Space Center Houston, the official visitor center for NASA’s Johnson Space Center, brings the excitement of space exploration to life with interactive exhibits, real spacecraft, and hands-on experiences. Get up close with a moon rock, see spacesuits worn by astronauts, and explore the history of human spaceflight through engaging films and artifacts. Don’t miss the tram tour—it takes you behind the scenes to Mission Control, where NASA guided Apollo missions and still oversees the International Space Station. You’ll also stop by the Astronaut Training Facility and Rocket Park, home to a massive Saturn V rocket, one of the most powerful ever built.

Enclosed by the GUM, Kremlin, and Saint Basil's Cathedral, the Red Square stands proud. This is also the place where Lenin rests in his mausoleum. Since 1924 he has been as carefully guarded as he was embalmed.

Further inland, in the southern part of the island, lie the so-called masticochoria (mastic villages). These well-preserved, fortified villages date from the 14th-16th centuries and were centres for the cultivation of mastic. Mastic is the sweet-tasting gum of the lentisk bush, which was exported all over the Mediterranean – and the area still produces around 300 tonnes of mastic every year. The most picturesque villages are Pyrgi, with its houses decorated in black and white geometric patterns called xysta Mesta, where towers and walls surround a baffling labyrinth of village streets as well as Olympoi and Vessa are all a worth a visit.

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art offers a journey through centuries of art and culture, from Italian Renaissance masterpieces and Asian ceramics to African art and contemporary installations. Don't leave without taking a picture in front of the museum’s iconic, giant badminton shuttlecocks on the front lawn. Admission is free to most exhibitions, and once you get your fix of classical and contemporary art, you can finish the tour at the café or the restaurant on the spot.