When I was planning this trip, I decided that as long as I was going that far, I'd add a little extra at the end. I had no idea when I'd be able to be in the area again, so I added 4 days in Athens after my tour of Turkey.

My original plan was to stay in Athens for five nights. I was planning to take a couple of day trips out of the city, returning to my hotel each night. Traveler's Tip:
The Akropolis House Hotel[*] is a great small, family-run hotel in a very convenient location in the Plaka, close to the Acropolis. Original plan: one day trip to Delphi and one day trip to the island of Hydra. However, one day on the bus, I mentioned this plan to Mine, my tour guide. She told me about Meteora, a place I had never heard of before. It sounded really interesting so I decided to take a two-day trip that included both Delphi and Meteora instead. This meant no time to visit Hydra, though. I'll have to go back some time to try out Greek island life.

Traveler's Tip:
Be careful when choosing a tour company. Large group tours are very different from small group tours. It was very easy to book this trip after I got to Athens. I found several tour companies on the Internet. I chose a company called "G. O. Tours"[*]. They had a tour that seemed to fit my schedule. It got me where I wanted to go, something I wouldn't have been able to do on my own, and the sights were fascinating. But the tour itself was a bit of a disappointment. The bus held 50 passengers and it was almost full. I missed my small tour group from Turkey!

The particular tour I took was kind of patched together from their other tours. We had one bus (and one tour guide) from Athens to Delphi. Then part of the group continued on, on a longer tour around Greece, and the rest of us were put on another bus (with another tour guide), joining a group which had already been traveling around a different part of Greece. We traveled with them to Meteora, spent the night, and then toured the monasteries. And finally, our small subset was put on a third bus (with no tour guide) for the drive back to Athens. What a difference from a Rick Steves Tour!