This tailor-made package includes nine nights’ accommodation at 4* hotels to suit your group’s requirements. The content of your preferred itinerary + transportation options will be discussed at the time of enquiry.
10 days / 9 nights – departure dates throughout the year
9 nights B&B at 4* hotels in Thessaloniki, Meteora & Ioannina
Included meals as itemised in itinerary
Private coach with excursions, entrances + local guides as in the itinerary
Tour Director accompanying the tour throughout
Sample Itinerary:
Day 1: Arriving in Thessaloniki, a meet & greet service will accompany you by private coach to your hotel in Thessaloniki for a 3-night stay. Welcome dinner.
Day 2:
Pella and Edessa – Private coach, Entrances + Guide (Breakfast + Lunch)
Our visits begin at Pella, the capital of ancient Macedon, an extensive archaeological site with an amazing museum. We then continue to Edessa to see its impressive waterfalls and end our day with a visit to the Macedonian tombs at Levkhadia. Lunch included in Edessa.
Day 3:
Full day Thessaloniki - Private coach, Entrances + Guide (Breakfast)
We enjoy a relaxed day exploring the highlights of Thessaloniki, including some of its great Roman remains, its Byzantine churches and its excellent Archaeological Museum.
Day 4:
Thessaloniki to Meteora via Ancient Aigai - Coach, Entrances + Guide (Breakfast + Dinner)
This morning we travel through beautiful countryside to Ancient Aigai and visit one of the great highlights of the tour. Ancient Aigai is the site of the spectacular tombs of, what is believed to be, Philip II, father of Alexander the Great, and other members of the Macedonian royal family. Discovered in 1977, the tombs lie under a brilliant recreation of the tumulus which originally covered them, surrounded by an underground display of all the gold and silver objects found buried with the dead. After lunch we continue our journey on to Meteora, where we catch our first glimpses of the impressive ‘sky-high’ Meteora Monasteries.
Check-in to hotel in Meteora + hotel dinner –
2 night-stay.
Day 5: Meteora Monasteries - Private coach + Guide (Breakfast + Dinner included)
Our day is spent visiting two of the six working Meteora monasteries, which cling to the tops of great and impressive isolated rocks from where we can enjoy breath-taking views. The visit to most of the monasteries involves climbing up and down quite a large number of steps but, of the two Monasteries we plan to visit, Agios Stephanos is accessible to all as it has very few steps. Dinner at a local restaurant
Day 6:
Meteora to Ioannina - Private coach + Guide (Breakfast + Dinner included)
We journey from Kalambaka to Ioannina through the beautiful scenery of the Pindus range stopping en-route to visit the picturesque mountain town of Metsovo. Check-in to hotel Ioannina + dinner - 4 nights stay.
Day 7:
Ioannina and Dodona - Private coach, Entrances + Guide (Breakfast)
We explore the lakeside city of Ioannina, capital of Epirus, which saw its zenith under the Albanian tyrant, Ali Pasha. We will cross to Ali Pasha’s Island which sits in the middle of Lake Pamvotis to visit the Philanthropinon monastery with its fine cycle of 16th century wall-paintings. Later a visit to Dodona, the site of one of the great oracles of classical Greece is included.
Day 8: Preveza and Kassope - Private coach, Entrances + Guide (Breakfast + Lunch) Today we travel to the pleasant town of Preveza on the Ambraciot Gulf. Here Mark Antony and Cleopatra assembled their forces, which were beaten at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. Octavian, the victor, who later became Augustus the first Roman Emperor, commemorated his victory with a great monument and a new city of Nicopolis, whose extensive remains and museum we visit. Later we visit the remains of the Hellenistic city of Kassope and see the nearby monument to the Suliot women, who danced themselves off the cliff rather than surrender to Ali Pasha.
Day 9 : Zagoria and Pindus Mountains - Private coach, Entrances + Guide (Breakfast + Dinner)
Today we visit the stone villages of Zagoria, set amidst the fantastic scenery of the Pindus mountains, with its gorges and rivers spanned by humped-back pack-horse bridges. This is the territory of the Sarakatsani shepherds who grazed their flocks in the summer pastures of the high Pindos, moving them down in the winter.
Visits today will depend on coach access and the walking abilities of the group: Aristi & Papigo villages.
Admire the deep Vikos Canyon, forest of Monodentri and its limestone structures intertwined with oak and maple trees, stone arc bridges -the bridge of Kokkori, Plakidas, Lazaridi and Skalopatia Vradeto.
Dinner at a local taverna.
Day 10: Corfu - Private coach, Ferry + Guide (Breakfast included)
Transfer to Corfu by coach and boat. There may be time in Corfu for a brief tour exploring historic and picturesque Corfu town before returning to the UK.
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