Everyone knows the beaches. But Greece's most memorable sights often sit far from the sand: a bridge that floats like a ship, a canal carved through solid rock, and monasteries balanced on stone pillars. Condé Nast Traveller UK has rounded up seven of them, and together they sketch a genuinely different kind of Greek itinerary.
Start with engineering. The Rio–Antirrio Bridge, opened in 2004 after five years and around €800 million of work, spans the 2,880-metre Rion Strait between the Peloponnese and the mainland. It's the world's longest multi-span cable-stayed bridge, and what used to be a 50-minute ferry crossing is now a matter of minutes — though you'll want to drive slowly for the views. Nearby, the Corinth Canal is older ambition realised: first dreamed up in the 7th century BC, attempted by Emperor Nero in 67 AD and finally finished in 1893. After months of closure for landslide works, it reopened to small vessels and tourist boats in June 2026. Admire it from the bank, or bungee jump into the 21.3-metre-wide cleft.
The Mani peninsula, that middle finger of the Peloponnese reaching towards Cape Tainaron, is dotted with pyrgospita — narrow stone towers built for centuries of family feuds. Today they make atmospheric places to stay, and villages like Vathia and Pyrgos pair beautifully with taverna food such as smoked pork sygklino and myzithra cheese.
For water of a warmer kind, Edipsos on Evia has been drawing bathers since antiquity — Aristotle reportedly among them. Springs reach 80°C and stream through the town in canals and cliffside waterfalls; where they mix with the sea you can swim for free, or check into the Thermae Sylla hotel's award-winning spa.
Divers with an Advanced Open Water qualification can descend 25 metres off Alonissos in the Sporades to the Mediterranean's first underwater museum: a 5th-century BC merchant ship loaded with thousands of wine amphorae, inside a 2,260 sq km marine park that shelters endangered monk seals. Non-divers get a virtual version at the information centre in Patitiri.
On Lesvos, the Teriade Museum in Varia, just outside Mytilene, holds original works and illustrated books by Chagall, Picasso and Matisse from the publisher's legendary Verve magazine — a collection that would draw crowds in any capital, but which you'll likely have almost to yourself.
Finally, the Meteora monasteries in Thessaly, a UNESCO World Heritage Site whose name means 'suspended in the air'. Six medieval sanctuaries perch on rock pinnacles (one stood in for the Eyrie in Game of Thrones; Agia Triada featured in the 1981 Bond film For Your Eyes Only). Moni Varlaam, founded in the 16th century, is now reached by 195 steps. Go early or out of season to dodge Athens day-trippers.
Who's this for? Travellers who've done the islands and want Greece's stranger, wilder interior — best explored by car over a week or two.
