In addition to Olympia, I think you would enjoy visiting Delphi. This was the site of the ancient Oracle. This ancient priestess gave prophesies by studying the entrails of sacrificed animals. People traveled from all over Greece to consult her.
The site is beautifully situated in the mountains. There is a Sacred Way leading to the sanctuary of Apollo. Also a theatre from the 4th Century B.C. Everything has a lovely ambiance of antiguity, mystery and beauty.

Have a wonderful time! She has earned a vacation!

We spent about three weeks in Greece this past summer. I agree that Plaka will be a wonderful, albeit wild, place to stay. It's a bit like staying near the Rastro! The acropolis is indeed lit up at night. But I question your need for a car. The metro system is top notch, and taking it gives you the added bonus of seeing archeological sites you hadn't planned on...things they found while digging the metro. I didn't find it necessary to have a car at all. The cab from the airport runs about $10, as does the cab to Piraeus, but there is a metro to both of those places...very clean, very easy to follow.
Delphi is wonderful!
I agree that Santorini is magnificent and not to be missed. We decided Mykonos was just too full of beautiful people for us! We liked scenery better.
We spent 5 days on the island of Spetses...the beaches are lovely and you can rent a little moto to get around. There is a lot of night life and good restaurants. We stayed at a wonderful hotel, but it was a lot more expensive than the hostals you normally recommend. You have a beautiful view of the sea and bouganvilleas all over the place. If you're interested, I'll send you the name of the place.
Yes, almost everyone spoke English. ALMOST. I recommend a little "see it and say it in Greek" book for the folks who don't speak English, and also to be courteous to those who do by saying hello, please, thank you and the like! We had a wonderful time and plan to return. The people were warm and friendly, the food was great....you'll have a lot of fun and come home with yet another country and culture to love!

la maestra, we won't have the car at all IN Athens. We're picking it up in the morning of our 4th day, the day we LEAVE Athens on New Years Day and will use it to drive around the country, returning it to the rental agency in Athens on Epiphany (January 6th). So, leaving and returning are national holidays and there should be little traffic in Athens (so sayeth my Greek ex-boss from Athens).

The nearly Official list of places we're planning to visit include:

Athens , Kalamata ( The Monasteries of Meteora ) , Delphi , Olympia , Epidauro , Micenas , Corinto (please pardon the spelling of some of these as I took them from my ladyfriend in Spanish and I'm not sure yet of their English equivalent)

Very unfortunately, we won't be leaving the mainland for any islands - much to my disappointment - mainly because of the time it takes to visit these islands and thus taking us away from the more significant places to visit on the mainland during our short stay (8 days). We just can't justify it.

Saludos, MadridMan

I think it's great that you are going to the mainland, I can't wait to hear about it. I went to your website links. I always found the stories of the former Turkish occupation to be very interesting. Parts of present-day Turkey used to be Greece and vice versa. Some of the eastern islands were occupied by Italy as recent as the 1940s and you can see it in the architecture. I love the music in Greece too. Geographically you are so close to the middle east and it really comes through in the music and food. I bought some random Greek CDs in the Athens airport (they have a really good music store there) and I really enjoy them. The Matt Barrett website also has a good section on Greek music and where you can hear "Rembetika" in Athens. The story behind it is a little bit similar to blues music here in the USA.

Frape is indeed the national drink here among the young, especially during the summer. The national dish is ... the humble bean soup ("fasolada").

Spinach pie ("spanakopita") and cheese pie ("tiropita") I recommend thoroughly! Feta cheese I eat every day (El Corte Inglés carries two Greek brands at around 2.50 euros per 200gr, more expensive at SuperSol).

Santorini is very beautiful. It is a half-sank volcano, and is the island featured at the opening scene of Tomb Raider 2.

That would be Kalambaka, at the foot of the Meteora. Kalamata is at the very south of mainland Greece. Pay attention to the dress code mentioned at the bottom of the page you quoted, if you would like to enter the Monasteries!

East and a bit to the south of Meteora you will find the very beautiful Mount Pelion ("Peelio"), next to the city of Volos. You could drive up the first couple of villages, Portaria and Makrinitsa. The local specialty is "spentzofai", made from animal intestines (not my kind of dish), while at Makrinitsa you outght to try tiropsomo, a type of cheesepie.

And here is my language tip: Greek pronounciation is quite similar to Spanish ... once you tackle the alphabet, that is!

Tip #2: you can learn your first couple of Greek letters by looking at Euro banknotes (bills): they all display, no matter where they were printed, the word EURO in both Greek and Latin characters.

Dimitris

Dimitris (et.al.),
I spend a bit of time reading my The Lonely Planet Guide to Greece last week, focusing on Athens and the Monasteries of Meteora. Wow. The grouping of monasteries must be really incredible in real life. They say that with an early start one can visit all (6 or so) of them in one day so we'll try that even though we'll have less daylight in January when we'll be there. We were hoping it might be possible to spend a night in one of them but there was no mention of this in the guide book so I imagine it's impossible.

I'll also be contacting a few of the smaller hotels, those which have email addresses, to see if they expect to have available rooms. It seems, not too surprisingly, that few of the rooms listed in my guide have in-room bathrooms. Not a big deal, but.. you know.

In Athens, there's a place in Plaka which rents cars and actually drives you to the outskirts and then let's you take over from there. Normally I wouldn't consider a car rental place INSIDE Athens but since we'll be leaving the city on New Year's Day and returning on the 6th, Epiphany, I think we'll have little traffic issues on those days in Athens.

Saludos, MadridMan

I have bad news and I have good news:

The BAD NEWS is that I'm sadly NOT going to Greece over New Years. That really is bad news because I had to cancel my ticket but fortunately DID NOT lose its value but I must use the same airline (Air France) within one year to use that credit. More bad news is that I'll have to pay about $250 in penalties to use that credit.

THE GOOD NEWS IS that I'll BE GOING TO MADRID instead!!!! Ah yes, 10 wonderful days in Madrid with friends and family and loved ones.

Why did I cancel the trip to Greece? Some close family members of my ladyfriend in Madrid are having some health issues and so she needs to stay close to home to be sure they're well cared for. This in itself is sad and unfortunate but I'm always happy to go to Madrid. I won't be socializing TOO much, however, but will stay close to home. I'm afraid I won't be coordinating a "Party With MadridMan in Madrid" this time though. That'll have to wait until springtime.

Thank you all for your input in this thread. Hopefully I'll be referring to it in the future for another trip to Greece.

Saludos, MadridMan

I am sorry to hear that you are not going to Greece after all, but I am sure you aren't tooo disappointed- since you get to be in Madrid This thread has been great for me though. I have a ticket to Paris in March and my friend and I are trying to decide whether to do a Southern France -Italy -Greece treck or Southern France - Spain - Portugal. terribly difficult decision, but the links on this thread have been really helpful. they are getting me really excited about greece. thanks chicagoan!

Madridman I am sorry you don't get to go but of course you are making the right decision. And Madrid on New Years is still pretty darn cool! Greece will always be there. And through your research, you have probably given other people (and myself) ideas of things to do on the mainland.

Nicole anytime you want to talk about Greece (or Paris, I love it there too and know of a GREAT basement jazz bar! Or Italy, I have been there twice) you can e-mail me. My Greece pictures are also posted under my Peru thread.

Buen viaje, Madridman, and remember the 28th is....el dia de los inocentes, so don't let them fool you!