Okay, so it’s been so long since this trip!! I’d say I’ve been busy (which I have) but in reality I’ve just haven’t stayed on top of this. With that being said, better late than never? SO ANYWAYS in July of 2017, Erin and I took a sister trip to Greece!! It was super fun and it was nice to have all that quality time with Erin. Anyways, without further ado than the full+ year of procrastinating I’ve already spent, I will get into the trip! DAY ONE Erin and I met in Newark from our respective homes to catch a flight to Athens together. In classic standby fashion, we both got middle seats. We weren’t next to each other, but we were only a few rows away, so that was nice! Once we were on the flight, I decided to book us tickets on an overnight ferry from Athens to Santorini, but kiiiiinda started panicking when I realized I’d misspelled my email address and then the plane took off and I couldn’t look at my phone anymore and I totally could have paid for internet and made sure it worked but I don’t usually consider paying for internet an option so I didn’t even think about it and basically I was all a mess. The flight attendant must have noticed my aura because when she came by with gelato after the dinner service, she asked me if I wanted two. Which I obviously did. Erin was given a lot of advice on things to do from a nice lady next to her, which involved the lady drawing a map on a napkin to show Erin where we should stay. The napkin was entirely unreadable. But still, very nice. We land. I call the ferry company. The reservation is fine and the lady on the phone is acting like I’m crazy for calling. Erin tries to pull out cash and her ATM card doesn’t work. Good thing mine does. (I’m not kidding, that stream of consciousness is seriously how my brain was processing events at the time). We take the metro into Athens from the airport, which was super easy to do! Our plan was to see as much of Athens as we could that day before getting on the ferry. But we didn’t want to carry our big backpacks around all day, so we stopped by a hostel near the Acropolis and they kindly took our bags for the day. The lady at the front desk also told Erin off for calling her ma’am because it made her feel old, which was kind of funny. We tried to explain that where we’re from, that’s what you say to show respect, but she asked why and neither Erin nor I really had an answer to that. Overall an interesting interaction! Also, there are no grocery stores near the Acropolis, just as a heads up. We ended up having to buy some SUPER expensive sunscreen. But I guess that was better than being burnt! We spent the next few hours exploring the Acropolis and Parthenon. It was very hot but it was an amazing experience. I could have walked around there for hours longer! Unfortunately the Parthenon was under restoration construction, which did hinder some photos angles I wanted, but it was still very cool to see. The Acropolis, and just being in Athens in general, gives you an incredibly humbling idea of just how young the USA is. And Athens is one of the oldest named cities in the world! For some perspective, the Acropolis and Parthenon were built sometime around 460–430 BC (~2,470 years ago), but Athens itself has records of human habitation dating back at least 5,000 year ago (or ~3,000 BC) That’s SO OLD. It was really awe inspiring to just walk around and see incredibly old things at every turn. After leaving the Acropolis, Erin and I decided to walk around and check out anything else we could. We headed towards the Panathenaic Stadium, which I will talk about in a second. However, first we need to discuss the pigeons. The rats of the bird world. They were everywhere, but I guess what we’re really discussing are the few pigeons that must have heard Erin say how much she hated them. Because then they followed her around for the next few blocks! Very funny for me, less funny for her. Anyways, onto the Panathenaic Stadium. If you didn’t know, the Panathenaic Stadium is is the only stadium in the world built entirely of marble. The site was a simple racecourse until 330 BC, where a stadium was constructed for the Panathenaic Games (essentially the early version of the Olympics). In 144 AD it was rebuilt entirely in marble with a capacity of 50,000 seats, but was largely abandoned after the rise of Christianity in the 4th century until it was excavated in 1869. It was refurbished and then hosted the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as being the venue for 4 of the 9 sports, of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. They even used it during the 2004 Olympics when Athens hosted again, and is still used as the finish line for the annual Athens Marathon. I loved seeing the stadium, I think it was one of my favorite things in Athens. Maybe that’s because I love the Olympics so much, but also the way it has been taken care of is pretty