Ariadne’s Escape
A Journey to Mythical Greek Islands
Wandering the Aegean with Liv Albert
May 14—25, 2026
My dear readers and listeners,
There is no more sacred island in the history of Ancient Greece and it’s mythology than Delos, home of the sanctuary of Apollo and birthplace of both that god and his twin sister, Artemis. In the ancient world Delos was a scared sanctuary, a festival ground, a treasury, and so much more. Mythologically, it was imagined as a place untethered from the earth, an Island floating at the centre of the Cyclades. Today Delos is home to one of my personal favourite archaeological sites. It’s one of the only place where one can wander ancient streets, watch the wild waves of the Aegean Sea, view millenia-old mosaics and wall paintings in situ, and befriend delightful little Delian cats, all with little to no view of the modern world.
It’s for these reasons and countless more that I am so thrilled to invite you on a tour of Ariadne’s Escape. We’ll begin in the most famous of poleis: Athens, the city of Athena. From there we journey down the coast of southern Attica to its southernmost tip, the cape of Sounion. It’s there, hanging off the edge of a seaside cliff, where we’ll find the temple of Poseidon, one of the most stunning sites on the mainland. The temple was built on the spot where the ancient Greeks believed King Aegeus threw himself into the sea that would take his name, distraught over the death of his son, Theseus (who was in fact not dead; he only forgot to change the colour of his ship’s sails, a code he’d set with his father to signal he’d survived the famed Minotaur on Crete).
From there we journey deep into the Cyclades, landing on the island of Naxos where none other than the god of wine and revelry himself, Dionysus, rescued the Cretan princess Ariadne from Theseus’ abandonment. Today Naxos is home to a host of archaeological sites including a temple to Dionysus, one to Demeter, and an ancient marble quarry. Naxos becomes our Cycladic home base, and from there we’ll visit the stunning island archaeological site of Delos.
After Naxos and it's neighbouring islands, we sail south to Santorini, home to one of the most unique ancient sites in the world. The city of Akrotiri was preserved by a volcanic eruption somewhere around 1600 BCE and its excavation has shown us the sheer volume of colour found in the ancient Mediterranean as early as the Bronze Age. From Santorini we travel to the island where it all began; Crete. It’s on Crete where the earliest proto-Greek civilization developed, that of the Minoans in Knossos. We’ll be awash in bull iconography and labyrinthine roads as we visit a number of cities and sites on Greece’s largest island. As we travel Ariadne’s journey in reverse, Crete becomes the final stop on this mythology and archaeologically rich tour. I’ll be giving casual discussions and lectures looking at the myth and history we encounter along the way.
Please, join me on this tour to explore a few of my personal favourite islands of Greece, and some of the most mythologically rich places in the whole world of the Aegean!
Rates: $6,690 per person, double occupancy. Single room supplement: $1,790.
Reservations: call Thalassa Journeys at 866-633-3611 or email reservations@thalassajourneys.com.
