The Sunset Traveler - Our Agean Adventure
Trip Start
Unknown
1
2
Trip End
Ongoing
New Orleans,
Louisiana,
United States
Friday, November 6, 2009
Yamas!
The Greek Adventure
You may be wondering why The Sunset Traveler. Did we choose that title because of our age group? No, we do not consider ourselves to be in our sunset years even though our average age is sixty. We chose the title The Sunset Traveler because we enjoy ending our day watching the sun set. We want to make sure that our trips not only include visits to museums, architectural ruins, and city tours but also time to sit back, take in the view of the evening and reminisce about our daily adventures. What better way to accomplish this, other than a toast to the setting sun: "Yamas!"
How Our Adventure Came to Be
We can't get through a meal without a discussion of a past or future one
Frannie and Shirley making choices
. That’s true of most of us from New Orleans. In our circle of friends, it’s the same for travel. Our 2009 trip to Greece was in the works as early as during our first trip in 2000. While John & I were there, we kept saying, "The next time…". Well, our “next time” came in September 2009. This go round we recruited two others with our shared vision, Shirley and Don. We’d traveled together before – quite successfully. The fact that we can withstand the stress of foreign travel is a testament to our friendship. As couples, we complement each other - just enough alike to enjoy the same things and different enough to keep it interesting. John and I brought a bit of experience to this trip – some helped, and well, some didn’t. Shirley and Don brought the excitement of a fresh outlook. We’d like to share our Grecian expedition with you. We’ll share our pre-trip planning, our trip experiences, and our reflections upon our return. Throughout these writings you’ll notice the Greek symbol (Ω) marking our tips that we hope you will find useful. Besides putting this together, we’ll be cooking. When the four us get together to remember our adventure, we’ll share our attempts at recreating the wonderful meals we shared. During our cooking sessions, we’ll take the time to toast the sunset, just as we did in Greece
Guys checking on the Yacht
. Good food, good drink, good friends in the glow of a breathtaking sunset - it doesn’t get any better than that!Phase One - Decisions, Decisions
Where will we go?
To Greece - The Cyclades Islands and Athens
How will we get there?
By air & sea
How exactly by sea?
We’ll sail!
Sailing the Aegean, what an adventure
Frannie and Shirley
! Shirley and Don do have some experience on the water, but not enough to skipper a boat in Greece. So we started doing some Internet surfing for boat charters that included skippers.
When we Googled “Sailing in Greece” and opened several sites, “bare boating” often appeared. That prompted us to add it to our searches. There are many charter companies, but we decided on Exas Worldwide Yacht Charters because of its credentials and the ease we found in contacting them.
www.exasyachts.com
The bottom-line is you just have to have a feeling about some things, and we had that “just right” feeling with this company. We e-mailed and then phoned. We spoke directly to Thalea Lyras the President of Exas Worldwide Yacht Charters Inc. Thalea advised us to purchase travel insurance. We each chose our own.
http://www.travelguard.com
www.travelex-insurance.com
On the Exas site, we viewed pictures of boats and settled on a Bavaria 43 cruiser with three cabins (43 foot length). We placed a deposit through our credit cards. We simply faxed our information.
Ω If you do not have experience sleeping on a sailboat or you are not a land camper, you should opt for a larger vessel than the Bavaria 43.
Once our boat choice was made, it was time to select our skipper. After answering a few of Thalea’s questions about ourselves, she guided us to a few possible skippers. We looked at pictures and read profiles. Our choice was Giannis. Three of us are former teachers, and in his profile it stated he had been a teacher as well.
http://www.exasyachts.com/our_skippers.htm
Ω You’re going to be in close quarters for a week – so having a skipper with something in common with you helps
We had our boat and skipper, so now we searched for flights. Our best deal out of New Orleans was through Delta. Other carriers flew to Athens, but the prices were higher and the schedules were longer. With Delta there was only one connection in Atlanta. Shirley and Duck used frequent flier miles to upgrade to first class. John was lucky as he got us really cheap fares about 2:00 in the morning after surfing the net on a whim.
www.delta.com
Our sailing charter began on the island of Paros. Our choices to get there by ferry were either a morning or afternoon departure. We opted for the Blue Star 7:25 A.M. ferry.
http://www.ferries.gr
If we had been bolder, we could have ordered tickets online, but we waited too long. Exas Yachts works with the travel agency Delmare. Nicole, an agent in Athens, got our tickets.
