Italy & Greece trip- advice needed

[Keen]

For ages (since the last trip basically) I've been dreaming of taking a touring trip down to the south of Italy and across to Greece. Its not really that ambitious, since I live in Nice very close to the Italian border, but I don't think I'll live here too much longer (hate my job, ready to leave) so I want to take the opportunity for a cool trip and enjoy the good things about being here while I can.

[Keen]

after further deliberation on this (don't all reply at once btw ) we'll be focusing most of the trip on the Greek Islands.
I was calculating distances and listing places we wanted to stop the other night and we figure we can do Nice to Bari (via a few places and with lots of time to sightsee in Florence and Pompeii) in 6 days.

After that we take the ferry to Corfu, spend a day or so on the beach there and ride down through Greece into Athens (has anyone done this route? is there anything to see or should we just nail it down? how long should it take roughly?). After a day visiting Athens and the acropolis we'll ferry-hop around the major Greek islands with the bike for a week or so... Has anyone done this? are the islands bike friendly?
____________________
"he who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man"- Dr. Johnson

[Nath]

Think the ferries to the Islands can be quite expensive in the summer, and busy as well so you may have to book them in advance.

Away from the coast and historical sites, Greece is not really geared up to tourists. For instance camping grounds can only be found at the larger archeological attractions. Also bare in mind that it's not a very modern country - There are only two cities apart from Athens, and neither of them are very pleasant. The other major towns have nothing really to offer tourists, and the only nice small towns are those next to nice stretches of the coast, or to the historical/archeological sites. English is very widely spoken though.

The historical sites I visited were: Olympia, Mystras, Korinth, Mycinae and Meteora. Delphi also looked worth stopping at.


I wouldn't bother with Pomeii, ridiculously geared up to mass-tourism with Neon signs allover the streets nearby.

Think the ferry to Greece from Brindisi is meant to be quite a bit cheaper than Bari if you're trying to economise.
____________________
Hard livin', hard luck.

[Keen]

ok cheers for the advice.

We're planning on going in spring to miss the peak season, so I hope its not too busy. A Greek friend at work said that going in May would be ideal. Based on your advice I think we'll just nail the trip from Corfu down to Athens in one go then, Lampros (aforementioned Greek guy) reckons it should take 7 hours so I figure we can do it in less on the bike.

Also yeah I guess Pompeii is a big tourist trap, but I have to see it. The same with the Acropolis. I used to study ancient history and I did a module on the acropolis (its history and construction) and a module on Pompeii- at the time of the exam I knew the place in detail, down to maps of the town layout and which buildings were which, so since then I've always planned to eventually visit the place for real.

Thanks for the tip about the ferries, I'll look into that
____________________
"he who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man"- Dr. Johnson

[Paivi]

[Shay HTFC]