Our European
Adventure

A four-star design hotel on Ermou Street — one of Athens' main streets, running from Syntagma Square straight to the ancient Monastiraki neighbourhood. The rooms are compact, but the hotel has beautiful shared spaces and a rooftop bar and restaurant with views of the Acropolis. Breakfast served up there every morning.

• The Acropolis — standing beneath the Parthenon, 2,500 years old and still extraordinary. Go at opening time for the best light and smaller crowds
• The Acropolis Museum, which displays the surviving sculptures in brilliant modern context
• Plaka — the old neighbourhood winding beneath the Acropolis: good tavernas, tiny churches, shaded lanes
• Monastiraki Square, the flea market, and the ancient Agora just beyond it
• Rooftop cocktails at the hotel as the sun sets behind the Parthenon — an image that will stay with you
• Athens' food scene is seriously impressive: mezze, fresh seafood, and modern Greek cooking at every price point

A two-bedroom house close to the beach, with a private pool, bicycles, a big covered outdoor area, and easy walking distance to Kardamyli's handful of excellent tavernas. A place for swimming before breakfast and long dinners that drift into the evening.

• Kardamyli is one of the loveliest villages in Greece — small enough to walk end-to-end in ten minutes, completely authentic, deeply beautiful
• The great travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor made his home here for decades and is buried nearby — it has that kind of magic
• Swimming from smooth stones into warm, clear water — the Mani coast is unspoiled
• Cycling the coast road at dawn before the heat comes in
• Grilled octopus, fresh fish, cold white wine — the tavernas here are excellent and utterly unpretentious
• The Mani landscape: rugged, wild, dotted with Byzantine tower-houses and ancient olive trees

A delightful concept: a neoclassical building with twelve literary-themed suites, each named after a different story and furnished with its own mini library. Spacious, atmospheric, and 100 metres from the Venetian harbour. Two minutes' walk from the Amaryllis Hotel, whose rooftop restaurant is earmarked for at least one dinner.

• Nafpaktos is a gem that most visitors drive straight past — a Venetian port with castle walls that run all the way down the hillside to the water's edge
• The castle above town is one of the best-preserved in Greece, with views in both directions along the Gulf of Corinth
• The harbour is a perfect horseshoe enclosed by medieval towers — one of the most beautiful small harbours in the country
• Dinner at the Amaryllis rooftop restaurant, just two minutes' walk from the hotel
• The pleasure of discovering a real Greek town that's beautiful without being overrun

A four-bedroom, three-bathroom house on a hill above Agios Nikitas village, with what will probably be the most spectacular view of the entire trip — the Ionian Sea stretching out below, the village tucked into the cove, and sunsets you'll talk about for years. A short walk down into the village for taverna dinners.

• Lefkada is a Greek island with a trick up its sleeve — you drive onto it across a bridge, no ferry required
• Agios Nikitas is one of the Ionian islands' most charming villages: a car-free lane leads down to a beautiful small beach with turquoise water
• Porto Katsiki — Lefkada's west coast beach is consistently ranked among the most extraordinary in Greece: towering white limestone cliffs, impossible blue water, the feeling of standing somewhere almost too beautiful to be real
• Evenings on the house terrace watching the sun drop into the Ionian — bring wine
• Lefkada town has a good marina and some excellent fish tavernas worth an afternoon visit

Two nights in Fiscardo, Kefalonia's most beautiful village and, by many accounts, the most picturesque harbour in all of Greece. Venetian buildings in pastel pinks and yellows line a sheltered bay where the water is clear enough to see the seabed far below the surface. It's the last new destination of the trip — and it's a good one to finish on.

• Fiscardo was one of the few places on Kefalonia to survive the 1953 earthquake — so the intact Venetian architecture is all still standing and genuinely extraordinary
• Captain Corelli's Mandolin was set here on Kefalonia — you'll feel like you're inside the book or the film
• Swimming directly in the harbour, and from beautiful coves nearby reachable by small boat
• The waterfront restaurants serve some of the freshest fish of the whole trip — Kefalonia's seafood is exceptional
• The pleasure of a small, perfect place at the end of a long journey — nowhere to rush to, just the harbour and the water