Greece

The islands are not interchangeable. Pick wrong and you will be bored

Greece has around 6,000 islands and about 227 that anyone lives on, which means the phrase “going to the Greek islands” is close to meaningless. Mykonos is an expensive party. Santorini is a beautiful queue. Naxos feeds you properly. Karpathos barely notices you arrived. Choosing badly is the single most common way people have a mediocre Greek holiday.

The mainland gets skipped and should not. Athens went from a city people transited through to one worth four days on its own, with a food and bar scene that has quietly got very good. Further north there is Meteora, where monasteries sit on top of rock pillars, and the Pelion and Zagori regions, which are green, mountainous and nothing like the brochure.

July and August are hot in a way that stops being fun, and the ferries and prices both reflect peak season. May, June and September are the sweet spot, warm enough to swim, cheap enough to extend, and quiet enough that the taverna owner has time to talk to you. Which, in Greece, is most of the point.

Annual events and festivals

• Apokries (Feb-Mar) — carnival season, with Patras throwing the biggest parade in the country.
• Clean Monday (Mar) — kite flying and a meat-free feast to open Lent. Genuinely lovely.
• Greek Orthodox Easter (Apr-May) — the biggest event of the year, far bigger than Christmas. Midnight fireworks, roast lamb, and the island of Chios firing rockets at rival churches.
• Athens Epidaurus Festival (Jun-Aug) — ancient drama staged in a 2,300-year-old amphitheatre with perfect acoustics.
• Rockwave Festival (Jul) — the main international music festival, outside Athens.
• Dekapentavgoustos (15 Aug) — the Assumption. Islands hold huge village feasts and the whole country travels. Book everything early.
• Thessaloniki International Film Festival (Nov) — the leading film festival in southeast Europe.
• Ochi Day (28 Oct) — military parades marking the refusal to surrender in 1940.
• Naousa Carnival (Feb-Mar) — masked dancers in a tradition that predates Christianity in the region.
• Christmas and New Year (Dec-Jan) — boats lit up instead of trees in coastal towns, an older Greek tradition making a comeback.