We had planned to visit Greece for Mom's 50th birthday since last summer. It was her choice destination to ring in the big 5-0! The flight over the Athens was fairly quick, 1.5h to Doha on Qatar Airways and then 4.5 h to Athens for 10 days of all things Greek.
Disclaimer: the pictures below will make you extremely hungry and want to book your tickets to Greece right now!
I wasn't sure which islands we would want to spend more or less time on, so we booked these hotels about 1 or 2 days in advance, having only the first 4 nights prearranged. Our itinerary was the following:
1 night Athens, Eridanus Luxury Art Hotel
3 Santorini, Volcano View Hotel
1 Naxos, Galaxy Hotel
2 Mykonos, Ilio Maris Hotel
2 Paros, Katerina Mare
2 Athens, Eridanus & Sofitel at the airport
We booked in at the
Eridanus Luxury Art Hotel which was close to the central area around the Acropolis known as Plaka. It was a great way to spend the first evening in Athens - catching up with Mom after 9 months of being in Oman and a spectacular view of the Acropolis from the roof top restaurant.
The ferry left for Santorini the next morning at 7 am, so we left bright and early to catch the metro to Piraeus port. The ferry took 8 hrs due to a few stops along the way at Paros, Naxos and Ios which gave us a chance to scope out some of the other islands.
I booked us in at
Volcano View Hotel just outside of Thira (or Fira) and it was everything and more than the pictures I had seen. Santorini is a stunning place - deep blue water, white washed houses, blue roofs, and spectacular sunsets!
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| Volcano View Hotel |
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| View from our room! |
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| The hotel pool |
The first day we did a self guided walking tour around Thira (the old town) and did some shopping at the local boutiques. A vendor had recommended one of his favorite places for dinner - Ladokolla. It was exactly what we were looking for, good traditional Greek food with local people dining around us. We had tomato fritters and an eggplant dip to start, follow by octopus and bream fish. Sooo good!
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| Tomato fritters and aubergine dip |
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| Bream fish |
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| Octopus |
We decided to rent a car to tour around the island the second day. It was super convenient, the hotel arranged a rental for 40 euro a day and we did pick-up/drop off at the hotel. We decided to explore some of the beaches around Santorini, first driving to Ammoudi bay, then Kamari beach for the afternoon and Red Beach for the sunset. At Ammoudi bay we found a quiet swimming hole and also checked off one of mom's bucket list items, cliff jumping! Kamari beach was our next stop and was also really nice, there was lots of beach space and bars along the boardwalk. A Greek tavern caught our eye where the 'momma' was outside greeting customers. It was her restaurant Irini's, and so we decided to give it a go for dinner.
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| Breakfast at the hotel |
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| 'Opi' our rental Opel (the clutch gave out at the end) |
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| A fisherman at Ammoudi bay |
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| Ammoudi Bay - it really is this picturesque! |
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| The water was really clear |
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| We found a good jumping spot! |
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| Adam's running man |
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| Kamari beach - black sand/pebbles |
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| Dinner @ Irini's - Greek salad, tzaiki, dolomades |
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| Grilled squid, Mousaka in a clay pot and leg of lamb |
Our time in Santorini passed by quickly, the third day we toured around Fira some more and found another lovely, local restaurant, Nikolaus's Tavern. Still opting for all things Greek, we had Imam (an eggplant and tomato stew), lamb stifado, and cod fish. The next day we took the ferry to Naxos for a short 1 night stay at Hotel Galaxy in the main city Hora. It was situated along St. George's beach, not far from the main town square. We found a quaint restaurant seaside for diner and settled on sardines, souvlaki, and stuffed squid.
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| Nikolaus Tavern - Greek Salad, this one was sooo good! |
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| Nikolaus Tavern - Saganaki (grilled Gruyere cheese) |
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| In Naxos (Hora) |
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| Hotel Galaxy |
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| Sardines, pork souvlaki and stuffed squid |
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| Kavouri - along the beach |
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| Fresh octopus! |
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| Portara - ancient ruins at the Naxos port |
We spent the morning walking around town and shopping at the boutique stores. We made our way back to the port and came across a bundle of octopus being dried out for dinner! They were pretty big, and the fisherman said he has to spear each one.
We opted for the seajet instead of the ferry over to Mykonos which took about half the time. It was like an airplane on water!
