greece
Tyler and I decided to visit Greece for our honeymoon, a trip in large part born of my obsession with Mamma Mia. It lived up to the hype.
Kind people, cheap water bottles, beautiful scenery and a 3,000 year-old building everywhere you turned: it was a lovely, hot week of exploring.
Though we hit a snaffoo with the train getting into Athens from the airport, we were able to hail a cab to take us to our hotel where we pretty much collapsed and ordered over $100 worth of room service. When we recouped the next day, we walked all around Athens for a mythology tour: Zeus’ temple, the Acropolis, and the temple of Dionysus to name a few. It was pretty warm so we were glad the water bottles were only 5o cents. We then headed to lunch, where our dining experience was lengthened due to the unexpected presence of a 40-person group that appeared to be a cult (multiple races, all wearing different white clothing, all had bluetooth headsets and the leader with a mic, participated in a ritualistic prayer before the meal). The internet was no help so if anyone has any insight, we’re deeply curious. We spent the rest of the day perusing shops in Plaka and Monastiraki, attempting to learn the Greek alphabet on Duolingo, visiting the Acropolis museum, discovering ancient ruins under nearly every building (clear floors), and dining at a beautiful restaurant at sunset with an Acropolis view. The next morning, we walked through the National Garden to visit Aristotle’s school, then impulsively hit the Museum of Ancient Greek Technology, which turned out to be really cool. We speed-walked to find a place that would give us a gyro to go, ate them on the run, and made it back to the hotel to leave for our flight just in time.
We arrived in Santorini on Wednesday evening. There was a man holding our name on a sign (first time ever) and he took us most of the way to our Airbnb in Akrotiri. Panos, our host, met us and walked us the rest of the way. It was even better than the photos, tucked away in a little village with a private hot tub and a view of the Caldera. We unpacked, fangirled (and fanboyed) over our digs for the next few days, and headed out to one of Panos’ many recommendations for dinner. It was a beautiful restaurant (the restaurant interiors in Greece were beautiful across the board) where I had an absolutely delicious $17 cocktail and Tyler tried some salmon (we’ll make a seafood man out of him). We eventually realized we had been at this place for nearly 3 hours, so we went home and went to bed. The next morning, we did what we were going to do many more times, and visited another of Panos’ endless and incredible recommendations for breakfast. Their Greek yogurt was actually good and didn’t make me gag (in Greece, go figure) and there was a waffle with ice cream involved. 10/10. We meandered a bit and met the car to take us to our sunset catamaran cruise, about which we knew very little aside from they would feed us and we would see the sunset. We did not bring bathing suits, as we are not boat people and didn’t realize we would be stopping to swim, but we went swimming in our clothes because when else are we going to jump off a catamaran into the Mediterranean?? The water was so clear and SO salty to the point that our bodies and hair were visibly salty as we dried. Tyler only got seasick for about an hour, but he recovered to spend the evening with a lovely crew and all of our new friends who were also on the cruise with us. It was a great evening and a fantastic way to see the island! The next morning, we did a photoshoot with a lovely Canada-to-Santorini transplant who was very kind and gave us some more recommendations. He also brought us to this amazing view of the caldera where we hiked a bit and possibly trespassed in a tiny church. We spent much of the middle of the day trying to get home (the buses are not very reliable) but we eventually did, at which point we got ready for our wine tour! The couple who led the tour, friends of Panos’, both grew up on Santorini and we learned SO much about the island and their traditions. There are no road names or street numbers on the island. They go pick up their mail at the post office by name and use landmarks to get around. Culturally, they’re a matriarchy, so the men marry into the womens’ families. Before getting married, the families of the bride have to provide a house for the couple that the bride and potential children would live in should anything go sideways. There are so many tiny churches on the island because each family has their own church, owned by the oldest female in the family. On the “day” of the saint the church is named after, they host a party with food and wine that anyone can come to. Every family also makes wine. Speaking of wine, they took us to 3 different wineries, we tried 12 different wines, and the PDO dessert wine of the island (vinsanto) is delicious. The next day was our free day: we hit our breakfast place (again) and headed to the ancient village of Akrotiri (hiked behind a farm to get there), an astonishingly large archeological site from the bronze age. We then headed down to Red Beach, which is kind of off-limits but still quite traveled, despite having to basically rock climb to get down to it. There was no sand, only rocks, and the water was so cool and refreshing. We then trekked back to the village square, hitting a roadside stand for some tomato paste on the way (their tomato paste is out of this world and I’d eat it with a spoon). We hit another local restaurant for lunch, probably our favorite food of the trip (chicken and grilled halloumi on pita with greek yogurt and tomatoes). They also brought out their house dessert wine which was delicious. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around, climbing, and shopping, ate at the first restaurant again, and packed to head out (reluctantly) early the next morning.
It’s expensive to get over there, but GO TO GREECE! It was beautiful and so relaxing. 10/10.
