7 Days in Greece: Itinerary for Athens, Santorini and the Aegean Crossing

A plate of souvlaki arrives at a table in Plaka, the pita still warm, while the lanes fill with the sound of shop shutters and cafe chairs. The route is a week split between the capital and one island: first Athens, then the southern Cyclades.

Is 7 Days enough for Greece?

Yes, for a first visit built around two contrasts: a big city full of ancient stones and a volcanic island in the Aegean. A week will not cover Greece, which is a country of islands, mountains, monasteries and villages, but it will give you a clear picture of two very different sides of it. The plan keeps moves to a minimum, so most of the week is spent looking, eating and walking rather than packing.

Athens takes the first three days. It is the place for the Acropolis and the Parthenon, for the museums, and for neighborhoods like Plaka, which the city’s official tourism guide counts among its top attractions, with historic landmarks, lively shops and streets that get crowded. Santorini takes the last four days. It is the southernmost of the Cyclades and the largest island of a small, circular archipelago formed by the caldera.

Santorini sits about 120 miles southeast of the mainland, so the crossing is a real leg of the trip and not a side excursion. That is why the plan stays on one island after it. Moving between several islands in a single week would turn the holiday into a string of ports, and the Cyclades reward staying put.

What the week leaves out is large. Crete, the largest Greek island, is not here, nor are Rhodes, Lesbos or Euboea, which round out the list of the biggest islands. The mainland sites such as Delphi, Olympia, Meteora, Mycenae and Epidaurus are also left for another trip, along with Nafplio and the northern city of Thessaloniki. The Ionian islands, among them Corfu, Kefalonia and Zakynthos, belong to a different kind of trip altogether.

If you are the kind of traveler who likes a base and a slow rhythm, this shape suits a week well. Athens gives you the ancient world, food from the grill and the meze table, and a lot of walking between squares. Santorini gives you the Aegean, a volcano, and the old name of the island, Thera, to look for in the archaeology and the wine labels.

The itinerary stage by stage

Days 1 to 3: Athens

Spend the first day finding your bearings around the Acropolis and Plaka. The Acropolis rock carries the Parthenon, and the streets below it run through Plaka, where shops, small squares and tavernas sit among the historic landmarks. This is the part of the city that gets crowded, so it suits wandering with no fixed target, stopping for a coffee or a gyros wrapped in paper and eaten on the move.

The second day can go to the museums and the ancient sites you did not reach the first day. Athens is a city of layers, and a day spent moving between ruins, a museum of antiquities and a market street shows how the old and the present sit side by side.

Day three is for the rest: a neighborhood you skipped, a long lunch, a last browse through the shops. Get around by metro, bus or tramway, whichever fits the stretch you are covering. Sleep in the center of the city, in or near Plaka, so that evenings are a walk to dinner rather than a ride. The move to Santorini follows the next morning.

Days 4 to 7: Santorini

Day four is the crossing of the Aegean from the mainland to Santorini, with the rest of the day for settling in. Choose a base on the caldera rim if you can, since visitors can stay on the caldera rim and the volcano is right there, in front of the terrace. Fira and Oia are the villages most often used as bases, and both sit along the rim, so the rooms look out over the water.

Day five is for the volcano, which the island’s official site calls a wild natural wonder. Santorini has an active volcano, and seeing it from the rim is part of the point of the island, with the sea inside the broken circle of the caldera. Afterward, wander the village lanes, where the small shops, cafes and terraces give you something to do between views.

Day six can be a slow day with a long lunch. Santorini’s table is built on island ingredients, from cherry tomatoes and fava, the yellow split-pea puree, to grilled fish and local white wine. Sit at a taverna and let the meal run. If you want more to do, add a village you have not yet seen, or a stretch of the caldera path between two of them.

Day seven is the departure day, so keep it light. Pack, take a final look at the caldera and head out by the route you chose for the leg home. The island has no need of a long list on the last day. A coffee at the rim is enough.

Getting between stops

In Athens the metro, buses and the tramway cover the stretches between the sights, and the metro hours above are the ones to plan evenings around. On Friday and Saturday nights lines 2 and 3 run later than the rest. Remember the bus rule about the front door, since it surprises people who board the way they would at home.

The crossing to Santorini is the one big move of the week. Several Greek companies connect the mainland with the Aegean islands.

Blue Star Ferries serves more than 20 destinations between the mainland and the islands, and Golden Star Ferries runs from the mainland to the Cyclades. ANEK Lines sails mainly on the Piraeus to Crete routes and in the Adriatic, so it belongs to a different trip. Which crossing you take is a choice to settle before you leave.

On Santorini itself, the island’s lanes and rim paths are the main way of moving between the villages. There is little more to say about getting around the island, since the plan keeps you to one base. Stay near the places you want to see in the evening, and the days will take care of themselves.

What to book before your 7 Days in Greece

Settle three things first: the crossing between the mainland and Santorini, the Athens sites you want to see, and a room on the caldera rim on Santorini if that is what you want, since visitors can stay there. Once those are set, the rest of the week can stay open for long lunches and wandering.

Adapting the route

Athens changes a great deal with the season, and the figures here are Athens’s own. Santorini’s weather is not the same, so treat the table as a guide to the capital only.

In July the averages mean real heat in Athens, so sun protection matters and the Acropolis and open ruins ask for water and a hat. October and April sit between the extremes, with highs in the high 60s to mid 70s. January has the most rain days of the four, so a rain jacket belongs in the bag, and the museums matter more.

For a shorter trip, drop Santorini and stay in Athens, or take the island and trim the capital to a day or two. The crossing is the cost of the island, so a trip of less than a week asks whether that leg is worth it. For a longer trip, the natural addition is another stop on the mainland, such as Delphi, or a second island, with the crossing built in.

For a slower trip, keep to the same two bases and cut the number of sights. In Athens, pick one site and one museum, and let the rest go to the cafes and the streets. On Santorini, there is already room to do little, and the caldera view is the main event. Families can keep the same shape, using the metro and the tramway for the city days and leaving the afternoons open.

If the weather turns, the museums in Athens and the long meals on Santorini are the answer. A rainy Athens day suits an indoor visit, and a taverna lunch can stretch over an afternoon. The route has no fixed timetable of must-see stops, so a day can change without breaking the plan.

Good to know before you go

Pack for the season in Athens, with sun protection in summer and a rain jacket in winter, and comfortable shoes for stone streets and ruins. The Plaka streets get crowded, so allow for that on busy days. On Santorini the volcano is active, which is part of why people come, and the caldera rim is where you will spend most of your time.