O/T Possibly Spending money in Greece?

Good idea, coooking in that heat, definitely a no no. Anyway, unless you are paying top dollar, you'll find there isnt enough to properly cook anyway and it will cost as much as in a restaurant, plus the hassle of shopping. IME Greek SC apartments are fine for breakfast and boiling an egg and keeping the milk and beer in a fridge but thats about it.

Zante is good, been there twice. Is 500E enough? Depends how much you will be drinking,and the quality of restaurants you go to! And I suppose how much prices have gone up since the last time I was there, have seen comments in the press about Greece getting 'expensive' (thats probably because it used to be *really* cheap)

I think if 500E was your budget it wouldnt be an issue, whether its enough depends on your taste :-) Plus, plenty of cashpoints to get money out, most medium priced and up restaurants will accept credit cards. So 500E will be enough to start with, you'll probably find most money will go on trips.

FWIW, if you are going on a package tour, check out the locally organised trips first before going for your tour operators ones. You'll generally find you can get deals for substantially cheaper, and maybe something a bit different. And if you are going to do the smugglers wreck (the famous picture) try and find a tour that gets there really early unless you like sharing that small beach (and wreck) with a *large* no of people :-) We went in a small speedboat from Tsilivi harbour (8 people) that did the blue caves (everywhere in greece has a blue caves trip) and the wreck and were the first and only people there, as we left a boat with maybe 100 people on board arrived. Enjoy the wreck, I would guess its only got a few years left as its rusting to nothing.

Finally, watch out for moped/motorbike hire, not all places are conscientious about maintaining them. And anyway, coming off a bike even if its your fault alone, wearing just a tshirt and shorts (or maybe just the latter) will seriously put a damper on your hols. I've seen it :-( Last year in Thessalonika our Greek driver apologised after a near miss with another, saying "Greeks are the second worst drivers in the world, after Egyptians". I think he was right. I havent been anywhere else where I've seen so many shrines to a road accident on very long, perfectly straight stretches of road. Not curves, blind hills or bends, just long straight bits of road..... very scary. Personally, I'd recommend a car if you want to go looking around, you are slightly more likely to be seen by other greek drivers and definitely a lot safer should you get hit.)

Enjoy.

If you're going to spend most days on the beach/round the pool then it should be enough. If you're going to hire a car, go on trips, do watersports etc, then you'll probably need more. I usually budget for around 100 euros per day (so about 1000 for 2 weeks) for that sort of holiday - but I've got a family of 4 and we like to get about.

Although I've not been to a Greek island for a couple of years and have heard they have got more expensive. Problem with the Euro is that it seems to be equalising prices in Eurozone, so cheaper countries like Greece are getting more expensive.

Suggest you also post on rec.travel.europe - it's a high traffic group and the thread will get hijacked by the regulars who'll start off topic unrelated discussions, and it might start the usual flame war about whether everyone hates Americans - BUT you will get loads of good advice from loads of knowledgeable people.

I've still got the scars from the thirteen stitches :(

I had no problems getting money out of a `hole in the wall` machine in the States using just a cashcard (debit card) from NatWest. I'd guess that as long as there were some banks there you'd be ok.