Do you think Greek people get tired of hearing that? Probably, I'd think.
So at this point all my visitors are officially gone, after what was probably my most exciting month in Germany (most of which was spent not actually in Germany). I already updated you all on my travels with Dana to Prague, Dublin and Edinburgh, and next up was my dad, stepmom and brother's visit and our trip to Greece (with a quick stop in Turkey).
They got in the Tuesday before last and had a couple of days to hang out in and around Dusseldorf before we headed out for our cruise. Dana left to go back to the US on Wednesday, and then the four of us headed out to Greece on Thursday. Working right next to the airport is honestly such a blessing, because I worked a (mostly) full day, and then popped right over a hour or so before the flight.
We landed in Athens on Thursday night and had a transfer to the hotel, where a guide briefed us on the rest of the trip and pointed out some sights on the hour long drive into the main part of the city. Felt pretty fancy, not gonna lie, as I'm used to scrambling to navigate public transportation on trips.
Also, when we got to hotel I REALLY felt pretty fancy, as we enjoyed the roof top garden that looked out on the Acropolis. LIKE WHAT?!?!
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| Roof top garden Acropolis view |
So our agenda in Greece mostly consisted of a four day cruise to the Greek islands, and the city of Kusadasi in Turkey. I feel like I could stretch this post into a full novel to describe everything we did on this cruise, but I honestly feel like I can describe it better in well-captioned pictures. So that's what I'll do.
In general though, before I dive into the photo diary, here's a summary of the trip: We started out on Friday in the port of Piraeus in Athens, and cruised that afternoon to Mykonos where we had dinner and a walking tour. On Saturday we woke up in Kusadasi, Turkey where we toured around the Ephesus Roman ruins, and a Turkish carpet weaving center and then sailed to Patmos for an amazing dinner on the beach. On our last day, Sunday, we docked first in Crete where we saw the capital Heraklion, and the ruins of the Knossos palace, and then ended our time touring around the island of Santorini. We were up before 7 am every day, and hit two ports a day which was simultaneously amazing and exhausting. I napped every day lol. Okay! On to the pictures.
PORT OF PIRAEUS
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| The port where we started out. |
MYKONOS
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| Our first taste of the Greek islands and WOW |
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| The white houses, blue accents, pink flowers, and quaint cobblestones were too much for me. I have hundreds of pictures down random streets. |
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| Sorry in advance if I get too ~artsy~ with these. |
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| Right about where we stopped for pre-dinner views. |
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| The famous windmills on what is know as "The Island of Wind". Can confirm. Very windy. |
KUSADASI (TURKEY)
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| The ancient Roman ruins of Ephesus. Both larger and older than Pompei. |
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| The goddess, Nike! Had to snap the pic for Ben's sake (he loves shoes, Nike in particular). |
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| More ruins... |
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| They're just so beautiful, I couldn't help myself! |
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| The library of the town, about 65% of which is the original building from thousands of years ago. |
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| Some Turkish pride and our ship in the background. |
PATMOS
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| Debatably the most beautiful of the islands |
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| Look at this beautiful water!! Wishing I was there now in this 90 degree German heat... |
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| Our UNREAL view from the dinner we had right on the beach. |
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| My family got a little concerned about my unusual obsession with all the interesting Greek doors. |
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| I mean, COME ON. |
CRETE
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| The ancient palace of Knossos, where the legend about the creation of the Minotaur and the first labyrinth takes place. |
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| People used to get paid and win prizes in olive oil #GreekProbz |
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| A restoration of an ancient fresco in the palace. |
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| Those beautiful purply pink Greek flowers again! |
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| Downtown in Heraklion. |
SANTORINI
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| The port where we (and a couple others) docked. |
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| Just a casual archway.... |
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| I think the owner of this house wanted tourists to take pics of their adorable garden, tbh |
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| One of the many, many, many Greek Orthodox churches with a domed blue roof. |
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| The village of Megalochori |
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| Just your average, everyday FREAKING BEAUTIFUL dinner view. |
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| In the village of Oia |
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| Donkeys!! Kinda wanted to ride one, but I hear it's pretty dangerous :/ |
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| On the tender boat back to the ship |
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| Just another quaint and adorable pirate-looking ship |
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| Honestly can't believe I took this myself and lived through all these beautiful photos. |
So yeah, we did a LOT. And that was literally probably 10% of the photos I took. Whoops.
After getting off the cruise (again at 7 am) we were brought to our hotel in Athens that we would stay in for the night. We had a half day afternoon tour planned to go up to the Acropolis and see the main sights of Athens, so until then we hung out in the hotel, strolled through the streets of Athens and popped from restaurant to restaurant having coffees, Greek yogurt, drinks and charcuterie boards.
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| Finally! The inside of one of those Greek Orthodox churches. And wow it did not disappoint. |
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| Wandered our way into the funky hipster-y part of town |
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| Only including this bc it was LITERALLY AMAZING. Yes, it's just Greek yogurt with honey and walnuts, which is apparently a pretty basic dessert there, but WOW. If all Greek yogurt tasted like this, I might consider ditching the ice cream every now and then. |
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| Another thing to note about me, I FREAKING LOVE CHARCUTERIE BOARDS. I don't know what it is about them, but wow. Love em. This was definitely one of the best I've had, and everything on it came from somewhere in Greece. |
After our self-made food tour, we cleaned ourselves up and got ready for our official Athens tour, which I am, again, going to demonstrate through pictures. Words honestly can't describe how incredible these ancient monuments are.
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| The Panathenaic Stadium where the first Olympics reportedly took place. Obviously renovated since then, and still used for various events to this day. I think that was the coolest thing about Athens-- there is literally so much history and so many ancient ruins legitimately all throughout the city that people have found ways to work them into every day life. For example, when they were building their subway system, they came across a huge ancient site. So, they excavated it and now many of the tens of thousands of artifacts are on display as mini museums in the actual subway stations. Insane. |
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| The changing of the the guard at the Hellenic Parliament. |
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| The theater of Herodes and Athens and the Aegean sea behind it. |
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| The view from the Acropolis |
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| The Parthenon |
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| Two of the other temples at the Acropolis. |
We ended our Athens trip with another roof top view of the Acropolis, this time accompanied by a fancy and unique dinner than included roasted goat, and olive ice cream (as disgusting as it sounds, don't worry).
This trip was truly phenomenal. Greece has been on my travel bucket list (followed closely by India and Brazil) for as long as I can remember. While it was, of course, different than I expected, the views were breathtaking, the beaches were peaceful and serene, and the history was fascinating and unique.
I'm not sure how I'm going to follow this one up, but I'm sure gonna try. This week I'm headed to two of my favorite places-- London (or sorta close to it at least...) for a work trip, and then directly down to Spain to soak up the sun with some more family. Def gonna need to get in some sleep before I jet off again though....
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