One more thing...

If you want to see all of the pictures we took in Greece (or about 300 of them, at least), check out our shutterfly site. The password is "mattstacia". You don't need an account to see the pictures, just the password. There's also a link at the right. Enjoy!

Greece - Part 4 - Athens

Our last stop of the trip was back in Athens. We flew there from Santorini on Friday morning on Aegean Airlines. The flight was maybe 25 minutes air time, pretty quick. The plane was a regular size plane and was pretty full.

We took the metro from the airport to our hotel, The Royal Olympic. This place was super easy to find, right across the street from the Temple of Zeus. Great location!

The hotel was 5-star, but they had this section of "executive rooms" that were cheaper and probably more like 3-star. That's what I booked. But, when we got there, we got upgraded to a panorama room... which was awesome! The room was huge with a king bed (which was actually two twin beds pushed together), big bathroom, just really nice. And we had a huge window facing out to the Temple of Zeus (hence the "panorama" room).

Our room at the Royal Olympic

Huge bath tub! Yep, I made him do that!

Buttons on the nightstands that controlled everything in the room, even the curtains!

We walked around Athens a little, grabbed some lunch and then headed back to the hotel to hang out at the pool. We lucked out at the pool because two people were leaving as we got there, so we snagged their lounge chairs. Those things are not easy to get! And they were in the sun! (Half of of the pool gets shaded as the day goes on because the hotel blocks the sun.)

That night, we wandered around Athens before dinner. We came across this hill that had an amazing view of the city.

With Athens in the background

We had a couple of drinks at a bar in the Plaka and did a lot of people watching. Some little girl tried to "sell" us free roses and we couldn't figure out what the catch was. She was adament that they were free, but we didn't take them. Still wonder what that was all about.

Matt thought this would be a good time to do a shot of ouzo... our first and only shot of the trip! Afterwards the waiter brought us a shot of metaxa on the house. It was very sweet. That was our only shot of that stuff, too!

Danger!

We finished the night off at the rooftop bar at our hotel. It faced the Acropolis and Temple of Zeus, which are lit up nice at night. Very pretty view!

Saturday was our last full day of the trip. We spent the morning sightseeing. First stop - The Acropolis and The Parthenon. We wanted to get up there before it got too hot and too crowded. But, of course, that would have been maybe 8am, so we were already behind!

The Parthenon was amazing!

Matt and me

Did someone dump a bucket of water on Matt??? Nope, he's just a little bit sweaty!

There was marble on the ground in places, so when we were walking around it was slippery. Can't imagine what it would be like if it was raining. After that, we went to the new Acropolis Museum (ahhh... a/c again!). This place was built over the ruins of the ancient city, which they have excavated underneath. They have clear plastic floors in places so you can see the ancient city. Pretty neat!

Hard to see, but there is a cat down there in the "ancient city"... Matt says to me "must be Zeus' cat"! : )

The top floor of the museum is the Parthenon to scale and it describes all the statues and carvings that went around the top of the Parthenon. There was also a video describing the history and the changes in the Parthenon over the years. Very good museum!

Next stop of our sightseeing was to stroll through Monstiraki, which is a big flea market in Athens. There is everything and anything you could possibly want for sale there. I took a bunch of pictures, which annoyed Matt thoroughly, of course! : )

There were people with stands selling a bunch of crapola

And shops lined the streets with souvenirs and random things

Jewelry overload!

War gear, anyone???

Kind of reminded me of Camden Market in London. After walking through all that, we headed back to the Plaka and had a few beers, grabbed a snack and cooled off!

"Enough with the pictures, man!"

Can of Mythos beer + gyro = a happy husband

Last major stop of our sightseeing was the Temple of Zeus. It might have been because of the beers, but Matt decided to take over the good camera and we ended up with TONS of pictures of the Temple. We have two cameras - one nice Canon Rebel (the "good" camera) and one crappy small one (that's the one we hand to strangers to take pictures of us usually). I can really tell the difference looking at the pictures we took between the two cameras! Love that Canon!

