The Acropolis (Athens)
No matter how many photographs you’ve seen, nothing can prepare you for watching the light turn the marble of the buildings, still standing after thousands of years, from honey to rose to deep red to stark white. If the crowds get you down, remember how crowded the Acropolis was during religious festivals in antiquity. See p. 176.
Nemea (Peloponnese)
This gem of a site has it all: a beautifully restored stadium, a handsome museum, and picnic tables with a view of the romantic Doric temple with its three long-standing Columns - and several newly restored and re-erected ones. If you’re lucky, you may see Nemea’s archaeologists at work lovingly reconstructing and re-erecting more columns from the temple’s north facade in their ambitious restoration project. See p. 261.
Olympia (Peloponnese) and Delphi (Central Greece)
Try to visit both Olympia, where the Olympic Games began, and Delphi, home of the Delphic Oracle. That’s the only way you’ll be able to decide whether you think Olympia, with its massive temples and shady groves of trees, or Delphi, perched on mountain slopes overlooking olive trees and the sea, is the most beautiful ancient site in Greece. See chapters 8 and 12.
Palace of Knossos (Crete)
A seemingly unending maze of rooms and levels and stairways and corridors and frescoed walls -  the Minoan Palace of Knossos. It can be packed at peak hours, but it still exerts its power if you enter into the spirit of the labyrinth, where King Minos ruled over the richest and most powerful of Minoan cities and, according to legend, his daughter Ariadne helped Theseus kill the Minotaur and escape. See p. 300.
Delos (Cyclades)
This tiny isle just 3.2km (2 miles) offshore of Mykonos, was considered by the ancient Greeks to be both the geographical and spiritual center of the Cyclades, many considered this the holiest sanctuary in all Greece. The extensive remains here testify to the island’s former splendor. From Mount Kinthos (really just a hill, but the island’s highest point), you can see many of the Cyclades most days and the whole archipelago on a very clear day. The 3 hours allotted by excursion boats from Mykonos or Tinos are hardly sufficient to explore this vast archaeological treasure. See chapter 10.
Vergina (Northern Greece)
In the brilliantly designed museum here, you can peek into what may have been the tomb of Alexander the Great’s father, Philip of Macedon; nearby there are more than 300 burial mounds that stretch for miles across the Macedonian plain. See chapter 16.
Messene (Peloponnese)
This sprawling 4th century B.C. site has the best-preserved ancient fortification walls in Greece, an enormous Sanctuary of Asklepios and a stadium - and views of almost all Messene and Laconia from the summit of Mount Ithomi.