cool. I love the history and the modern utilization. They had a room that you could walk under the stadium to get to that house the olympic posters and torches from many of the games in recent history, so it was neat to see it all in one place like that. Plus, Erin and I got some great photos on the podium by the track. We FINALLY found a grocery store while we were walking around and got to eat on a curb waiting for our 11pm ferry to Santorini to arrive. We had to walk to 3 different piers since no one was helpful in telling us how to get anywhere, but we eventually figured it out. I had booked us two beds in a shared 4-bed cabin, but we ended up being the only ones in the room so we had it all to ourselves! And it had a personal shower! So after maybe the best shower I’ve ever had (not because of the shower itself, but just the feeling of being clean), we walked around the ferry to see most of it and were on the deck for when it left the port. After spending a few minutes watching the lights fade in the distance, we headed back to our room for some much needed sleep. DAY TWO We woke up about an hour and a half before we were scheduled to pull into Santorini. Honestly, Erin and I maintain that the best decision of the entire trip was to get the beds with the overnight ferry. It was more expensive, but wasn’t that bad considering it was transportation and sleeping quarters at the same time. So, if you are taking a ferry to any of the islands from Athens, we recommend the overnight ones, for real. Anyways, we wake up and I start trying to book us a hotel or hostel on the internet. Well, why would that ever want to go as planned? The wifi on the ferry wasn’t working at all and because we were on a ferry in the middle of the ocean, we also had no data service. So in comes Karen to the rescue! She was able to book us a room so that when we got off the ferry we just had to go find it. Seriously mom, thanks so much. We got off the ferry and took a bus to Thira/Fira, which is one of the main towns on the island. This is where you’ll see the classic white buildings with blue roofs! And it’s pretty everywhere, not an exaggeration. We walked to the hotel room that Karen had just booked for us, and of course the drama wasn’t completed. She had accidentally booked if for November. Because of the whole months and days thing switched in the American and European calendars. It hindsight it was pretty funny. Luckily, they had another room for us for the night! So we got into the room. And then promptly took a nap. After waking up, we decided to go walk around Fira. I said this before, but it was JUST gorgeous. Everywhere you turned was a cute or amazing view. And it was impossible to not get lost! Each turn was a skinny walkway surrounded by white walls and while they all looked different, they also all looked very much the same. I couldn’t have picked a better place to be lost though! On our wanderings, we found some beautiful churches and the overall architecture is just amazing. I honestly don’t have words for it, and will have to just let my photos speak for themselves! We also decided to do some classic Greece tourist things in the afternoon. I mean, who can say no the the fish spa experience! That was super fun, definitely tickled, and ultimately…..didn’t really do anything. But still, needed to be done. And of course we found some cheeeaaaap falafel. With feta and olives, can’t go wrong. When we got back from all of our exploring, we decided to eat dinner by the pool and go for an evening swim. The sunset was SO PRETTY. Everything you’ve ever heard about Santorini sunsets is massively correct. But I’ll get into that later. We sat at the pool gazing on the sunset while sipping on Grecian ciders, and planning our next few days. DAY THREE We had to check out of our hotel room by 1pm, so the next morning we decided to do a little exploring and walked up the road to the next little town over, Inverogivil. Same gorgeous little streets, but less crowded and less touristy. I also found some random hike where you could go out to this big rock and check out the view looking up the cliffs at all the buildings! Pretty neat. But, due to our check out time, I turned it into a bit of a sprint for myself. Because i didn’t want to miss out!! After getting back to our hotel and checking out, we took the bus to Perissa, which is on the other side and to the south of the island. This side is known for the black sand beaches. We had booked ourselves into the place called “Tony’s Villas”, which we discovered was basically two houses that have been converted into hotel style rooms. Once we actually found it, that is. It was not intuitive and we asked for directions twice, both times being told to go in opposite directions. We eventually figured it out though, and headed STRAIGHT for the beach. Every place owns parts of the beach there, where they set