Greece Tour for Food Lovers

What to expect on this itinerary
Gastronomy embodies culture during your 10-day food tour of Greece. You will uncover historic tastes on the mainland and islands as you witness diverse cities, quiet towns, and epic landscapes. Find Venetian facades and ancient temples, charming vineyards, and classical monuments, as local cuisine reveals remarkable depth in traditions spanning the Aegean Sea. Whether Minoan or Ottoman, Cretan, or Classical, you will indulge in a diverse history of fascinating flavors.
Customizable Itinerary
Athens – A Traditional Greek Tavern Dinner With Music and Dancing
Land in Athens and you will soon be amid history. The capital city awakens each evening, and after some time to refresh, you will be whisked away by the atmosphere. Archaeological monuments are lit up as the sun fades, a glorious backdrop to the streets. The Acropolis appears like a shining beacon, a compass point to prevent you from getting lost in the historical neighborhood of Plaka. The shops stay open here, spilling their wares onto the cobbles. Local families relax on the small squares as the aroma of roasted meat slips past. You can hear the folk music and smell the food, but often it might be hard to know where it all comes from.
Plaka is a traditional 17th-century neighborhood. Although it’s very popular with tourists, it’s also where the locals come to dine. Many of the tavernas have preserved century-old recipes, with all the food being an organic farm to table long before this term was popularized. Head into a small tavern and settle into a typical Greek dinner, starting with a Greek mezze of flavors. Pickled vegetables, flatbread, stuffed grape leaves, meatballs with onion, and giant baked beans will provide a feast of flavors, and that’s just for starters. The second part of the meal is more meat-focused, including the classic kokoretsi, or seasoned lamb. Food is complemented by folk-style singing and dancing, completing the feeling that you’ve stepped into a 17th-century eatery.
What's Included:
Athens – Classical Monuments and Ancient Legacy
Athens – Athens Culinary Tour and More Local Sights
Crete – Venetian History and Relaxing Into Crete
Crete – Walking Tour of Crete’s Unique Flavors and Aromas
Crete – Hands-On Cooking and More Island History
Santorini – Sailing Around Santorini and Sunset Colors
Santorini – Vineyards and Taverns of Santorini Private Tour
Santorini – Free Day to Explore More of Santorini
Santorini – Departure
Trip Highlights
- Explore Athenian culinary tradition with walking through mazy city streets and markets
- Taste your way through the vineyards and tavernas of Santorini with the best of island cuisine revealed
- Uncover Crete’s Venetian past and discover the island’s more recent Aegean histories
- Immerse yourself in the classical history of Athens from the Acropolis to the Agora and everything in between
- Spend half a day in the kitchen with a hands-on Aegean cooking class
- Sail around the island of Santorini exploring the world-renowned landscapes
- Wander the winding streets and discover Crete, enjoying the amazing food and the atmospheric histories
- Come to know the traditional Greek taverna, along with its music and dancing
Detailed Description
Food has been a way of life around the Aegean for over four millennia, and in this part of the world, gastronomy has brought cultures and islands together to reveal all of the influences that civilizations have left behind with beauty and tradition. A culinary lens also provides a way to understand and discover more of the country. With food as your focus, you can go beneath the surface and really dive into the local traditions and customs. You may find that the Varvakios Market is as memorable as the Acropolis, traditional tavernas as eye-opening as ancient temples, and uncover how neighborhoods use food to tie the centuries together.
This handcrafted vacation connects Aegean flavors and histories, taking you on an intimate journey through the celebrated monuments and lively local flavors. You will find that food helps smooth out the sightseeing journey, as clomping around ancient site after ancient site can get tiresome while providing both an alternative and complementary history. Aegean cuisine is one of Greece’s best-kept traditions, and it is found in markets, tavernas, vineyards, and whitewashed kitchens. So as you explore, you find that there is so much more to Ancient Greece than the Acropolis and early classical remains. You will learn the food of the gods and appreciate how recipes have been kept alive since the days of Apollo and Athena.
Your ten-day tour is spread across Athens, Crete, and Santorini, with three nights in each destination. Jump straight into the traditional experience with an evening of taverna dining and music on day one, in a local Athenian neighborhood. Spend day two with the city’s ancient legacy, connecting many of the essential attractions, from the Acropolis to the Agora and whitewashed neighborhoods. This is a food-lovers tour, so the conversation often comes around to gastronomy with little neighborhood haunts providing interludes to the temples and the Corinthian columns. On day three, you can fully explore Athenian culinary culture with a walking tour that encounters various delicacies – both old and new – plus the marketplaces that have not changed for centuries.