If you are truly a “by the seat of your pants traveler,” you can usually get tickets at the dock the day before or even the day of travel. We felt better going the advance purchase route.
We only needed accommodations in Piraeus for one night and in Athens for five nights. Our hotel search began. We Googled for Greek Hotels. We wanted the Hotel Plaka, in Athens, but waited too long to book. Since John and I previously stayed at the Plaka we wanted the same area as it was situated in the heart of the old town where many of the ancient sites are located as well as souvenir shops. Instead of booking on our own we contacted Nicole to find us an alternate place. She booked us rooms at the Savoy Hotel in Piraeus and the Esperia Palace Hotel in Athens. We checked out those places on Trip Advisor.
http://www.tripadvisor.com
Ω Book rooms early – If there are no cancellation penalties, you can always make another choice later if you find something better.
When all of the transportation and accommodations were settled, we explored activities on specific islands in the Cyclades.
Ω With a bare boat charter, you cannot guarantee your destinations - only the region you want to explore. The sea and the wind will decide. If you really have your heart set on a particular island or islands, you have two choices – make an offering to Aeolus and Poseidon http://www.theoi.com or stay on one island that has ferry access to the ones you want to visit. If you choose the former, good luck – with the latter you will cut into your actual sailing experience.
We purchased guide books and surfed the Internet for information on various islands and discovered a myriad of activities ranging from horseback riding to digital photo tours.
The Michelin Green Guide: Greece
DK Eyewitness Travel: The Greek Islands
DK Eyewitness Travel: Greece Athens & the Mainland
http://members.virtualtourist.com/vt/l/0/?s=cyclades%2C+greece&c=0&x=true&f=true
http://www.greeka.com
On our 2000 trip we island hopped by way of Flying Dolphins (high speed hydrofoils) and ferries, but we only got to three places – Crete, Paros and Santorini – Admittedly, we did get to explore more of each place. This time we made it to Ios, Santorini (by ferry from Ios) Schinousa, Koufonissi, Naxos, and Paros. There’s something to be said for traveling by sea – each port, large and small, was unique, and we had the opportunity to see Greece as the seafaring nation it has always been.
Our pre-trip plans also included finding things to do in Athens. We’ve had experience using the Hop-on Hop-Off Bus Tours in other countries so we were pleased to see one in Athens. These types of tour/transportation means are very informative and provide a good idea of the outlay of the city, the distances involved, and what you can do in a day. There is also a little train that tours the city too, but we didn’t take it.
http://www.city-discovery.com/greece_athens_tours/hop_on_and_off_tours
http://gogreece.about.com/od/athenssightseeing1/a/happytrain.htm
We wanted to spend sometime outside of the city so our search for tours began. We found a winery tour, but it was only on Fridays, not a day we would be there. We did not give up, we found private taxi tours. We chose Greek Taxi’s Wine Road Tour which included Corinth, Nemea, Nephalon, and Epidaurus. Jane was our contact. She replied to our emails promptly. We placed a deposit on the tour through Pay-Pal.
www.greecetaxi.gr
Ω Pay-Pal is a great way to make secure payments. You create an account and use a credit card to make a payment.
www.paypal.com
Throughout our planning, we also tried our hand at learning the language. Our resources included Rosetta Stone and Berlitz. We also remembered some Greek letters from our college sorority and fraternity days. That helped in reading. By getting the first few letters we could figure out signs, bus destinations, and some menu items. It was fun - like deciphering a secret code.
Next:
Phase Two - We're Here!