up lounge chairs and umbrellas for rent as there isn’t much shade elsewhere. Apparently it’s also common for creepy men to walk around the beach offering massages for a price, and even after i said no, the guy grabbed my shoulders. I whipped around very quickly and he left after that but we were pretty weird-ed out at that point. Before the trip, I had bought Erin and myself some waterproof clear bags so we could bring our phones with us into the water, because I figured we could get some good photos. And we did! It took some getting used to though, as is very obvious from all the outtakes. We ate dinner at the hotel that night, complete with a bottle of wine that we got at the grocery store. No cups of course, but it’s vacation so wine out of the bottle is fine, right? DAY FOUR We woke up the next morning to discover three men sleeping in the patio outside. They must have come in very early that morning and weren’t able to check in until later. I’m just impressed that they found it in the dark! Because Erin and I had barely been able to with full sunlight. We headed out for another beach day, but this time decided to go on a little stroll further past the main beach, We hoped we’d find cheaper cabanas, and we did! It was also less crowded and we got lounges and an umbrella right next to the water. We also realized we’d forgotten to bring water with us, but that ended up being okay. The night before, we had figured out that our tap water at the hotel tasted definitively salty and neither of us felt hydrated. It was nice to have an entire day of relaxing without feeling a need to be anywhere. Plus, we found some cheap gyros and some amazing places to take some photos! After dinner we decided to head to Oia for the sunset. Oia is at the very northernmost part of the island, but takes less than 40 minutes to get to by bus for all of $4 round trip. If you can figure out the bus. The times/stops make absolutely no sense and also, they don’t come on time anyways. The first one we were the next people to get on and the door was just slammed in our faces with no explanation. But we eventually got on one that took us to Thira where we transferred to Oia. Oia is a very popular place to see the famous Santorini sunsets as it’s on the west side and the has the most iconic buildings. We made it about an hour early, which is just about when you want to be getting there. It was so crowded! We found a spot right away and stuck there which was perfect. It looked like the people in the best places had been there for hours already at this point, pretty crazy. The sunset was just gorgeous and so worth it. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. We took the bus back to Perissa and had an early night since we were catching an early ferry in the morning to Ios. Just as we’re getting into bed, we see a MASSIVE cockroach in Erin’s bed. There was screaming and jumping and then ultimately sleeping in the same bed since neither of us wanted anything to do with her bed, clearly. What a last night on Santorini! DAY FIVE I woke up incredibly early the day we were catching our ferry to Ios. Seems like my subconscious was scared of not waking up to my alarm! We woke up and started packing, and all of a sudden the power went out! Luckily we only had 20 minutes until we had to leave. Tony, of Tony’s Villas, was kind enough to drive us to the ferry. That was...quite the experience. He was very kind though, and it saved us money and a TON of time. Taking the bus would have been over an hour, but Tony got us there in 20 minutes. We were there a little earlier, so we shopped for some knicknacks before getting on the fast ferry to Ios. The ferry didn’t stop anywhere else except Ios, so it was only a 45 minute ride between islands. Ios is a very tiny island, and in the summer it’s known as being the “party” island for those that don’t quite have the budget for Mykonos. I was excited to have a taste of that life, but without the craziness of Mykonos. We booked a private hut at a backpackers place on the beach called Far Out. It’s about a 15 minute drive from the port to Far Out and it’s on the south-most end of Mylopotas beach, which is the most visited beach on Ios. Far Out is known for their club-like parties at one of their pools. We never went to that one and opted for the quieter pool (2 pools to choose from, tough life we had) but the party shut down every night at 10pm with all the party goers getting on the bus to the clubs and bars in town. So if you didn’t want to rage, you didn’t have to! We were picked up from the ferry by the Far Out van, and the man who was driving us was quite eccentric. I’m not going to repeat some of the things he said for multiple reasons, but let’s just say that they were meant to be funny, but also could have been taken the wrong way. So anyways, after we checked in and learned that we had to pay extra for AC, we