The best time to visit Greece if you would rather avoid the heat

Plenty of people want Greece at full volume, and July and August deliver exactly that. Long hot days, every beach club open, the islands at their liveliest. If that is the holiday you are after, come then and enjoy it. This piece is for the other sort of traveller, the one who wilts above thirty degrees, or who wants to walk round an archaeological site without counting the minutes until shade.

Because high summer is genuinely hot. Temperatures sit between twenty eight and thirty five degrees, the ruins are hard work by mid morning, hotel rates are at their annual peak and the good restaurants need booking. None of that is a problem if you have come for the heat and the crowds. All of it is a problem if you have not.

The four months we would choose

May, June, September and October. Late May and June bring warm days, a sea that has finally caught up, long evenings and prices well below the peak. September is the best single month in the islands: the water is at its warmest all year, the crowds thin out from the first week, and everything is still open. October cools to eighteen or twenty four degrees, which is close to perfect for Athens, Delphi and Meteora.

Where the shoulder season catches people

Two things. Island hotels and beach clubs close, and they do not all close on the same date. By late October a small island can feel shut. And ferry timetables thin out, so a crossing that runs twice a day in August might run three times a week in November. Neither is a problem if your route is planned around it. Both are a problem if you improvise.

What we would book

For islands and swimming, the second half of September. For ruins, walking and the mainland, the first half of October. For a first trip with children, late June, before the school holidays lift the prices again.

If your dates are fixed by school terms or work, high summer is entirely doable and we plan a great many of those trips. If your dates are not fixed, the shoulder months are the ones we would use ourselves. Tell us when you can travel and we will build the trip around it.