally arrived at the island.

Santorini is in the Aegean Sea, southeast of Mainland Greece. It and Mykonos are part of the Cyclades Islands. The Cyclades are known for their picturesque villages, with white cubistic buildings and beautiful beaches. 

Santorini was created by a massive volcano eruption. The island today is in a circular shape left by the caldera from the volcano eruptions.  The last major eruption, in about 1,613 B.C., collapsed the center of the volcano. It created a half-moon-shaped bay with steep cliffs that is the shape of the island today. The volcanic eruption was so great that it is believed to have wiped out the population of Santorini and also neighboring island Crete.

Our Two Visits to Santorini

During our first visit in 2022, while in Santorini during our brief visit, we visited the cities of Oia and Fira. Oia is more dramatic, and Fira is the seat of the municipality. We also visited a winery call Santo with a magnificent view of the island.

We had dinner in Fira most evenings, and really got to enjoy the village. We had cocktails at a bar known as PK Cocktail with a spectacular view of the sunset. During our visit we got to have some great wine tastings at Singalas. We enjoyed their wines both at their winery and for dinner on most evenings.

During a tour of the island, we visited some smaller villages that had real charm. One of the villages we visited was Pyrgos Kallistis. We climbed to the top of the village where there was an old castle ruin. At the top of the village we visited a ruined castle with a spectacular view of Santorini. We also saw how donkeys were used to carry goods up and down the village and a church preparing for a wedding.

The second village we visited was Megalochori where we entered into a cave house that was created by the volcano eruption thousands of years ago. the cave house was quite dark, but people lived in it for many years using candles to light the rooms.

Please visit Viator or Get Your Guide if you are interested in tours in Santorini.

Mykonos, Robin’s Favorite Island in Greece

Mykonos is known for the best beaches in the islands. This is true, as unlike Santorini, it has beautiful sandy beaches. I also has a truly magnificent old town which is a great place to walk around. Young couples will find an awesome party scene that lasts practically all night. The beach and partying scene has made Mykonos into the best place to visit in Greece for partying, and unfortunately also the most expensive.

Mykonos and Santorini compete to have the best sunsets. Based on the pictures below, I vote for Mykonos

Mykonos is a haven for the rich and famous. There are hundreds of villas built in the last couple of decades all over the island that rent out in the summer for thousands of dollars a night.

An example of the expensive nature of the island, is that one of the locals told us not to order fresh fish here. She said you will pay 2 or 3 times more than what you will get charged on the mainland. Robin found this out when they were going to charge her 150 euros for sole. Fortunately, she declined and we had a great meal at a much more reasonable price. This high cost for fresh fish is because housing costs have gotten so high on the island, that all the fishermen have left. This has left fresh fish as a real delicacy.

Another problem, even worse than Santorini’s crowd problem, are the large crowds caused mainly by the cruise ships in the high season. It is not unheard of to have six or more cruise ships in the harbor on any high season day. During our visit in mid-may there were two to three cruise ships in the harbor everyday of our visit.

Despite Problems, Mykonos is one of Greece’s Great Places to Visit

Despite these two problems, Mykonos is still a great place to visit. It is a small island and we highly recommend that you stay on the island. We stayed at the Mykonos Princess which is a very nice hotel just outside of Mykonos Town.

During our trip we had lunch at a local’s home, and got to know the local staff at our hotel really well. We also had a great private sunset cruise on a 48-foot sailboat and got to know the crew quite well. I still think one of the crew was the captain’s daughter, but Robin claims it was his girlfriend. Oh well, perhaps we didn’t get to know them that well.

We were able to see some great sunsets both from having dinner in LIttle Venice and from the sailboat. The famous landmark of the windmills is also an iconic structure on the island. One little secret that makes Mykonos such a great place to visit is that it is the nearest island to stay and visit Delos.

Greece Best Places to Visit: Delos

On the sunset cruise, we first got to visit the island of Delos. It was about a 30 minute sail from Mykonos. Moreover, it is one of the best archaeological sites we have been to.

Delos was at one point in time the center of the Hellenic World. It is also consider the center of the Cyclades Islands. At Delos, archeologists have been recoverning what is now the second largest excavation in the world after Pompeii in Italy. While we were there we were shocked by the armed guards who met our sailboat. It turns out that the Prime Minister of Greece was visiting that evening to reopen the Delos Museum. What a relief. Please enjoy the amazing pictures.

Best Greece Places to Visit in the Ionian Islands – Corfu

Corfu is located in the Ionian Sea. The Island forms what is known as he northwestern frontier for Greece, as it sits at the border of Greece and Albania, visible from the Island. The principal city on the island is also called Corfu. While not as spectacular as Santorini, Corfu is nevertheless very charming with quaint villages. It is a mountainous country and as such has some fantastic scenery looking out into the Aegean Sea and into the straits that separates it from the mainland. The Greeks love their food and we found a very nice restaurant, Castellino, at the top of a cliff, overlooking the Ionian Sea.

Mainland Greece: Also One of the Best Places to Visit

Back on the mainland, we visited four great places: Athens, Delphi, Meteora and Ioannina. The first three are all UNESCO World Heritage Sites and Ioannina is a wonderful cobble stone village set in a castle on a beautiful lake. We were totally blown away by the historical beauty of these places as well as the many olive groves we saw driving to these destinations.

