Greece, Athens and the Islands

Athens: October 11th, 2011
The flight from Istanbul to Athens was very nice and awful at the same time. It was nice in the sense that they treated us well and gave us a meal(which was completely unexpected), but I thought I was going to die when the plane landed. It was a very overcast and stormy day in Athens, and I am pretty sure our plane was not parallel to the runway when we landed. It then proceded to swerve down the runway. My first impression of Athens did not change throughout my stay... it was dark and dreary the whole time. When we got to the hotel, we asked the manager what time the Acropolis opened, and he told us the bad news..the Acropolis was closed due to a strike starting the next day. We were devastated, and went to bed very upset that night. When we woke up we were not really sure what we were going to do since we planned on going to the Acropolis all day. When we walked downstairs our hotel manager was so excited to tell us that the strike on the Acropolis started the following day and was still open. So we went to the Acropolis! It was a very cold day in Athens, but it was still really nice to see Acropolis and to check it off our list. Down the mountain you could hear protesters at the main square for about an hour. I still don't understand the purpose of their strike(s). While most of the city was uninviting, the area around the Acropolis and the other ruins was nice, so we mainly stuck around there. After seeing the Acropolis and the ancient Agora, we had lunch(and got free chocolate walnut cake-very good), and then we headed for the temple of Zeus. The ruins of this temple were very impressive, and you could see how big the temple would have been if it was all still standing and it was mammoth... much much larger than the Parthenon. The next morning, I was very glad to wake up early and get out of Athens... it was good to see, but I will be happy to never go there again.

view of islands from plane

at the Parthenon

Parthenon

at the temple of Zeus

Greek Islands

Mykonos: October 12-13th, 2011
Our hostel in Mykonos was great. They picked us up from the port and told us exactly how to get around the town. The hostel was a little further away from the town so we could not walk, however it was very nice and full of character. We mainly just walked around the town and explored(it was a maze through the little streets). The town was not very crowded as the tourist season is over, but there were still cruise ships coming in to town, and the town would fill up and empty with each cruise ship. Mykonos was very relaxing and low key, however I really like a place more when there are more sights to see and things to do.

windmills on Mykonos

Naxos: October 13th-14th, 2011

Naxos is the biggest of the islands but we mainly stayed in the main town. I wish we could have rented a car to explore the island because apparently it is huge, but we didn't have enough time to really plan on doing anything like that, so we just explored the town a little, and went to the beach(the weather we very nice, but the water was cold!)We watched the sunset at the temple of Demeter which is situated on a point on the island overlooking the water. That night for dinner we found a Mexican restaurant.. they don't have these in Italy and we were missing home so we decided that would be a good choice.. and it was. The next day we woke up and explored some more and did some sketches before heading back to the port. I liked Naxos, however it was really dead at this point. There were no cruise ships to fill the town, and the tourist season was mostly over, so it was not an extremely lively town. If I ever go back there, I will make sure to stay for at least two days to give myself time to explore the rest of the island. The ferries between the islands are very interesting.. they are like little hovercraft looking tings, and the seats are assigned inside like an airplane. These are the high speed ferries so you are not allowed on the outer deck, but they were still kind of fun to ride.

Naxos sunset

Santorini: October 14th-15th, 2011
Santorini was breathtaking. I wish I could have been there longer(we were only there a day). There is so much I wanted to do but couldn't due to a lack of time. Santorini is situated around a volcano, and that was one of many things I wanted to do. Once again, our hostel picked us up from the port. I have to say, I will never complain about a taxi drivers driving ever again. This man who picked us up was flying up the cliff and up a zig-zag road.. I am pretty sure he accelerated through the turns. Once we got to the hostel(thank goodness), we quickly put our stuff in our room so we could make it to see the sunset from the town of Oia which is famous for its views. We got on the bus and once again we were speeding around turns with a cliff and the ocean on one side. Once we got to Oia we sprinted to the end to see the sunset. We missed most of it but we were able to catch the last bit. We had dinner in Oia and explored the town there some more. If I had millions, I would have stayed in one of the cliffside hotels overlooking the ocean. The next day we headed to Kamari beach which is black lava rock beach. We didn't bring our suits but it was neat to walk on a black sand beach.. it was different than anything I had seen before. After the beach we had lunch in Fira(the main town and the town we stayed in) and looked around the town. Then we headed to the port for one last time for our ferry back to Athens. The island hopping tour was a quick one... looking back I wish I would have gone to just one island and done more, but it was good to get a taste of three different islands. Santorini was definately my favorite and I was sad to leave. We had a long ferry ride back to Athens(8 hours) which I was not really excited to see again. The next morning we left for the airport to head back to Genoa. I had a lot of fun on this trip, however I was ready to go back!

on the black beach in Santorini

Santorini on cliffside (taken from ferry)