Mycenae & Poros Island Day Tour from Athens

Two halves that could hardly be less alike. Mycenae is three and a half thousand years old, built of stones so large that later Greeks assumed giants had laid them. Poros is a small island with a harbour and a hill of white houses. One day covers both.

Mycenae gave its name to a whole civilisation — the Bronze Age world that stands behind Homer. The citadel sits on a ridge between two hills, walled in enormous unmortared blocks, and you enter as its people did, through the Lion Gate: two carved lions over a lintel, the oldest monumental sculpture in Europe still standing where it was put.

Inside are the grave circles where the shaft burials were found, and beyond the walls the great beehive tombs, cut into the hillside and roofed in corbelled stone. Standing inside one, under a dome built without an arch, is the part of the day people remember.

The site has three parts and a single ticket covers all of them: the citadel itself, the archaeological museum just below it, and the Treasury of Atreus, the largest of the beehive tombs, which stands apart from the citadel a short way down the road.

Then the coast, and a short crossing to Poros — close enough to the mainland that the channel between them is narrow and calm. The town rises straight up from the waterfront in white and terracotta, with a clock tower on top and cafés along the quay.

There is nothing monumental about it, and that is the point: after a morning among Bronze Age tombs, a few hours by the water in a working island town is the right way to finish.

Entrance is not included, but you only buy one ticket: it admits you to the citadel, the museum and the Treasury of Atreus together, and reduced rates apply to students and older visitors. Eleven hours is a long day and it starts early. Mycenae is open, steep and unshaded, and the ground is uneven — proper shoes, a hat and water. Boat crossings are weather-dependent, and in strong winds the island half can be shortened or changed on the day for safety.