NZ Tiger hits the Greek Islands...
Trip Start
Jul 26, 2009
1
7
10
Trip End
Oct 03, 2009
Athens,
Greece
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
It was awesome meeting up with girlfriends again in Gatwick. We caught an early morning Easyjet flight to Santorini... I was the subject of many stares as I spluttered and coughed my way through the flight. I'm thoroughly convinced that people thought I had swine flu... ah well, I was going to the Greek Islands so who cares what people thought? (Even though the girls had to share a room with my coughing fits).
Anyway to the point.
Santorini first. Beautiful beautiful beautiful island. We stayed at a pretty decent hostel/apartments near Perissa beach, a black sand beach not exactly how you picture the beaches..
Loving the quaddies...
. pitiful to say, we never actually did swim in the ocean in Santorini... or in Ios... (luckily we swam in the ocean 'once' in Paros). Santorini is actually a lot bigger than we had imagined so we decided to hire quaddies and zip around the island that way... this is a pretty common way to get around, in fact I think there are more quad bikes on the island than cars. I'll admit, there were a few near misses... I was struggling to come to terms with the whole Right Hand Side of the road thing... there actually was no reverse, so reversing consisted of Nikki and I physically pushing the bike backwards. Went a bit mad in the jewellery stores in Fira (main town) and then in the evening missioned the ride across the island to Oia which is the site of all the picture-postcard-sunsets you've probably seen from the Greek Islands. Yes it was rather picturesque, however what the postcards don't show you is the crowds of people that you can't escape from. Rather claustrophobic to be honest. Somehow we managed to quad back in girly dresses, and in the dark, post-sunset, back to Perissa. Kind of a weird experience. After 2 nights we headed to Ios. Not without a little bit of drama as I received a phonecall in broken english informing me that 'bad weather' had cancelled our ferry. Considering all other ferries were sailing and the shining sunshine and calm seas this reason was rather dubious... we then had about 1 hour of stress as we tried to find the ticket office, ferry etc and get on another one (along with abut 100 others...). We were soon to learn that the Greek ferry system isn't necessarily the most efficient.
Ios second. Lived up to the reputation of party island but was probably our favourite. We stayed in fantastic self-catering apartments, Island House, a few hundred metres from Mylopatos beach
Oia
. Would totally recommend this place as the owners were awesome, the pool was gorgeous, and it was just a fabulous spot. Anyway, back to the island logistics. Most of our days were spent laxing by the pool, lazing at the most chilled italian restaurant ever, and then planning what time to have our cocktail... We had discovered we were addicted to greek tsatziki (btw the greek yoghurt is also out of this world) and downed with a few homemade cocktails, we were on our way. All the action happens in Hora and it doesn't really kick off till about 1am... when it does, it's rather insane. This nana doesn't do all-nighters often (and for good reason), but it was a 6.30am bed time that was rather well worth it. To be honest, while you don't always want to be surrounded by Kiwis/Aussies while travelling, in this instance it was rather refreshing (never thought I'd say it). We only spent 1 of our 2 nights out and in retrospect should have gone the whole hog and done both... but the girls were struggling with our hangovers and we thought we'd make up for it in Paros... In between Ios-Paros.... a very traumatic ferry ride in high winds. Enough said.
Paros third. Meh. A bit of a let down to put it bluntly after the higher standards set by previous islands. Popular with the Greeks and French, and a family holiday destination so we were definitely in the minority
Positively glowing!
. The island is pretty spread out so we hired a jeep and Nic tested her right hand side skills (she did much better than I did)... we just drifted between towns, bought jewellery, were subjected to terrible customer service, and not much else! Hiring a bike/car was absolutely essential - although unfortunately we couldn't avoid the sleaziness of all employees at the car rental shop (this is where I was christened 'New Zealand Tiger' while my cleavage was examined... charming). We visited Naoussa and also the 'clubbing-beach' which again was mainly occupied by Greek/French and the beach consisted of sardine-packed loungers and umbrellas on a tiny strip of sand. Not our idea of fun. Finally went for our first dip in the Aegean sea in Golden Beach... figured it would be criminal to leave the Islands without swimming in the ocean! We also spent a lot of our two nights reminiscing about Santorini and Ios!Lastly, Athens. I'd heard pretty crap reviews of the place from mates so had relatively low expectations. It wasn't bad, it wasn't great. We missioned up to the Acropolis (after a few wrong turns... not sure how that happened when the Acropolis is the biggest landmark in town and on top of a hill...) which was well, pretty average. Yeah it was pretty awesome if I thought about it long and hard in the context of history, however when everything is covered in scaffolding and you've paid 12 euro to wander about something you have limited knowledge of and no information provided..
Whose thumb is that?!
. maybe a litttle short changed? Ah well, I ticked it off the list and it killed some time. After 7 nights it was back to London for a 4 hour stopover before I hit Prague. Nearly didn't make it as our Athens taxi driver had a death wish as he drove 160 km/hr in a 60-70 k zone. He seemed to find my back seat driving hilarious (we meanwhile did not) and I'm still thanking God we made it to the airport alive. (Ironically, my taxi driver in Prague was also a speed demon. Normally you want your taxi drivers to go faster... not in this case). We then proceeded to argue over the fare with the driver, however after Morocco I think I've become pretty determined with any form of negotiation (if I do say so myself) plus I wasn't paying any extra for my near-death experience.
I loved the Greek Islands! If I did it again I would definitely skip Paros and spend at least 3 nights in each location - Ios and Santorini. It's near impossible to skip Athens, but don't spend more than a night there... there's just not a whole lot to do and it's hot without escape. Oh and eat all the Greek yoghurt you can - I'm getting withdrawals...