Fly to Crete on day four and settle into Chania, where the history is as Venetian as it is classical. Move next to a walking tour of Chania’s flavors and aromas on day five that passes all of the town’s major sights as well. Spend day six in the kitchen with an informal, hands-on lesson that will be complemented by some wider exploration of Crete. You will then cruise to Santorini on day seven, a beautiful Aegean journey that gives you space to unwind. On that day, you will swap the catamaran for a private vessel and sail around the island, jumping off to swim in turquoise waters. Santorini is an island of villages and vineyards, where the food is as traditional as anywhere in Greece. Day eight is dedicated to this tradition before day nine is left free for you to relax at the country’s most famous island destination. Consider learning more about our travelers’ favorite Greece travel activities by reading their Greece travel reviews.
Starting Price
$4,100 per person (excluding international flights)
Your Zicasso trip is fully customizable, and this sample itinerary is a starting place for your travel plans. Actual costs are dynamic, and your selection of accommodations and activities, your season of travel, and other such variables will bring this budget guideline up or down. Throughout your planning experience with your Zicasso specialist, your itinerary is designed around your budget. You can book your trip when you are satisfied with every detail. Planning your trip with a Zicasso travel specialist is a free service.
What's Included
- Accommodations
- In-country transportation
- Some or all activities and tours
- Expert trip planning
- 24x7 support during your trip
Your final trip cost will vary based on your selected accommodations, activities, meals, and other trip elements that you opt to include.
Verified Traveler Reviews
Based on 602 reviews
Our trip to Greece was exceptional, thanks to the careful planning by our travel company! They had every detail planned out and made sure we were well taken care of.
I traveled with my husband (50s) and my parents (80s). We had a general idea of some places we wanted to see and told the travel planner our interests. She ran with it and planned us the perfect trip for the pace we wanted and the types of experiences we were looking for. She suggested places that weren't even on our radar and they fit perfectly with our interests.
Our trip was 12 days, broken up into four nights in Chania, Crete, three nights in Santorini, and four nights in Athens. This was the right amount of time in each place (though my husband said he could spend a week in Santorini just to relax).
The travel planner met us at the airport and gave us a burner phone for our use during the trip, as well as a packet with tickets and boarding passes that we would need. The phone was very helpful because it had an app with our itinerary for each day, as well as contact numbers for her, drivers, tour guides, etc. This was great because we had what we needed at our fingertips and didn't have to pay for an international plan on our cell phones.
Each location we went to offered very different experiences.
Chania, Crete, was fantastic and my personal favorite spot. Our travel planner recommended it and I'm so glad she did. It was rich with history and culture, without feeling like a tourist trap.
Santorini: When we first arrived, it was a bit of a jolt because all the buildings are white and boxy (only the churches have blue roofs), and I was missing the color and vibrance of Chania. We went into Fira while we waited for our rooms to be ready and it was a total tourist trap, with people swarming around and souvenir shops and fast food restaurants. I was wondering if it was a mistake to come to this island. However, once we were settled into our hotel and saw the spectacular views and experienced the calmness, I understood why people come here. The nature and beauty won me over (and I just avoided the cities).
Athens was amazing because of the history and hospitality of the people. Everyone was so welcoming and kind. The ruins do not disappoint and we marveled at how they were just everywhere in Old Town.
Delphi: We took a day trip from Athens to Delphi and toured the ruins and museum, and had a wonderful lunch overlooking the mountains and valleys.
We went on several incredible tours during our trip. Two food tours (Chania and Athens), three archaeology/ruin-focused tours (Santorini, Athens, and Delphi), one tour of the mountains in Chania, and one sunset catamaran boat ride in Santorini. Every one of them was unique and interesting.
Our travel planner arranged several lunches and dinners for us. Each place was outstanding and the views were spectacular. We would just tell them we were with the travel company and they gave us the best seats in the restaurants and outstanding service.
We could not have asked for a more perfectly planned out trip!
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Hello, Zicasso and our travel company. We cannot say enough good things about our trip to Greece and the excellent service from you!
