Greece
June 3-4
Flight to Athens and First day
Delays Delays. Despite being delayed for 3 hours at the airport for our flight, we did not let that stop us from having fun. We grabbed a table and got some pre flight drinks to kick off the vacation. After a long wait, we got on the plane and watched several movies to pass the time on our way there. Upon arrival we took a big nap and eventually walked around town and found a nice spot for dinner. We enjoyed some delicious feta coated in honey with pita bread, as well as fresh grilled octopus and chicken skewers (all fantastic). After that we took a quick stroll in a park and spotted some great places to try later in our stay. Fantastic first day, looking forward to some of the upcoming events we have planned the next few days!
June 5-6
Our Sleeping Schedule is Messed Up!
While the title is very indicative of the past couple days, this has not prevented us from having fun. Starting our day at 5:00am on Monday, we ventured out to the ruins and central Athens before the crowds and the heat. We saw some extremely beautiful sunrise views of the city, seeing things we had not seen on our brief exploration upon arrival. After seeing our fair share of ruins for the day, we decided to take the tram to Flisvos, a coastal area of Athens south of Piraeus, only we didn’t know how the tram system worked… We visited a ticket machine which was not operational at all and decided to get on to the next tram in hopes to pay cash. After three stops, an employee came around and we panicked and got off the tram since we did not have a ticket. Thankfully the station where we got off did have a working machine and we purchased tickets and made it to Flisvos. Walking up the coast we saw beaches, the coast of the city, and yachts. After meandering around the marina full of yachts we stopped at a small cafe for 9:00am LUNCH (since we had been walking around since 5:00am). We did a little more exploring and made our way back through the city eventually back to the hostel where we slept for 5 hours. Sleeping since around noon, we rose at 5:00pm where we decided to go on yet another adventure. Not knowing the true scope of this expedition, we decided we wanted to see the Agios Georgios Church which ended up being on top of a small mountain. We hiked up the mountain and saw beautiful views of the city, coastline, and the Acropolis. We had a drink there and made our way down to the hostel where we tried some Ouzo and lemonade we had purchased earlier on our adventures. We then proceeded to a nice dinner, both ordering seafood and went to a rooftop bar in the city which had a fantastic night view of the Acropolis. Some late night pizza on our walk back followed by instant slumber finished off the evening.
Tuesday morning was an 11:30am wakeup, drastically different from Monday. Despite this late start, we definitely had fun today. We first went to a cafe/creperie for some quick breakfast, then went into central Athens where we had visited the day before, but there were more people there now as it was not ridiculously early in the day. We wandered the street markets and explored before heading to our 3:30pm reservation for a local distillery tour. On the tour we learned about this family run distillery business founded in Greece in the the 1800s which is still running to this day. We tried a variety of liquors and got to take home 2 small sample bottles for ourselves! After this great tour we went to the Agora where we saw great statues and the impressive Temple of Hephaestus. After the ruins we made our way back to the hostel to get out of the heat and taste the samples from the distillery we had brought back. We then quickly left as we had to catch our 9:00pm play back near the center of Athens. We stopped at a more casual street food place on the way and made it right on time for the play. The play itself was fantastic although Ben made somewhat of a scene getting up to use the restroom in the middle. When returning from the bathroom he sat 2 rows in front of his seat next to someone who was evidently not Brenna (very obviously) and it was hilarious when he realized a few seconds later, stood up and moved back to his original seat. Other people in our aisle were deliriously laughing at this whole situation, but we thought it funny as well. We made our way back, discussing this hilarious mistake by Ben and the fantastic play and called it an evening.
June 7
To The Acropolis!
It is time for the major site-seeing of Athens: The Acropolis. We booked a bus tour to take us around to some minor sites as well as take us up to the Acropolis and provide historical information along the way. The day started by walking over to Syntagma Square where we were picked up by the bus. The first stop was the Panatheniac Stadium where the first modern-day Olympic games were held. There were even people running around and using the track inside. We saw some other areas which we had seen already while walking around like the National Garden, the Arch of Hadrian, and the Temple of Olympian Zeus. They even drove us through typical Athenian neighborhoods and gave great information (fun fact: of the estimated 10 million people who live in Greece, 3 million live in Athens!). We took our next stop at the Acropolis Museum. Lots of the actual marble pieces were moved inside of the museum due to acid rain, while replicas take their place at the top of the rock. So, the museum has a collection of the real stuff as well as castings of ruins still on the Acropolis. The museum is also built over a ruins site of old houses; mostly just foundations are left but lots of the floor is made of glass for observation which is awesome. We then meandered to the Acropolis and climbed up “the rock.” At the top there are breathtaking views of the ruins as well as the city. The Parthenon stands tall over everything, even the other ruins in the Acropolis. Of the things at the top, our favorites were the temple of Old Athena, the temple of Athena Nike, and the Parthenon. After the Acropolis tour, we were pretty worn out from the heat and the walking. We got some sandwiches and salad at a cafe and headed back for a long nap. Afterwards we got some gyros from the same place as the night before since it was so good and packed up for our travels the next day.
