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Greece

 


Greece has been a long time coming for us. I had considered this as a trip in 2020 but we know what happened that year.  The anticipation of all that is Greece has built up and in some ways it exceeded my expectations, and my expectations were high!

Sat, 5/24 - AMS --> Athens
We arrived in Athens and explored the area around our lodging. My first impression of Athens is that it is very aesthetically pleasing. Many of the restaurants and streets had flowers and other decor. A tour guide told us that the restaurants in Athens tend to compete on ambiance since the food is all equally good (for the most part). This part of Athens was impressive and unexpected.

Sun, 5/25 - Athens

If you read this blog you can bet that we did a food tour in Athens. Despite it being a little rainy that day, it was a great tour, mostly because Greek food is delicious. Here is an awkward picture I took of Ryan eating baklava.

Mon, 5/26 - Athens

The agenda for this day included the Acropolis and Parthenon tour.  I booked the first slot for the day to avoid crowds which sometimes works, but did not seem to in this case.  Or maybe it would have been even worse later in the day. 😧




The tour also included the Acropolis Museum which holds preserved artifacts retrieved from the Acropolis. Not bad for a museum and it helped that we had a guide to prioritize the best areas of the museum.



One bonus about waiting until now to go to Greece is that because we live in Europe, we have Greek friends! Katerina and Francois, and their daughter Jeanette were in Greece at the same time we were. Katerina is from Athens and often visits during school breaks. Jeanette and Sam go to the British School of Amsterdam so the timing of their May break coincided. And it happened to be both Francois and Katerina's birthday the week we were there so we had the opportunity to go to a nice, slow, boozy lunch with them to celebrate.

Tue, 5/27 - Athens –> Spetses

After a couple days in Athens we went off to explore islands. Deciding which Greek island(s) to visit is an overwhelming task. I decided to just take advice from our friends and go to Spetses, which is where they got married. This involved taking a ferry from Athens which was slightly stressful - quite a bit of yelling and loud whistle blowing from the crew when entering the ferry.

Wed, 5/28 - Spetses

Today we decided on a beach day at Καΐκι Beach Club.  This was a close to perfect beach day for me with all the needed elements - a beach bed/cabana that is fully covered (no need to move myself or an umbrella to avoid the sun), the ability to order food and drinks (again, without moving from my spot),  the option to lay horizontally but with enough incline for my head to be able to read and drink with an unobstructed view of the water.  All criteria met!  The only issue is that it did rain later in the day so we had to move to the restaurant which was nice as well. 


Thu, 5/29 - Spetses (Hydra day trip)
Another reason why Spetses was a good choice as our island home base is that it was easy to get a ferry from there to another island we wanted to visit - Hydra. This was important due to Ryan's obsession with Leonard Cohen (super depressing singer-songwriter), who visited this island in his younger days. We did a scavenger hunt to find all of the Leonard Cohen stops including his house, a memorial bench, and a couple bars that he frequented.

Here is Ryan in front of the door to the house that Leonard lived in when he visited Hydra. This is apparently still owned by the Cohen family.


Street plaque where his house is located:


Memorial bench:


Reference to Leonard's song "Everybody Knows":


Leonard's hangout - "The Pirate Bar":


In addition to Leonard Cohen, Hydra is known as a car-free but donkey-plentiful island.  Donkeys are a common form of transportation on the island.



Also a lot of cats!  Cats are all over Greece but the Hydra cats were especially friendly.



Fri, 5/30 - Spetses
The last day in Spetses I did a solo hike that brought me to an elevated point where I could see the entire island. Very satisfying incline and view!


Sat, 5/31 - Spetses → Athens
Back to Athens for our last night and we did a wine tasting to learn more about Greek wines.  


Ryan does not mind this:


Sun, 6/1 - Athens --> Corfu

Today we departed Athens. I continued my journey to Corfu to meet up with friends (see separate Corfu and Albania blog) and Ryan and Sam went back to Amsterdam.








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