Our travel agent was our primary contact for the majority of the planning of the trip and we had excellent assistance from her team. All of them were fantastic in every way, providing us assurance that we were listened to for what we wanted. They also provided us well-informed guidance on what we did not know, but needed to make the best decisions for our trip. They were genuinely invested in us having a memorable experience with their caring tone and patience, especially being available to answer our questions, and always doing it promptly and thoroughly.
Our trip was absolutely seamless! We had a daily update the day prior via WhatsApp for the next day's agenda. All transfers were on time and courteous hosts educated us about Greece and got to know us personally. They supported us throughout the trip with restaurant recommendations and coordinating any other interests we had. For example, on our free day in Santorini, they helped us coordinate a day at the black-sand beach, which was relaxing and beautiful.
We absolutely loved Greece, from the charming streets of Chania to the deep, navy blue Aegean Sea on our day boat trip seeing all of Santorini and the bustling city of Athens, with the Acropolis and its rich history dating back to 2500 BC. And of course, the delicious fresh food wherever we were!
It was a fantastic, memorable experience for our family in a beautiful place that we will cherish. Thanks for all your team's work in making it so enjoyable and easy for our family! We will be sharing the experience we had with you with our friends, family, and co-workers, encouraging them to use your excellent services!
Thanks again.
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We had a wonderful and memorable trip to Greece, thanks to the Zicasso travel specialist’s excellent planning. In addition to exploring Athens, she designed a seamless road trip across the Peloponnese Peninsula that took us to beautiful beaches and ancient castles in Messinia, Voidokilia, Pylos, Methoni, Monemvasia, and Nafplio. She also provided clear directions and recommended great stops to break up our drives, including Mystras Castle and the beautiful Polylimnio Waterfalls.
Our hotel accommodations were excellent throughout the trip and we really enjoyed our stay in beautiful Santorini. We also appreciated her restaurant recommendations, which saved us from having to search for places to eat and always led us to great food. She stayed in touch via WhatsApp the entire time, checking in on us and answering our questions whenever they came up. There is so much to see in Greece that we’ll definitely need to go back for another visit.
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It was our family's first time visiting Greece. We've always wanted to see the country and there were so many good things we'd heard about Greece.
There were a couple of things that made this trip very special. First, our youngest daughter's request for her 16th birthday was to go as a family and celebrate it in Greece. Second, none of us had ever been to Greece (on our previous trips, either my husband and/or I had been there or it was our family's second time there), so experiencing it together for the first time was really special.
Zicasso gave us two very good Greek travel companies. Both presented interesting itineraries to us. It was a year of planning and I'd gone back and forth with both travel companies with revisions of itineraries and, of course, the cost.
What made us choose this travel company was that the specialist was very honest, upfront, and very accommodating. He gave his honest opinion when I asked him about certain excursion activities or even restaurants (social media makes it really look good, especially for people who have not been there), and he did not pressure or force us into doing activities that did not interest us. He wanted to make sure we got to experience the best, but he was also very mindful of the costs. I had many back and forth conversations with him via texts, emails, or phone calls. He wanted to get to know our family. When I told him about our daughter's 16th birthday requests, he made sure he got every detail of what would make her birthday special. He also asked me about the interests of our eldest daughter because he wanted to surprise her with something special from Greece. That says a lot about the travel specialist and his company; they are personal and it's not just pure business for them.
A few days before we left the US, he called us so we could reschedule our flights (Santorini to Athens) to an earlier time going back home because he was concerned we may miss our connecting flights. Who does that? This just shows he checks every detail and wanted to make sure that even before we left the US, up to the time we arrived back home, everything was taken care of.
We had the best vacation in Greece. We did not worry about anything the entire time. The travel company was in constant communication with us. They created a WhatsApp group chat which made it so much easier. They gave us daily reminders and they arranged everything for us. We felt that the entire trip was customized for our family. The "Mamma Mia" island tour and birthday celebration for our daughter was perfect. The restaurant in Kolios was a great recommendation, and when I asked him to reserve the specific table and have a little birthday decoration for my daughter, it was accomplished.
Chania was amazing; both me and my husband loved this place. The view from our hotel room on Zampeliou Street, overlooking the old harbour and the Cretan Sea with the lighthouse, was breathtaking. We enjoyed walking through the streets of the Old Town of Chania.
We thought Santorini would be overcrowded, but we had a great tour guide who knew where to take us first to avoid crowds, and he gave us really helpful advice to go around the island. He took us to the little hidden alleys and showed how locals live. We ended up really loving the island.
