I've been told at length how Crete (and Greece) is nice to visit in May-June. However I'll be going to Crete (mostly Heraklion) in early JANUARY. Has anyone been to Greece during the winter? I know that there'll be less tourists (if any) and prices will be lower but to what extent are the sights, transports, hotels and restaurants open? And as for the weather, what's more likely: can sunshine or pouring rain?

I haven't actually been to Crete, however, my wifes family is in Athens and we visited them this last Christmas. We were there for 3 weeks returning home on Jan 1.

In general the weather was fine. About 50-60 degrees during the day. It was quite windy and we did get rained on very hard the day we decided to visit the Acropolis and downtown Athens.

Everything in Athens is basically open, but the hours are more limited. The tourist stuff basically all closes by sun down.

Restraunts, pubs, night clubs were all definitely open for business.

In general I'd say that the weather will be cool with a chance of rain/showers. But I'd bet that in two weeks you'd only have one or two wet days. That said they can get some large storms that blow in and last several days. Something like that was starting to settle in just as we left.

Enjoy your time in Greece.
Yasu,
Wantok

Unfortunately much of Crete will be closed in the winter as the economy is almost totally tourist based. I was there in early October once and several of the nightclubs and tourist locations were closing for the winter. However the island is quite large and I'm sure you won't be bored. Rent a car and drive around as the hills are quite beautiful.

Resurrecting a very old thread:

anything new on this? My husband, 20-year old son and I are thinking of going in January. We're constrained by son's college schedule. I was hoping for a 3-day cruise so we could get to a few islands (Patmos is high on our list), but I've been all over the Web and there appears to be nothing in January. There's an overnight ferry between Piraeus and Patmos that operates in January, but it operates only on the weekend- so we'd spend 2 overnights in a row on a ferry. I'm glad to know we'll still have places to eat- nightlife isn't a big thing with us.

I'm wondering about getting a private guide for some of the things we want to see. I did find one of those "deluxe motorcoach" deals but the structure might drive us crazy. We're interested mostly in the sites relevant to early Christianity.

Any advice?