went for a quick dip in the ocean before taking a nap. After our nap, we took a walk along the beach and found a restaurant that had a happy hour! And it was for frozen watermelon daiquiris! Um, yes please. Honestly three of my favorite drink things all in one. So we had to take a pit stop, obviously. We took a bunch of photos and had a great happy hour, followed by lounging at the quiet pool afterwards. Which is where we met Will, who was travelling by himself from England. He came over to talk to us at the pool and all three of us ended up getting pizza and drinks by the pool that night. Our server who brought us our pizza asked us what we were doing later, and we said we hadn’t decided if we were going out that night or not. He told us that if we did go out, we could find him dj-ing at one of the bars off the main square. We ate our pizza, had a few drinks, and decided “why not”, so we hopped on the last bus from the beach to town. When we found the main square, we peeked into the bar that our dj was in charge of, and it was empty. I feel like I need to be very clear, when I say empty, I mean zero people other than the people working there. We decided that perhaps that wasn’t the best idea, so we went to another couple of places. The drinks were so cheap! Basically the same as cheap drinks back home, which wasn’t what I anticipated for touristy areas. We also discovered that a big thing at the bars in Ios is to buy/drink a bunch of shots and you get a “free” t-shirt. A lot of people were wearing them super hungover the next day…. So after bouncing around to a few bars, we headed back to our dj’s place. Still pretty empty, but we went for it. We walked in, he saw us, and his face LIT UP. He was beyond excited to see us and, not going to lie, it was kind of awesome! He called the bartender to give us free drinks and we spent the next hour dancing to whatever song we wanted because he was taking all of our requests! Granted, he didn’t have a lot of the songs I requested because they weren’t in the Top 40s, but it was still such a blast. The buses don’t run after midnight so once we had our fill of dancing we walked back to our hotel. It was an amazing night, super clear sky and not too hot or cold. One of the best nights of our trip, in my opinion. DAY SIX The previous day, we had decided to rent ATVs and take them for a spin around the island. Ios is the location for what is known as “Homer’s Tomb”. Homer was among the greatest poets in ancient Greek history. He is famous for his epics, including the Odyssey and Iliad (just in case you hadn’t made that connection already!). The legend goes that Homer’s mother was from Ios and is why he was living there when he died. And so he supposedly now lies buried at Plakoto, at the northernmost part of the island, on a hill. It took us about 45 minutes to get all the way there, but it was a fun ride! It was like I was playing real life Mario Kart! And Erin let me drive the whole time. I think she was a little nervous about driving in another country, but didn’t matter to me, I love driving! I have to say, the “tomb” was extremely underwhelming. It’s essentially a pile of rocks. BUT the views don’t disappoint. From the tomb site, we could see a dirt road that led to a small cove with a beach and decided to head that way. We think this beach was called Plakato Beach, however that could have also been on the other side of the hill. Didn’t really matter, having our own private beach in a beautiful cove was well worth it. We then took the ATV’s home. Now, driving them was super fun HOWEVER ours didn’t like to start easily. Shoutout to Will who helped us start it every damn time that day. And don’t go thinking this was user error, because it wasn’t. I can start a damn ATV if it’s functioning properly. After our drive back to the hotel, we has a salad dinner and then took the ATVs out one more time to the top of the city for some sunset pictures before riding them into town for a few drinks! Except I drank water because I was driving and I’m a responsible adult. DAY SEVEN We woke up early to take the ATV’s back and luckily I started all by myself, thank you very much. We then spent our last day on the islands lounging by the pool and soaking in the sun, because unfortunately that afternoon we were catching a ferry back to Athens. It was a long ferry ride (almost 9 hours!) and of course it arrived late. This ferry stopped off at a lot of islands on the way, so it was cool to see each of the ports while we were travelling. But then it got dark, so we mostly slept and I read most of the book Erin had brought with her while she was sleeping. And we ate the bag of prawn cocktail chips I’d bought because I can’t go to Europe and not have them. We got in extremely late, and unfortunately had to get on a bus to get to the hostel we had booked. I thought the bus was supposed to drop us off relatively