Greece has 227 inhabited islands. That’s an awful lot. You’d almost need to spend a year sailing around to see them all. 

While that would no doubt be an amazing trip, I have only four days in Greece – on board Holland America Line’s MS Nieuw Statendam – to sample some of its most popular destinations.

It’s hard to imagine a better way to visit Greece than sailing on its clear-as-glass waters, stopping at a different port every day. You can’t beat the country’s breathtaking rugged beauty, its ancient history with tales of the gods, wars and epics battles, or its comforting cheap and cheerful food served with a chilled ouzo, its velvet texture and aniseed aroma quite possibly the taste of Greece and the only constant as you move from destination to destination.

See also: My incredible Greek island discovery

See also: 11 most underrated Greek islands

Corfu has an immediate familiarity to anyone who   has watched the TV drama The Durrells. One of   Greece’s greenest islands, Corfu is covered with sea-lapped coves, olive trees and cypresses. The show, an adaptation of Gerald Durrell’s autobiographical books about the four years up to 1939, sparked a pre-Covid travel boom to the island.

There’s little doubt the Ionian island has changed dramatically since the 1940s, but if you look hard enough, you can still find the wild nature and clear water of Durrell’s family adventures. On the subject of wild, our trip from Corfu town to Lakones for baklava at Castellino Restaurant is one of the scariest bus rides ever. The roads are narrower than narrow and run along steep cliffs. In villages, houses scrape both sides of the bus as oncoming traffic is forced to retreat. I breathe in, and notice that my fellow passengers are doing the same.

But I must say the views and the baklava – oozing with local honey – are worth it.

Sickle-shaped Corfu, the northernmost Ionian island (just over 1.5km from the coast of Albania), gets its name from Korkyra, a water nymph abducted and brought here by Poseidon. It will take you hours on foot to explore its Old Town’s shops, mainly because there’s no logical street grid and no matter how hard you try, getting lost is unavoidable. But that’s okay – as you will find plenty to eat, drink and buy.

Sometimes when you’re cruising, it’s a good idea to avoid taking an excursion and simply stay close to the ship and explore the town. A stopover at Katakolon, on the Peloponnese peninsula’s Ionian coast, is not one of those times. The sea port is little more than three streets with a few nice, but not great, waterfront tavernas.

The hero here is Olympia – 33km away – and the best way to see it, and understand its history, is with a guide. You need to use your imagination when you visit the birthplace of the Olympic Games, which is a World Heritage Site, unsurprisingly. Set in the so-called “valley of the gods”, Olympia was Ancient Greece’s most celebrated site when the first Olympic Games were held in 776BC. Today it is not much more than a collection of ruins, but the right guide telling her stories of Hercules’ exploits at the first Games helps bring the site back to life.

Named after Poseidon’s son, Nafplion was the capital of Greece during the fight against Ottoman rule in the 1820s. Athens, a two-hour drive away or an overnight sail on Nieuw Statendam, took that honour in 1834.

A photogenic jumble of Neoclassical houses, Nafplion has a brace of castles at the top of the town, upmarket alfresco wining and dining, narrow streets adorned with magnificent blooming bougainvillea, an archaeological museum that is one of the best outside Athens, and uncrowded sandy beaches – except on summer weekends, when Athenians come in numbers to enjoy its stunning Argolic Gulf setting.

The shopping here is the best I found on any of our Greek stopovers. Of course, there are the usual cheap and tacky souvenir shops (does anyone ever actually buy those timber penis-shaped bottle openers?), but you’ll also discover some real gems like Sandalopoieio.

Here, Gregory Vachos and his wife, Sonia Tsertou, continue the Greek tradition of producing handmade genuine leather sandals with the same love and devotion to the techniques of old shoemakers. You can watch Gregory pound and persuade the leather into shape in his tiny workshop beside the store.

If you have time, it’s also worth grabbing a small boat for a trip to the island fort of Bourtzi, which sits in the harbour.

From Nafplion, which truly is the ideal base for exploring the Peloponnese peninsula’s historical sites, it’s an easy drive to visit outstanding ancient places such as Mycenae and Epidaurus.

The once-mighty military stronghold of Mycenae, only a 30-minute drive away, is now in ruins, but for a period of 400 years, it was the most powerful kingdom in Greece. After you enter the Citadel of Mycenae on foot through the famous Lion Gate, you will see amazing shaft graves and a beehive tomb – the Tomb of Agamemnon, who was the Greek commander-in-chief during the Trojan War.

The Ancient Theatre at the Asclepieion of Epidaurus is also just a 30-minute winding-road drive, passing through typical Greek villages from Nafplion. The World Heritage Site of Epidaurus – dedicated to Aesclepius, the god of healing who restored health to the sick – is known for its unique medical facilities and healing treatments. Today, the remarkable theatre, which was restored in 1954, is the only thing that remains. The rest lies in ruins, but it’s still worth a visit.

Nieuw Statendam arrives into the Port of Piraeus –     the largest passenger port in Europe and the     second-largest in the world – as the warming spring sun breaks through the darkness. It’s Sunday morning. The world moves slowly on Sunday mornings in Athens, but you can still hear the bells of the Greek Orthodox churches summoning followers to prayer.

Only a few coffee shops are open. I’m not sure how many cups of that strong Greek coffee, with the sludgy grounds gathering in the bottom, I would need before church these days. Athens has too much to see on a six-hour tour so we concentrate our attention on the Acropolis.

I last visited the Acropolis a decade ago when it was under restoration and covered in scaffolding. Sadly, the scaffolding remains, but it doesn’t detract from the beauty of this citadel, regarded as the cradle of democracy, that looms tall over Athens. For more than 2000 years, it has weathered earthquakes, survived invaders and withstood many efforts to demolish it.

On any given day, more than 10,000 tourists climb the hill to visit the site and its crowning gem, the 2500-year-old Parthenon temple. Below the Acropolis there is a cluster of streets with pastel-coloured Neoclassical mansions and myriad shops to explore before we head to the airport for our flight home.

The writer was a guest of Holland American Line.

Emirates flies from Australia to Rome via Dubai with return flights from Athens.

Holland America Line offers a range of cruises throughout Europe on Nieuw Statendam. Prices for seven-day Adriatic cruises from Rome in 2023 start at $1809.

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