Greece in mid-April: Athens + island hopping
[Sorry if this is off-topic; I couldn't find a tag for Greece, but as it's in the EU I figured it's European in the broadest sense at least. Also, for whatever reason this post is not letting me tag it, so apologies in advance!]
I'm an American college student studying abroad in London. My host university calendar works out so that we have a one month "spring break" encompassing the entire moth of April. During this time, the one place that my friends and I all really want to go is Greece. We are planning on seeing other destinations during this time, so we are planning on spending a max of ten days throughout Greece, a lot of it in the islands.
The thing is, we will probably be a fairly large group (8+ college students aged 20-26 -- let the drama ensue!) and we rarely all agree upon what to do. Many of my friends only want to go to Greece for the beaches and to work on their tans. I love a good beach day, but I'm also pretty athletic and looking forward to going on at least one good hike or doing something more actively outdoorsy than just sitting around on the sand/pebbles/volcanic lava that makes up the shoreline. Our group also has some people who are really interested in culture, history, art, etc. while others would be fine partying every night and sleeping through a good part of the day. I'm closer to the former than the latter, though I am looking forward to exploring the local nightlife scene -- I'll just set an alarm to make sure I'm up in the morning!
With this in mind, I'm wondering if anyone has advice on the cities/islands to visit in Greece that will cater to the widest variety of traveler types? Where should we go if we're looking for beaches AND museums, great nightlife AND gorgeous nature hikes? (I would even be up for stuff more long the lines of 'adventure tourism' but I think that makes me the odd woman out among this group.) Athens is a must for me, and is most likely where we will begin and end our journey, but I also would really love to see some out-of-the-way (or just breathtakingly beautiful) islands, in particular Santorini. Also, any advice on how long to stay in a given place would be great. The plan is for this to be the more relaxing leg of the trip, for those who want it to be, so I'm figuring no less than two nights in any single destination to minimize the feeling of being too hurried.
Any other recommendations -- restaurants, hostels, local dishes to try, sights to see etc. -- are more than welcome!
I'm an American college student studying abroad in London. My host university calendar works out so that we have a one month "spring break" encompassing the entire moth of April. During this time, the one place that my friends and I all really want to go is Greece. We are planning on seeing other destinations during this time, so we are planning on spending a max of ten days throughout Greece, a lot of it in the islands.
The thing is, we will probably be a fairly large group (8+ college students aged 20-26 -- let the drama ensue!) and we rarely all agree upon what to do. Many of my friends only want to go to Greece for the beaches and to work on their tans. I love a good beach day, but I'm also pretty athletic and looking forward to going on at least one good hike or doing something more actively outdoorsy than just sitting around on the sand/pebbles/volcanic lava that makes up the shoreline. Our group also has some people who are really interested in culture, history, art, etc. while others would be fine partying every night and sleeping through a good part of the day. I'm closer to the former than the latter, though I am looking forward to exploring the local nightlife scene -- I'll just set an alarm to make sure I'm up in the morning!
With this in mind, I'm wondering if anyone has advice on the cities/islands to visit in Greece that will cater to the widest variety of traveler types? Where should we go if we're looking for beaches AND museums, great nightlife AND gorgeous nature hikes? (I would even be up for stuff more long the lines of 'adventure tourism' but I think that makes me the odd woman out among this group.) Athens is a must for me, and is most likely where we will begin and end our journey, but I also would really love to see some out-of-the-way (or just breathtakingly beautiful) islands, in particular Santorini. Also, any advice on how long to stay in a given place would be great. The plan is for this to be the more relaxing leg of the trip, for those who want it to be, so I'm figuring no less than two nights in any single destination to minimize the feeling of being too hurried.
Any other recommendations -- restaurants, hostels, local dishes to try, sights to see etc. -- are more than welcome!