We enjoyed every activity planned for us. We enjoyed our stay at our hotels. Mine and my husband's favorite were the hotel in Kalamata and the one in Chania. We really liked the view of the Acropolis from our rooms at the hotel in Athina, and that hotel was very convenient. We also enjoyed their breakfast there. The girls enjoyed the hotel in Skiathos because of how close it was to the beach, and they loved the "Mamma Mia" boat tour.
We each have our own favorite activities/tour/tour guides, but overall, our family had an amazing time in Greece – the way the travel agent and the entire team did a phenomenal job. The way the itinerary was put together and the timing for each place/island was just perfect for us. They exceeded our expectations. We fell in love with Greece, the culture, and the people, who were all so kind, nice, and very hospitable (not once did we have a bad encounter). We will definitely go back; there is so much more to explore and we'll definitely be working with this travel company in the future.
We only have good things to say about our Greece vacation and we highly recommend this travel agency. We've been to other countries and worked with other travel companies. In our opinion, this one was the best travel company we've ever worked with.
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Me and my five friends did a girls' trip to Greece for 11 nights. I was nervous about planning a trip that far and did my research online. Zicasso received great reviews and I thought it was great to connect with a travel team in Greece. We worked with our travel agent for months to plan our trip of a lifetime. She took the time to listen to our needs with patience and also asked lots of questions to determine what the best itinerary for our vacation would be. She was amazing.
The transportation company that picked us up from locations and took us from hotel to hotel was amazing too.
We stayed in Athens the first few days and that was a great hotel. The rooms were spacious and we were right in the middle of town. We could walk anywhere we wanted to go, even to the Acropolis. We had wonderful tour guides, doing mostly private tours, and the guides felt like family at the end of our trip. We loved Athens, all the shopping and food and hustle and bustle of the city.
Our next adventure was Chania. That hotel was fabulous too. We loved the city and again, our hotel was within walking distance to everything. Our agent also provided us with ideas for restaurants the days we didn't have tours planned, as well as other things to see. Chania was one of our favorites, especially the tour of the 7 Villages of Apokoronas. What a beautiful tour, and we got to stop at a cheese factory, try cheese, hike, and learn about the olive trees and history. Our tour guide was amazing; so full of knowledge and such a wonderful and friendly personality.
Our next leg was the town of Rethymno. We loved it. It was so quaint and our hotel was the most beautiful boutique hotel, with so much history. We also did a walking tour of Rethymno Old Town and learned about the town and its historical places while snacking on Greek cookies and coffee. Our guide was amazing too. We had another private tour the next day of the Eleftherna and Rethymno villages, which were amazing to visit. Our agent kept us busy with lots of tours and we loved every minute of it.
We saw monasteries and also visited Heraklion, where we did a food and wine tour. That was so amazing too. The food in Greece and all the villages was also fresh and delicious. Every place we visited was fabulous. Our tour guide and his team did an amazing job.
We did a Heraklion Village tour and toured the Lasithi Plateau, which was beautiful. We stopped at a little café for coffee and ate lunch at a wonderful restaurant the tour company's owner suggested. It was the best food ever.
The hotels we stayed in were all top-notch. We requested four- and five-star hotels, which we got. Our drivers were always on time and went out of their way to make us happy. The breakfast in every hotel was amazing and delicious.
I had never been to a country that was so stress-free and where everyone was so nice and accommodating. I felt like we needed to stay another two weeks, but we will be back. Our agent was in touch with us the entire time and we appreciated that. She went above and beyond to ensure we were happy and having a great trip. We had no mishaps and can't wait to go back.
Thank you, Zicasso and our travel company, agent, and teams, for making the trip a memorable one and the trip of a lifetime. We love you all and you are family now.
Yamas!! Roxanne, Barbara, Nora, Frances, and Annette – California girls and Texas girls!
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Excellent! Everything was meticulously planned. All of our tours were very interesting and the drivers were courteous. We went to Athens, Naxos, and Santorini during our 11-day trip. Overall, I think our favorite place was Naxos, with Athens and the Acropolis being second, although the weather that morning was not the best. But our guide was excellent and kept us engaged while fighting rain and wind. As I mentioned, all the drivers and guides were excellent and I would highly recommend this trip. Santorini was beautiful too and the wine tour was extremely interesting. We highly recommend Zicasso.
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