Temple of Zeus with the Acropolis in the background

Me in front of the Temple of Zeus

Mr. Photographer!

Yep, we are dorks!

I turned around and Matt was gone! Can you see where he is? Back in the shade taking pics!

Matt and me in front of the Temple of Zeus with the Acropolis in the background

It was SO hot outside, so we finished the day off at the pool. That night, we met up with a coworker friend (Georgia) of ours that had been in Greece for the past few weeks visiting her family. They have a house in Athens and then another on an island. She comes every summer for a visit. She and her cousin picked us up and we met up with her family for dinner. It was a nice night and a perfect way to end our trip!

Sunday morning we had to get up super early to catch our flight to LHR. I was texting with my Dad and it was still Saturday night around 9pm for him. So strange! We had almost a 6 hour layover in LHR. We shopped, slept some, grabbed lunch, and made our final duty-free purchase (more Baileys!). Matt read an entire book during the layover.

Our flights went really well, we had an exit row again (score!). The plane had the personal tv touch screens so you can watch movies and pause them, rewind, etc. We made it home around 8pm, ordered pizza and crashed!

We had an amazing time on our trip! Beautiful weather, excellent food, lots of relaxing on the beaches... I'm ready to go back! : )

THE END

Greece - Part 3 - Santorini

On Thursday morning, we took another ferry from Paros to Santorini. This time the ferry was smaller and faster. It was called the Flying Cat 3. No cars or trucks, just people... and a lot of luggage!

The ferry stopped at Ios first, which is a total party island. Like Spring Break craziness all the time. On Mykonos, the party started at 1am. On Ios, the party starts at 1pm and goes all through the night. A lot of the young folks got off the ferry at this stop.

The hotel we stayed at on Santorini was near Oia (pronounced "e-ah") and called the Anoemessa Villa. The owner was named Irini and she was a total sweetheart. She made the place 100 times better! She arranged for someone to pick us up from the port and bring us to the hotel.

The cities here are built up high on the cliffs and the roads circle around them, literally right next to the edge of the cliff. I had to close my eyes a few times going around the corners on our ride to the hotel. I thought for sure we'd drop right off.

Oia

Our first day there, we just strolled around Oia, grabbed lunch at a place called Mezzo, and then veg'd out by the pool for a few hours. Oia was like a postcard.... the pictures don't do it justice!

One of the big things to do in Oia is walk to the end of the island and watch the sunset. We did this the first night, along with the hoards of other people. It was crazy packed! The sunset was beautiful, but it was pretty hazy.

Another sunset

Matt and me after the sunset

Getting back afterwards was a challenge!

We went to dinner at Neptune that night. Very good food and an excellent view!

At Neptune Restaurant in Oia

Our hotel included breakfast. They have a menu you order from and they bring it to your balcony every morning at whatever time you want. The food was really good! They had the best Greek yogurt that you mix with honey and fresh fruit. I loved it!

Our room was really cute - it was called a "maisonette" and it had a little kitchen area on the first floor and a lofted bed. Of course, the ceiling up there was low. I may have bonked my head a couple of times. And those ladder stairs take some getting used to.

Our "maisonette"

On Wednesday, we took the bus to Kamari Beach, the black sand beach. The sand was super hot!

Kamari Beach

Matt enjoying a Mythos on the beach

After spending the day at the beach, we cleaned up at the hotel and walked into Oia for dinner. We saw this dog just snoozing away on top of a building. So cute!

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

We didn't brave the crowds to watch the sunset, so we went straight to Feredini Restaurant for dinner. The food was amazing, the setting was beautiful, the waiter was super friendly... it was one of our favorite dinners we had on our trip!

Feredini Restaurant in Oia

Thursday was our last full day on Santorini. We started off the day by going to the Boutari Winery. Not exactly what I expected, but it was a nice stop off. We saw a video presentation that we thought would be how they make wine, but it was an artsy type film with all sorts of pictures.

Since we were the only ones there at the time, the guy showed us around the experimental vineyard and the wine cellar. Then we got to taste a few wines.

The wine was pretty good!

