Tracey and I had a fab time cruising the Greek Islands!!
We arrived about midday on Sunday, we met Lauree (Tracey's sister) at the airport and caught the taxi to our hotel. Upon dropping off our things we headed out to explore Athens, first priority was lunch. We found a restaurant nearby and ordered several meals to share, Mousakka, Tziki and 2 other meaty dishes. It was great food! Very tasty. From there we spied the Acropolis up on the hill, so we huffed and puffed in the heat of the day to the top. Along the way we met a guy from Melbourne called Sal, so he tagged along with us for company. The views on the way up were amazing, Athens is huge, it is a sprawling city, for miles you can see white/sand stone buildings, they glisten in the sun like specs of sand on the beach. At the top we walked through the ruins and spent some time taking pictures of the view.
At this stage I began to feel a bit of culture shock.... 3 hours ago I was in London and now I am standing in ancient ruins, how can this be... and feeling a little overwhelmed.
From there we walked down and visited the Temple of Zeus, the Olympic Stadium, The National Gardens and then the Parliament house and also watched 3 guards walk by in their very odd uniform as they went to change over.
Back to the hotel we freshen up for the evening as we met out Contiki Companions and went out for the Athens Plaka Meal, with dancing! It was a nice evening, but was happy to get to bed, as had been up since 3am for the flight.
The next day, up early we all took the coach to the port to board our cruise ship the Aqua Marine, it wasn't that flash, being built in 1971, but was pretty impressive never the less. We set sailed to our first Island Mykonos, we all disembarked and spent several hours on the Island, checking out the cute ally's with all the shops. I indulged in a white belgium chocolate crepe with Baileys... mmm.... it was lovely. At 7:54pm the sunset, all the tourists gathered about to watch. It was amazing... once the sun sank everyone clapped! and I thanked God. After watching the sunset we had a little longer to look about the shops, we had to be back on the boat by 10pm as the Captain waited for no one!!! and we were leaving. Drained I went to bed, it was a rocky night on the top buck!
Day three we awoke and found ourselves in Turkey! After a buffet breakfast we disembarked and I joined the optional tour to ancient Ephesus, whilst Tracey and Lauree had a scrub down at the Turkish Baths. I am so glad that I did this tour. The city was awesome. The ruins are amazing, we had a great guide to who was very informative. In this region Paul commenced his ministry. We were then taken to a carpet sales room and shown many beautiful carpets and served apple tea. Interesting stuff.... but very expensive. After the tour, Emma (contiki friend) and I toured the Bazaar, I bought a ring, I got it bargined down from 30 euro to 15 euro... I was happy! and brought a shawl. Turkey was lovely. No time to loiter... back on the boat for Buffet lunch as we continued on to the Island of Patmos. At 2:30 each day games were held on the pool deck, this was a lot of fun to watch, Tracey had a great time participating, you can find out about this by reading her blogg!
At Patmos most of us took a hike up to the top of the Island were the cave is in which St John abode in while he was captive on the Island, I went inside, there was a worn down hole in the cave wall were they say he rested his head and above this there was a crack in the ceiling where they say he had his revelation from God. Further up to the top of the Island was the monastery of the apocalypse. It was a nice place. But the views from the top of the Island were stunning! After making our way all the way down I went for a quick dip in the little beach area. Then back on the boat to set sail again.
All 3 meals were included on board, and snacks thoughout the day, along with an all inclusive drinks cards, which I we paid 20 euros a day for, this allowed us to drink as many drinks as we wished from the selected list and they were esentially free! It was great, the cocktail of the day was also on this list and also other things like ice coffee and ice cream, so it was well worth it.
This night was the Contiki Cocktail evening followed by Greek Dinner. We had a fun night in the disco dancing.
Day four we awoke to the Island of Rhodes, this was a lovely Island, it had lots of shops!! There was the old city surrounded by huge walls and then the rest outside the walls, we wandered about the shops for a while and then made our way to the beach, we went for a dip and then lounged on the sun chairs for a price of 4 euro each. It was lovely, soaking in the sun that I miss so dearly. This little asian lady was walking amongst the deck chairs selling massages. So Tracey asked for a Leg and Foot Massage, she was throughly enjoying it and I was eagerly waiting for her to finish so I could experiance the same pleasure... but just as she was finishing up her friend came running up shouting to her and then she ran off.... the police were after her!! It was obviously illegal!!! It was amusing watching them play cat and mouse as she ducked and hid amoungst the chairs. She didn't get time to collect the payment, so Tracey got it for Free!!!
Back on the boat... This night was the captains dinner, so we got to meet the Captain, shake his hand and had dinner. There was a bar and a disco onboard so we all hung out there till the early hours. Whilst in Rhodes I brought some cute little black sandals to wear with my black dress that I packed, also brought a cheap bracelet to match my ring from Turkey.
Day Five, Crete, our tour manager told us that if we didn't get off the boat we would miss much, but with curiosity we got off and found out for ourselves that it was a bore! partly because we have to dock in the in ports with the cruise ship and miss out on the smaller areas and beaches, happy to be back on the boat we cruised to the highlight of the trip, Santorini. We took tender boats to shore then piled into a coach, which took us up the windy and particularly hairy coastal road to the top of the Island to the area with the lovely white buildings perched on the cliff side with the bright blue dome roofs, everyone had a great time here, snapping away with their cameras.
We only had limited time before we had to get back on the coach to be taken to the town of Oia with more beautiful views from the top of the island and were we would take our journey down the island via cable car or donkey.... so how did I get down.... yup you bet.... Donkey! Humm, so I thought it would be a pleasant ride down a small little path, hummm yeah NO not at all.... it was a windy cobble path, and the donkey (mine was more like a horse) hoofs slipped on the stones, it was scary, I thought I would fall off. The whole experience lasted about 20mins. Yikes was I glad to be off that Donkey! On the journey down the hill the sun was setting, it was stunning!!! Very beautiful!!!
Back to the boat for a shower, to wash away Donkey smell! Tonight was our last night on the boat and was going to apparently be an all nighter for some. After another nice dinner we went to the disco where I danced the night away, while others sat and chatted. About 2am I headed to bed. As we had to be up at 6am the next day to pack up and leave!
Back in Athens we bid farewell to each other. Most of us had time to kill before catching flights in the evening, so some of us chilled at a cafe for late brekky. A few of us then jumped on the little train that tours Athens, Tracey and Lauree went to look about the markets. I thought it would be a relaxing tour, without having exhert much energy, but at the Acropolis we all jumped off, so up I hiked again! Not too much of a bother as how often does one get to be in Athens. We had a wonderful time up there, we took lot of cool photos doing some fun poses.
We then made our way to the airport to farewell Lauree and relax for a few hours until our flight, this is when the trouble hit, as our flight was suppose to leave at 9:30pm but we didn't get to board until 12 midnight, it was not nice. We were dog tired, operating on 4 hours sleep from the night before and just wanting to be home. 4:30am we got back home!
Overall it was a fabulas time, the group of us all got along really well, we had fun exploring and hanging about on the boat, everyone was so friendly. We had lots of laughs and good times!
xo
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