Croatia and Greece
Limestone walls, the Acropolis, and a village on the rim of a volcano.
The Adriatic and the Aegean are a short flight apart and a long way apart in feeling. A walled city to start, a busy capital in the middle, and the caldera at the end, when there is nothing left to do but watch the light go.
WhenBest in May and June, or in September and October, when the sea is warm and the crowds are lighter.
01 — Croatia
A walled city of limestone and red tile, with the Adriatic on three sides.
Dubrovnik’s old town is a complete walled city on a rock above the sea, its marble main street, churches and palaces packed inside ramparts you can walk all the way round. Outside the walls the coast runs to beaches, islands and the mountains behind.
02 — Greece
The Acropolis above, and the old quarters of Plaka and Anafiotika beneath it.
Athens is the ancient sites — the Acropolis, the Agora, the temple of Olympian Zeus — set inside a sprawling modern capital of markets and neighbourhood tavernas. The Parthenon is visible from half the city; the rest is best seen on foot.
03 — Greece
White villages along the rim of a drowned volcano.
Santorini is the crescent left when a volcano blew itself apart, and its villages sit along the top of the cliff that was the crater wall, looking down into a caldera filled by the sea. Oia and Fira are the famous ones; the black and red beaches, the vineyards and the Bronze Age town at Akrotiri are the rest of the island.
Somewhere else entirely? The concierge starts from a blank page.