This donkey stared us down and watched us walk by the entire time... creepy!

After the winery, we caught the bus to Red Beach. We waited for the bus a while and then it took a while to get near the beach. We weren't quite sure how to get to the beach from where the bus dropped us off. But we saw a bunch of people jumping in a water taxi so we did that.

About a half hour later, we actually ended up at the Red Beach. The water taxi was chaos. People jumping in and out of the boat, and it didn't stop at the Red Beach on the way out, so we had to ride the route to get to the beach. By the time we got there, we were so ready to be off that boat! We found the way to get back to the bus stop without taking the taxi.

Red Beach

View of Red Beach

We spent our last night on Santorini walking around Oia, stopping for a few drinks at Mezzo, and grabbing a bite to eat.

Hi Matt!

Oia at night

Santorini was gorgeous... just like a postcard! We loved it!

TO BE CONTINUED...

Greece - Part 2 - Paros

On Sunday (8/1), we took a ferry from Mykonos to Paros. This was a quick ride, just over an hour.

Here comes our boat!

Backing in and putting the loading platform down

People and cars get off first before we can board

Patiently waiting to board

Paros is sort of central to a lot of islands, so a lot of ferries stop in there. It's a busy port! A lot of people were getting out at that stop!

Check out all these cars!

These cars are all facing inward (how they drove on). To get out, they start having them turn around on the ship while the platform is going down. This is what I like to call the "asphyxiation phase" of the trip! We all wait near the exit with our luggage while the cars turn on their engines to start turning around and drive out. It seems like mass chaos, but somehow it all works and the boats get in and out pretty quickly.

Anxiously waiting to get the heck outta there!

We made it off the boat and through the hoards of people trying to sell us hotel rooms. I had already booked all of our hotels before we left. Now, the place we were staying at on Paros was in Parikia, the port you arrive at. But, Parikia is a city with a lot of streets and not a lot of street signs... typical Greece.

My directions seemed simple enough, but it took us forever and two phone calls to the hotel to finally get there. Again, lugging our bags and covered in sweat. Ugh! We must have looked pathetic because some Greek woman stopped us on the road and said "Where are you trying to go?" and ended up calling our hotel for us to find out where we needed to walk.

Once we got to the hotel, the owner told us a better way to walk there from the city. The hotel was called Panorama Paros and it was up on the hill above the city center (hence the name Panorama - there's a view). This is when the wheel on my suitcase just about crapped out. It is forever damaged and was acting up the rest of the trip. I don't think it was made for the kind of punishment I was putting it through! : )

Anway, we dropped off our stuff and hit the pool to cool off. The pool was pretty small, but wasn't crowded. I ended up falling asleep for a bit. Love those afternoon naps!

We walked into town that evening to watch the sunset and have dinner. In the book of randomness, we saw this sign outside a restaurant.

100% Pure Meat - The Original American

That's not exactly very comforting... what kind of meat is it??? We didn't eat there. We walked up to the windmill to watch the sunset and have a drink.

Near the windmill in Parikia

The view back of Parikia

Another pretty sunset

We had dinner at a restaurant the hotel recommended, Ambrosia. Not the best food we've ever had. Probably the worst meal of the trip. But, the owner was super nice and even waved to us the next night as we walked by.

On Monday, we took the bus to a nearby fishing village called Naoussa. We walked around the town for a little bit and checked out the beaches there.

A fisherman with his catch of the day

Another boat with crates of fish on ice and squid hanging on the fence

Naoussa Beach - much smaller than the other beaches we've seen

Creepy illusion dude! This guy's poster was everywhere!

We came back to Parikia and hung out at the beach there for the rest of the day. That night, we went to a rooftop bar to catch the sunset before dinner.

Hi Matt!

Another pretty sunset! Can we ever get tired of these???

We had dinner at Christo's and it was fabulous! I had lamb souvlaki and Matt had lamb stifado (lamb with a lot of sweet onions).
 
It was a pretty quick stop in Paros, but definitely nice to see another island.
 
TO BE CONTINUED...