Greece Best Places to Visit: Athens

Clearly, one of the best places to visit in Greece is Athens. And, one of the best places to visit in Athens, Greece is the Acropolis and the Parthenon. We were very fortunate in that we stayed at the Herodion Hotel, with a rooftop view of the Parthenon. The Herodion is one of the most romantic hotels that we have stayed at. The photo at the beginning of this post was taken from the hotel’s rooftop.

Athens is of course, the birthplace of democracy. It’s history goes back 3000 years. It is amazing that so much of it is still preserved. The Acropolis is high on a hill and it is a bit of a climb to get there. However, the hike is well worth it. Not only does the Acropolis contain the Parthenon, which is magnificent, especially at night, but it contains many other well preserved structures. This includes the Theatre of Dionysus, the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, the Monument of Agrippa, and the Temple of Athena. All are well preserved and well worth the visit.

Best Places to Visit in Athens, Greece: The Acropolis Museum

There are also many other best places to visit in Athens, Greece. The first must see is the Acropolis Museum. The museum has many of the artifacts that were recovered from the Acropolis. The top floor is a modern day replica of the Parthenon and provides a sense of what the Parthenon looked like in its full historic glory.

Surrounding the Acropolis is an area called the Plaka. The Plaka is a great area to take a stroll and visit some great restaurants and shops. It also contains a small residential area called Anafiotika on the hill side of the Acropolis which is a wonderful place to take a see some traditional Greek homes and Churches. It has narrow cobblestone streets and a Greek-island vibe.

Piraeus

If you are visiting Athens from the sea, chances are you have come thru Piraeus. If there is no traffic, Piraeus is a short 15-minute drive from the center of Athens. The cruise lines make it clear that you are landing in Piraeus and not Athens. However, unlike other Mediterranean cities, such as Rome, which are a good train ride away from the ocean, Athens is just a short, inexpensive taxi ride from Piraeus.

Since, we arrived to Athens by plane, we didn’t enter via Piraeus. However, we decided to have dinner at the port one night. He had a wonderful fish dinner at a Michelin One Star restaurant, Varoulko Seaside Restaurant. The view of the harbor was spectacular as was the food and the service. Just prepare to pay Michelin Star prices for the meal, which is unusual in Greece where the food is generally less expensive than the rest of Europe.

Athens Restaurants

Greece: Best Hidden Gems Places to Visit

Most people who visit Greece, get to the Greek Isles and also visit Athens. However, on our second visit in 2024 we found some truly exciting places that we consider to be Hidden Gems. These are places that you will only be able to visit by land, so we highly recommend spending some land-based time in Greece and travel beyond Athens.

Delphi

Delphi can be visited from Athens on a day trip, or pass-by the hill-side village as you wander around the country. It is a well preserved sacred precinct in ancient Greece that hosted the seat of Pythia, the famous Oracle of Delphi. We visited on our way north from Athens as we prepared for our adventure into Albania and the Balkans.

The Ancient Greeks considered Delphi to be the center of the world. Today, it is a UNESCO World Heritage site and worth a visit. There is a museum at the site, that contains many artifacts associated with ancient Delphi including some golden treasures discovered there. The ruins that exist date from the 6th century BC. The theater is still used and in good shape.

Meteora Monasteries

A few hours drive north of Delphi is Meteora. It is a magnificent area because of the Meteora monasteries – the miracle of Greece. Slightly northwest of the town of Kalabaka, the impressive rocks of Meteora rise from the plains of Thessaly becoming one of the most amazing places in Greece. On top of these gigantic rocks with the breathtaking landscape reaching heights of more than 600 meters formed one of the most important monastic communities of Greece. The Greek word Meteora means “suspended in the air” and this phrase aptly describes these remarkable Greek Orthodox monasteries.

While we were visiting the magnificent monasteries, we had the great pleasure of running into a bus-load of Serbians having a litlle bit of a “tail-gate” session while waiting to get into the monastery for Sunday service. They were actually from Bosnia-Herzegovina. Please see our post on Bosnia-Herzegovina for more information. We took some pictures of the group and they decided to invite us to joint their “tail-gate”. It was one of our highlights of our visit to Meteora.

Ioannina

Ioannina is a beautiful place in every season, and worth at least a couple of days in a larger tour of Greece. The walls of its old fortified city, the Kastro, enclose a tranquil quarter, spiked with minarets, and an island in the lake is a quiet, car-free escape. At sunset the lake turns silver and the impressive mountains behind turn lilac.Many Athenians visit as a romantic long weekend away.

However, as a foreign tourist you need to make a plan to visit as Ioannina is way north in Greece. In fact, given its proximity to Albania, the town has strong Albanian roots and was a great stopover for us on our way into Albania. Following the First Balkan War of 1912–1913 and the Treaty of London the southern part of the vilayet, including Ioannina, was incorporated into Greece. 

Ioannina is the place where Ali Pasha ruled a major segment of the Ottoman Empire in the late 18th and early 19th century. He was an Albanian ruler who served as Ottoman Pasha of the Pashalik of Yanina, a large part of western Rumelia. Under his rule, it acquired a high degree of autonomy and even managed to stay de facto independent. He made many investments in this area and despite his harsh ways, he is remembered fondly. He was killed on an island in the lake in Ioannina as having become too powerful and was feared by the Ottoman Sultan.