June 8-11
Sun in Santorini
Almost all of Santorini is going in this one post so get ready. Thursday morning was an early wake up. The impending 6:00am flight had us up at 3:00am since it takes about an hour to get to the airport. We checked our backpacks, got a quick snack, and went through security. The flight was so early that not a ton of people were at the airport which was great. Our hour long flight was fairly empty and Brenna caught some sleep on the plane. Upon landing we took a taxi over to our place in Karteradhos but it was still before 8:00am and we couldn’t check in until around 1:00pm so we had time to kill. We dropped our bags and walked toward Fira which is the capitol of the island. We stopped along the way to get coffee and something to eat. We continued into Fira and caught our first glimpses of the true beauty of Santorini. Amazing views of the ocean and the cliffside of the island were a fantastic way to continue the morning. Brenna spotted a gondola on the other side of town that lead down to the waterfront and we decided we had to take it down just for fun, this was a mistake. We took the gondola down, which was a very fun ride, and noted that there were three cruise ships sitting off the coast. These cruise ships indeed were unloading passengers to the small area we had just taken the gondola down to. The only ways back up from this small coastal area were this gondola which had an extremely long line from the offloading of the cruise ships or a walking path back up ~700 steps or so with donkeys going up and down the path bringing people up the cliffside. We decided after checking out the areas below that the lesser of two evils would be the stair path up. We embarked on this journey, quickly figuring out that it smelled of donkey poop the whole way and that the donkeys did not travel up and down in a very orderly fashion. This made a whole obstacle course of trying to avoid donkeys while traversing up. The views from the path were very good but the smell was terrible. We at last made it up to the top and got a smoothie to relax from our tolling journey up the cliffside. We decided to get back to our hotel, although still early we thought we could sit by the pool in the meantime. After checking in we took a long nap: our signature. We then walked back to Fira to have some dinner. We got some drinks and watched the sunset and then went somewhere else to finally try some moussaka. We then walked back to the hotel and relaxed for the rest of the night.
The next day we decided to rent an ATV for the day. We had seen quite a few rolling around with tourists on them and they looked extremely fun. Going up and down the mountainous land of Santorini on this ATV was very scenic and we were able to adventure to places we wouldn’t have been able to check out otherwise. We picked it up and went down to Kamari to check out the black sand beach down there. We got some breakfast, took a swim, and relaxed on the beach. We then went to check out Akrotiri, a town on the south western side of the island. We found an old castle in the town that overlooked the countryside. We then looked at the red sand beaches on that side of the island and made our way to the Akrotiri lighthouse which was very scenic. We decided we wanted to explore more, so we drove to the complete other side of the island to Oia and saw some great views there. We returned to Fira to get some gyros from Lucky’s Souvlakis which was fantastic. Regrettably, we needed to return the ATV which we didn’t want to do since it was so fun. We then went back to Fira later to check out the night life and then called it a night.
We slept in on Saturday and relaxed until we got picked up at 1:30pm for our sunset cruise excursion we booked. Our driver was extremely skilled and went down to the coast along a small road 100% backwards in a big van!!! It was crazy! We departed from Oia and overall had a fantastic time. We swam near some old volcanic islands and some spots on the south side of the island we saw the day before. They served us some early dinner and we rode back to Oia as the sun was setting and watched the beautiful sky. We got dropped back off at our place pretty late. We were both really hungry so we had a second dinner in Karteradhos and then went to sleep.
Sunday (today) we decided to take it easy. We started the day with doing some laundry. Then we decided to check out Jerry’s which we made fun of the whole time we’ve been here since we never knew when this place was open despite it saying it was open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We would only occasionally see people eating there at odd hours but we wanted to try it. We went and it ended up being fantastic. An older couple ran the place and we got some Greek omelettes which were great. We made our way back and checked in for our flight back to Athens and our flight to Naples and to write this post! Think we might relax by the pool and head to Fira one last time before a beer tasting at a local Brewery we booked for tonight! The rest of tonight’s update will be included in the next post. Very excited for our last nights in Greece and looking forward to going to Italy!
June 11-12
Goodbye Greece
Sadly, it is now time to say goodbye to Greece and move on to the next stop of our European tour. To end the last day in Santorini, we went to Fira to do some last minute shopping and headed to Ftelos Brewery for a beer tasting. The walk there was incredibly scenic, and the brewery itself overlooked the other side of the island. The beer tasting involved sampling several different beers paired with accompanying appetizers (extra details for beer enthusiasts: the beers included 2 lagers, a sour, a wheat, a hibiscus saison, and a double IPA). The walk back was even more scenic as we caught the sunset (and stopped to take many photos). We went to Fira one last time for a nice dinner before heading home for the night.
The next morning was another early flight as we left Santorini and went back to Athens for one more day. We got falafel sandwiches at the airport and made it back to Athens easily since we were now familiar with the route. After resting for a while, we decided to walk around another part of the city that we had not seen before. We had an early dinner and then toured the National Garden, which had previously belonged to the Queen of Greece. A highlight of the walk was seeing a pond full of turtles! Ambitiously, we decided to hike up Agios Georgios once more to see the sunset overlooking the city. After that, we bought some dessert from the bakery nearby and wrapped up our time in Greece.
Summary Thoughts:
~ATHENS~
We both deeply enjoyed our time in Greece and getting to explore and learn so much about its history and culture. Athens had so many interesting sites to see as well as great food and different places to visit. Brenna really enjoyed climbing Agios Georgios (surprisingly) and visiting Flisvos Marina. Ben loved the Greek food and seeing the Acropolis.
~SANTORINI~
We also loved getting to visit the Greek island of Santorini. It was incredibly beautiful, and we were able to spend some time relaxing. The views of the water and the sunsets were unforgettable. Brenna loved renting an ATV and touring around the island. Ben enjoyed drinking wine and watching the sunset.
Overall, Greece was an amazing experience we will both never forget! Next stop: Italy!
