Greece, 2018

June 10 – June 22, 2018
TWELVE GREAT DAYS EXPLORING ATHENS AND THE AMAZING GREEK ISLANDS

In June of 2018 we spent thirteen amazing days in Greece. We arrived into Athens and spent half a day touring the city’s major Greek monuments and then boarded a ferry to begin our tour of the two Cyclades islands Folegandros and Naxos and then onto the island of Crete. On our first visit to Greece in 2005, we spent two nights in Athens and then extended visits to the islands of Mykonos and Santorini. On this trip we wanted to visit islands more off the beaten path, less touristy and more immersive to the actual Greek Cyclades culture. We had an amazing experience visiting ancient ruins, eating incredible food and best of all lots of time spent on beautiful Greek beaches and in the clear blue Aegean Sea that surrounds them.

Athens June 10, 2018

Our flight from Los Angeles to Athens included a plane transfer in Philadelphia. We left LAX on Saturday June 9 and arrived at Athens International Airport (ATH) on Sunday June 10. We were greeted by our transfer driver who, after a driving tour of Athens and lunch, took us to the SeaJets pier at the Port of Pireas. On our 2005 visit to Greece we nearly missed our ferry out of Pireas to Mykonos so we were happy to have a driver who knew exactly where to take us. Glenn refers to our frantic effort to make our Mykonos ferry as something right out of the Amazing Race! As mentioned above, this was our second visit to Athens and as we were eager to start our Greek Island adventure we did not spend a night there. That didn’t stop us from stopping at several monuments to admire their beauty and take imagery. The city was bustling as it is rebounding from recent national financial crises.

Athens stay details:

  • We ate at:
  • Things we did:
    • Our airport tansfer driver took us on a scenic driving tour and we visited (stopped to observe and take pictures) the Panathenaic Stadium, Temple of Zeus, The Academy of Athens, Plaka, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Plateia Syntagmatos and Mount Lycabettus.

Folegandros June 10 – 14, 2018

We caught our SeaJets foot ferry from the Port of Pireas at 4:30 p.m. for a five hour trip to the island of Folegandros. Folegandros is a tiny very arid island with several beautiful beaches. We stayed at the Anemi Hotel located in the port Karavostasis. It is an absolutely beautiful hotel with a gorgeous infinity pool and from our hip, spacious room we had a nice view of the port. We spent three great days on our ATV exploring the island from one end to the other. We explored and dined in the main town Chora, visited several beaches and spent a whole day on a boat excursion beach-hopping as we circled the island. Of the three islands we visited this was by far my favorite!

Folegandros Island stay details:

Naxos June 14 – 17, 2018

We left Folegandros the morning of Thursday, June 14 for Naxos. We had an absolutely fantastic time on Folegandros and were sorry to leave. We boarded our SeaJets foot ferry and enroute to Naxos stopped at the following other Cycladic islands: Santorini, Amorgos and Koufonisi. We arrived to Naxos’s largest town Chora on a beautiful sunny afternoon and were greated with the iconic standing arch on the ancient site of the Temple of Apollo. After some pictures of the beautiful town we met our driver and drove to Agios Prokopios and our new hip boutique hotel Eighteen Grapes. Naxos is the largest Cycladic island with a mixture of beaches, ancient ruins, agriculture and unique villages located in the island’s mountains. In three days we managed to immerse ourselves in all these qualities of Naxos resulting in a fantastic visit.

Naxos Island stay details:

  • We stayed at the: Eighteen Grapes
  • We ate at:
  • Things we did:
    • On our first day of touring on our ATV we drove deep into Naxos’s interior visiting the Church of St. Nicodemus, Church of Ayios Nikolaos, Temple of Demeter, the beautiful towns of Chalkio, Filoti and a ride through the mountains ending at the cliff side town of Apeiranthos. During our ride we passed through beautiful green valleys, farmland and narrow, steep mountain roads.
    • On our second day of touring on our ATV we visited the two abandoned statues in the Melanes Valley: the Kouros of Flerio and the Kouros of Farangi. We then rode into Naxos Town and toured the Temple of Apollo and the old fortified area known as the Kastro which consists of several old Venetian fortresses. During our visit we experienced a downpour that flooded all the narrow walkways!
    • We spent the morning of the third day on the beautiful sandy Agios Prokopios Beach

Crete June 17 – 21, 2018

We woke up Sunday June 17 and spent the morning on sunny calm Prokopios Beach. Once back to 18 Grapes we boarded our transfer to Naxos Town for our 1:45 p.m. ferry to Heraklion Crete. Our SeaJets ferry – Champion Jet 2 – is a large beautiful catamaran ferry that can carry 1,000 passengers, 200 vehicles and go 40 knots. Another nice feature of this ferry is that it has an open passenger deck so you can get fresh air all while taking in the beautiful Cycladic Islands. Our four hour trip to Crete involved two stops at Ios and Santorini before arriving at sunset into Heraklion. We met our hotel transfer and set out on the hour drive to the town of Elounda where our hotel Blue Palace is located. Thus began a five day visit to the eastern half of Crete which included time on gorgeous Greek beaches, touring several small Cretan coastal towns, wine tasting, touring the fortress island of Spinalonga and a visit to the World Heritage site and ancient Minoan city known as the Palace of Knossos. As we researched Crete we realized that the island is so large that there was no way we could see all of it in three full days of touring. Therefore we chose to focus on the eastern half of the island leaving the much more remote western half for another visit. We ate great food including cheese, drank great Cretan wine and visited some incredibley beautiful towns and ancient Greek monuments. We were sorry to go as there are so many things left to see and experience.

Crete stay details:

  • We stayed at the: Blue Palace
  • We ate at:
  • Things we did:
    • On our first morning of touring we picked up our rental car in Agios Nikolaos and headed east. We toured the small, charming seaside town of Mochlos, had lunch in Sitia and in the late afternoon arrived at Vai Beach on the remote east coast. We passed through both arid and forested terrain and several small villages. Vai Beach is beautiful with a natural palm tree forest (consisting of Cretan date palms) and beautiful sandy beaches. We rented chaise lounges and spent a couple of hours relaxing and swimming.
    • Our second day of touring had us leaving Elounda early to visit the World Heritage site and ancient Minoan city known as the Palace of Knossos. We arrived to reasonable crowds and spent three hours exploring the ruins, semi-reconstructed structures and famous frescos. It is one of two of Greece’s most important monuments; the other being the Acropolis and Parthenon in Athens which we toured in 2005. We then drove south into Crete’s wine region and visited Bakaliko in Archanes for wine tasting and a fantastic lunch. After our late lunch we returned to Blue Palace and immediately headed to the beach to relax and swim in the Aegean.
    • On our third and final day of touring we visited the island of Spinalonga which is located just off the beach of our hotel. We took a shuttle from Plaka and spent several hours exploring the island. The island at one time was a Venetian fortress to protect the entranceway of the port of Ancient Olous. It then fell to the Ottoman empire and became a refuge for the last Ottoman settlers prior to them leaving Crete in the late 19th century. For a part of the 20th century it became a leper colony that housed all of Greece’s lepers. It is an interesting place full of various ruins and allows for great views of Elounda. After returning to Plaka we toured this charming seaside town.