close to the hotel, but all of a sudden it turned and started going in the wrong direction...when it got to it’s only stop we weren’t THAT far away, but further than I’d want to walk at night so we ended up getting an Uber to the hostel. We went into the dorm and woke some poor people up and I always feel bad about that but oh well! DAY EIGHT We spent the day exploring the parts of Athens we hadn’t seen in our first day in Greece. One of the things I wanted to do was to check out the Olympic park from the 2000 games. We went and it is almost completely abandoned. There is graffiti everywhere and many of the structures that were built aren’t in use. The pools and gyms appear to now be used for public use (there were a lot of kids running around) and the main stadium is being used by a soccer team. You can’t really get into the stadium any more but luckily Erin had to pee and a nice man let us into the building so I took a peak at the stadium itself. It was pretty cool to see! And I’ve kept my streak of visiting the summer olympic stadiums of the host cities that I’ve traveled to! On our walk back to the hostel, we walked through a gorgeous park where there is a beautiful building built to resemble the original Grecian style. It is now a state building and appears to be a meeting place for important events in Athens. We stopped off at a grocery store to grab food for dinner and then headed back to the hostel. Where we were greeted with standby chaos. Our plan had been to fly out of Athens the next day, and when we had left for the day there had been 17 open seats with us as numbers 8 and 9 on the standby list. However, in the span of 4 hours, the flight had gone to being overbooked by 5 seats AND there were now 27 people listed for standby. And we were nowhere near the top of that list. I then spent the next few hours trying to figure out how to get us home with the help of my mom (thanks!). We ended up buying flights to Edinburgh, where we’d be able to fly standby home. This is a lot easier to tell now than it took to coordinate. We were a funny sight. Me on the phone with my mom, talking to her and using both my phone and my tablet to find us a flight, Erin feeding me olives, bread and cheese because I needed my hands for typing. After we had sorted that out, we headed out from our hostel to do some last minute shopping and to see the city lit up at night (one of my favorite things). Unfortunately the flight we had to book was extremely early in the morning, so we went to bed early. And then probably woke up every person that we had woken up the night before when we left. DAY NINE We took an Uber to the airport because public transit wasn’t working (yes, it was THAT early). Our flight to Edinburgh included a 6+ hour layover on Zakynthos , an island that was about a 50 minute flight from Athens. And this one dude was snoring the ENTIRE flight. I mean, I’m happy for him that he was sleeping, I guess. But it was super obnoxious. To the point that someone else on the flight hit him with a magazine to get him to stop. It worked, for like 10 minutes, and then it started again. If I had been able to plan ahead a little more for the layover, we would have done more than stay around the airport. But….we were both so tired we ended up just mostly sleeping and reading. We finally got on our flight to Edinburgh and immigration was very intrigued as to us staying for only 24 hours. We were staying at the Marriott near the hotel (thank to Karen and her Marriott points) and enjoyed some free drinks with our fish and chips dinner (thanks to Karen and her Marriott status). To conclude the evening, we walked across the street to stock up on some of our favorite British candies before heading back to our room to snuggle up with all the luxurious pillows. DAY TEN We woke up to get on our flight back to the USA with enough time for a full Scottish breakfast. It wouldn’t have been a true UK layover without one! After landing in Newark, Erin and I went our separate ways, me to Minnesota and her to Florida. Or actually, she might have gone to California. It’s been literally so long I’ve forgotten. PHEW, THAT WAS SO LONG. I’ll never leave trips like that for as long ever again. That being said, I did have fun writing this! It forced me to revisit all the memories and photographs that I hadn’t looked at in a while. Don’t forget to check out the photo gallery page for more images of this amazing and beautiful country! Hope you’ve enjoyed it, stay tuned for more (in a more timely fashion).
1 Comment
Will
3/19/2020 01:06:24 pm
Yay I got a couple of mentions :) still one of my favourite holidays!
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Meet AnyaHi, Hola, Bonjour, Ciao!
I’m Anya Phillips, a data analyst and travel enthusiast who is always on the lookout for the next adventure! Categories
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