All direct flights to Greece from the UK & Ireland

James Says

Greece has traditionally been dominated by charter flights, which are still the most popular way of visiting. These are rarely good value for the independent traveller who wants to visit different places, as the price of a week's cheap accommodation and flights combined as a package is usually little more than the price of flights alone.

If you think you can combine outbound flights with a return flight from a different airline, think again - one way flights with charter airlines can often cost more than returns!

Fortunately, the low cost airlines have started to open up flights to Greece in a big way, especially thanks to easyJet and Ryanair, although Jet2 have also opened up a handful of routes.

I've often felt that Athens should be a natural city destination for Flybe from airports like Birmingham and Newcastle, but unfortunately they have stuck to more conservative places in France. However, with their new Embraer jets, they have ventured as far as Dubrovnik, so who knows what they might do.

I will admit that I am waiting to see if Greece leaves the euro to make my first trip there (Mark went on  school trip many moons ago).

The kind of itinerary I would look at is starting with Corfu, and then heading through Meteora for the stunning cliff-top monasteries featured in the Bond film 'For your Eyes Only'. From here, I'd head to the capital Athens, and then hit the ferries, with Santorini being my must-do island.

for the landlubbers amongst you, I'm afraid the Greek rail network is pretty sparse, but there are at least around 6 trains each day linking Athens with the second city of Thessaloniki. The OSE (Greek Rail) website is awkward to use, but this is the English home page - ignore the ads in Greek!