a Deano production

GREECE, 2019

SMARTOURS SPECTACULAR GREECE AND GREEK ISLAND CRUISE, October, 2019.

With dear friends and veteran travelers, Sue and Pete, and following a long flight over the Atlantic and most of the Mediterranean, our Greece adventure began in Athens. We spent our first afternoon and night there before boarding a Celestyal Cruise ship the next morning at Piraeus (near Athens) for a four-night Greek island cruise. Our cruise included visits to Mykonos, Kusadasi, Ephesus (Turkey), Patmos, Rhodes, Crete, and beautiful Santorini. We were guided by the ultimate Tour Director, our ever-spirited Granville Lee-Warner, who was assisted at various ports of call by guides who displayed a prodigious local knowledge. Upon our return to Piraeus and mainland Greece, our tour group of 28 boarded a bus for the land portion of our adventure. For this segment, we were led by a very knowledgeable tour guide, Nina Pentogaluo, as we journeyed to Delphi, Olympia, and Mycenae. We completed our adventure with several more days in Athens before flying home via Emerates Airline (an interesting experience all by itself, the story of which is more suitable for another time).

The food was awesomely delicious everywhere we dined (I could not get enough of those remarkable Greek salads). The various hotels where we stayed exceeded our expectations, especially in Delphi and Athens. The hotel in Athens included a roof-top open air restaurant with a view of the Acropolis and Parthenon. We made friends with fellow adventurers who came from all parts of the U.S. (including our home state of Florida) and exchanged email addresses so we can keep in touch. Along we way, we were coddled, educated, fed well, and entertained by our intrepid SmarTour guides, Granville and Nina. While some of us had concerns about the unusual behavior of a few tourists we ran into from time to time (not a part of our group), the people in Greece were always friendly and helpful. We learned that English is mandatory in all Greek schools so communicating was never a problem. The Euro was easy to manage and most places also took US dollars. very much unlike our previous experiences in Egypt, there were very few places where we had to pay to use the bathrooms (W.C. in Greece, which, as Nina pointed out to us, is strange because there is no 'W" in the Greek language).

I hope you enjoy looking at these photos as much as Sue, Norma, and I did taking them. For best viewing, use an iPad or larger monitor. Click on the SLIDESHOW Icon for largest viewing when that feature is available. All photos were taken by Sue George, Norma Givens, and Deano Givens.

Guestbook for GREECE, 2019

Ellen Hill(non-registered)

Thank you for sharing these photos. We were scheduled to take this trip this year on May 23, 2020, however, due to the coronavirus of course, the trip was cancelled. We have options to re-schedule until 12/2022. I would like to find out how are the hotels, the ship and food, tours and anything that you can tell me that would be helpful in order to reschedule. Our plans are to fly over on our own with another couple directly to Athens and meet everyone at the hotel, as we purchased our own airfare, in orde to extend our trip on the back end for a few days in Athens. Did you receive your accommodation/trip package in a timely manner? They say they don't send out until 10 days prior to departure. Concerned, as I want to leave a few days early for a side trip to Boston. Again, anything that would be helpful, I would love to share with our group. Thank you kindly, Ellen

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