Alternative Greece

“It’s been a long time since I’ve stood on the deck of a Greek ferry with just a backpack and the outline of a travel plan, and it fills me with joy.”
So begins Rhiannon Batten’s odyssey with her 11-year-old son Osian. An odyssey that started with trains across Europe and an overnight ferry from Brindisi to the Greek port of Igoumenitsa, before hiking in one of the world’s most spectacular landscapes - the Vikos gorge in north-west Greece.
The trip has been a long time in coming for Rhiannon, because “a decade spent mothering small children and making peace with the tectonic changes that come with that means there hasn’t been much time, or money, for more intrepid travels”.
More than anything, travel offers the opportunity to spend quality one-on-one time with a companion, in this case a son who may not be so keen to hang out with his mum as he seeks to define his own adventures.
“How precious this time together is, and how I hope he remembers it,” says Rhiannon.
Many visitors to Greece understandably go to simply soak up the sun. But if the sunlounger is not your thing, our guide to alternative Greece should offer some inspiration: from birdwatching in the Axios delta to wine tasting on the Pelion peninsula, and an authentic taste of island life on Karpathos.