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| Aboard the seajet |
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| Ilio Maris - Mykonos |
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| Mykonos - those windmills are there for a reason |
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| Streets of Mykonos |
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| Ornos beach on Mykonos |
So far each island has had it's own personality. Mykonos has a reputation for being the 'party island', and it certainly was a younger crowd. Our hotel,
Ilio Maris was in a great spot, just up the hill from the city center overlooking the bay. Apart from the crowd, we also noticed how different the weather was. It was pretty windy for the 3 days we were there. However, not far from the main city there was a beautiful sheltered beach called Ornos. This must have been a safe haven for boats as there were quite a few moored in the bay. We spent 2 nights at Mykonos and got a suggestion from a fellow Canadian at our hotel to check out Paros. I was torn between going up to the Peloponesse (to see Olympia and Sparta) for a few days before heading back to Athens, but the ferry timing didn't really work out. We decided to check out Paros and booked a fabulous hotel,
Katerina Mare for our last 2 nights is the cyclades.
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| Paroikia (main town on Paros) |
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| Stopped for a souvlaki and beer at a tavern along Paros port, delicious! |
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| Katerina Mare, in Naoussa |
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| 2 bedroom suite overlooking the marina and beach |
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| View from the patio |
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| Breakfast outside on the patio - thank you Katerina! |
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| Santa Maria beach, short drive 15 min drive from Naoussa |
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| Marble - from quarries on Naxos and Paros |
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| Kolymbithres beach - one of the best on Paros |
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| Engineer by trade, working out of his family home which is 400 years old. We took home one of his paintings, lovely work. |
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| La Piazza in Naoussa, happy medium between Greek and Italian - a greek pizza |
Paros was a wonderful surprise, we thought our hotel was in Paroikia but instead found out it was a short drive up the coast in Naoussa. The town was quintessential greece! A small fishing village, some tourists, but not many, and beautiful sand beaches. We couldn't have lucked out any better with picking Katerina Mare. It was run by a family who were superb hostesses. We rented a car for a day and drove to a few different beaches on the north side of Paros. Santa Maria was very nice, long sand beach with a view of the mountains on neighboring Naxos. Each beach was stunning but we decided to go inland to Lefkes, a town set in the mountains. The drive was pretty cool and it didn't take long to get anywhere. It was also really easy and affordable to rent a car, we were on our way within 10 minutes. We found a more secluded beach, Kolymbithres across the bay from where we were staying and spent the rest of the afternoon there.
That evening we decided to go for Italian after walking by a few pizza places that looked good. It turned out to be a great choice, La Piazza in Naoussa was very good. We had a Fagado - (spinach, ham, cream sauce) and Greek pizza.
The next day we parted with Katerina Mare and boarded the ferry back to Athens.
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| The main mode of transportation |
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| Town of Lefkes on Paros |
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| Driving around to the different beaches |
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| Me, Katerina, Demetria (her daughter) and Mom |
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| Acropolis view from our hotel room |
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| Ancient ruins |
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| Paradosiako - awesome restaurant in Plaka |
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| Calamari - best we've ever had! |
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| Stuffed tomatoes |
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| Bream fish |
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| Odeon at the Acropolis |
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| Temple of Olympian Zeus |
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| Panathinakio Stadium - 85 mln tons of marble |
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| The Parthenon |
We spent a day and a half touring around Athens which was enough time to see the highlights and do some shopping. The ferry arrived in Piraeus just after 3, so we checked in, dropped our bags, and set off towards Plaka. I was told to look up this really good Greek restaurant in Plaka that was run by a Ma & Pa called Paradosiako. I'm really glad we made the effort to find it amongst all the other choices around Plaka, it was our favorite meal of the whole trip! The food was really tasty, we started out with a Greek salad and
tarama which were both so good. Then decided on the calamari, stuffed tomatoes, and bream. The calamari was THE BEST we've ever had. Instead of fully battered squid rings, it was a whole small squid loosely battered with really tasty herbs and lemon. Yum!
The last day we toured the Acropolis, Temple of Olympian Zeus and Panathinakio Stadium. These were all within walking distance and we lucked out having the only cloudy day of our holiday. The parthenon was busy, but not congested by any means. We were able to get good pictures (with hardly anyone in the way) and am glad we took the time to see the Acropolis and other ruins. Its quite amazing to see it all up close and read the history. Although you can see quite a bit from behind the fence, it was worth going in to see it all.
Greece was an awesome holiday...easy to travel between islands, people were super friendly, and more surprising was how affordable everything was compared to the other EU countries.
On average we spent 100 euro/nt for hotels (mostly 4 star and included buffet breakfasts), and an average of 50 euro for dinner for 3 people. And this included wine, appies, mains, and often dessert ;)
Greece left a lasting impression with us and we'll be talking about this holiday for awhile.
