Well, the surprise honeymoon is in the books! I think we pretty much
accomplished everyone knowing where we were going except Kristal. I don’t
usually research too much before traveling to a location because I find that 5
hours of research can be accomplished in a 5 minute conversation with a local
upon arrival. This trip was different. I wanted it to be perfect so I did my
best to become an “expert” on each leg of our trip. We flew into Athens and
then took ferries to Mykonos, Naxos, and Santorini. Instead of giving a play by play of what we
did, I am going to give some travel notes for the trip from start to finish.
Hopefully this will be useful for any of you planning to go to Greece in the
near future, because we definitely recommend it!
General Information
Ferries: We found that
ferries were the best way to island hop around Greece. They were incredibly
efficient, comfortable, and well prices. We booked using both http://ferries-booking.com/ and http://www.greekferries.gr/
Itinerary: The hardest
things to decide are where to go and how much time to spend! We decided to do
three islands in ten days. We were pretty happy with our choice and how much
time we had at each, although you always want more. Here was our route:
July 24: Doha to Athens
July 25: Athens
July 26: Athens to Mykonos
July 27: Mykonos
July 28: Myknos to Naxos
July 29: Naxos
July 30: Naxos to Santorini
July 31-August 1: Santorini
August 2: Santorini to Athens to Doha
Athens
Our gateway into Greece and the Greek islands was through Athens. Many people had warned us that Athens would be disappointing and not offer much to see. We actually found it to be really enjoyable and are glad we spent a full day there. Here were some of our favorite highlights:
Activity: Free Walking Tour
(http://www.athensfreewalkingtour.com)
Accommodation: Plaka is the
central area within walking distance of many of the sites. We stayed at the
Home Sweet Hotel (http://thesweethomehotel.com/)
and would recommend it.
Acropolis View: Thissio View
Roof Garden is only a short walk from the Acropolis and has a great
bar/restaurant with views of the site.
Food: Thanasis in
Monastiraki Square had a great menu for kebabs and souvlaki for great prices
and portions.
Mykonos
About a four hour ferry ride from Athens brought us to the island of
Mykonos. Mykonos had the best beaches we saw the whole trip but the island came
with a high price tag and some big crowds. Here are some of our highlights and
tips:
Activity: Make sure to rent
a scooter or Quad bike. There are so many places and great beaches to explore
on the island, all about 20 minutes away from each other.
Beaches: Nearly all of the
beaches on the south of the island and very developed with restaurant, bars,
and chair rentals. If you are looking to get away from the crowds and more
untouched beaches head up north. Our favorite north beach was Agios Sostis
Beach and we wish we had explored more up there! Our favorite south beach was
Elia.
Food: If you are looking for
the best sunset view in all of Mykonos, check out Katerina’s in Little Venice (http://katerinaslittlevenicemykonos.com/en/).
If you make a dinner reservation you can sit over the water with the sunset to
your right and windmills on the left. You can also just go for drinks and have
a view from upstairs.
Nightlife: Mykonos is famous
for nightlight and Paradise Beach is the place to find it. DJs play there all
summer and we got to see Robin Schulz at Cavo Paradiso. Keep in mind the
headline DJs don’t go on until 3 or 4am so it makes for a late night!
Naxos
Naxos was an add on for our trip as we originally planned to only see
Mykonos and Santorini, but we are SO glad we did! We only stayed around Naxos
town and the nearby St. George’s Beach but it was a perfect beach holiday. If
we were to go back we would explore the rest of the island more but here are
our highlights:
Activity: Walking. Once you
arrive at port all of Naxos Town and the nearby beaches are about a 10 minute
walk. For the two days we were there we didn’t take any transportation and it was lovely!
Sites: Make sure to check
out the views at the Arch of Apollo (you can see it from the harbor) and there
is a great café at the top of the castle with views of the city.
Accommodation: In Mykonos
and Santorini beachfront hotels can be quite expensive. In Naxos they are very
reasonable and we stayed at the Ippokampos Hotel with a door facing the ocean (http://www.ippokampos-naxos.com/en/)!
It was amazing and had a great beach and restaurant on property.
Food: Some of our best meals
were in Naxos! Looking for seafood? Try Meze2 right on the main street of Naxos
Town. We had the stuffed squid and it was amazing! Looking for a Taverna? Try
Taverna Apostolis in the Old Market where the entire menu is amazing but
reservations are recommended. Looking for a souvlaki fill? YaSouvlaki has
takeaway the size of a shoe box for less than 10 Euros! It was amazing and
always packed.
Santorini
Widely considered to be one of the most romantic places on earth, and
for good reason! There was so much to see and explore there and we could have
spent our whole vacation just there. Santorini can have some big crowds and
high prices so we tried to avoid both of those and still had an amazing time!
Here are the highlights:
Accommodation: I did a lot
of research on where to stay and we ended up choosing to stay in Imerovigli on
the non-caldera side. It was away from the action but we were able to get a
honeymoon suite in a cave for a quarter of the price we would have paid to be
on the caldera side in Oia or even Imerovigli. Here is a link to where we
stayed http://www.aghiosartemios.gr/
Activity: There are so many
to list! We rented Quad bikes and explore the island on our own rather than
doing a tour. Here is the run down of the top places to see/things to do! Free
Walking Tour in Fira (http://santo-line.com/freetour/)
, Santo Wines for wine tasting, Megalochori traditional village, Akrotiri
archeological site, Red Beach, Vlychada White Beach, Perissa Beach, Prophet
Elias Monastery (highest point in Santorini), and Kamari Beach. We also did a
semi-private sunset sailing tour our last day which was pricey but worth it
with http://www.santorinisailing.com/
Beaches: Santorini has some
amazing beaches, all of which are black sand. For the most interesting go to
Red Beach. We thought the best overall beach was in Perissa or Kamari. See as
many as you can!
Sunset View: “The best
sunset in the world”-They. After much research we booked a table at Kastro in
Oia for the sunset (http://kastro-oia.gr/en/).
It is right in front of the castle which is one of the most popular places to
see the sunset. It had a completely clear view of the sunset but no caldera. It
really is a trade off! If you want the classic blue dome/caldera shot you need
to go down an alley off the main street next to a high end clothing/accessory
shop with a black sign. It sounds sketchy, but it’s not and you get the best
photos! We got the best photo locations from here http://theplanetd.com/photography-guide-santorini/
In the end Greece was a perfect honeymoon destination for
us. It offered endless possibilities, history, adventure, gorgeous images, and
of course great food! At first I was intimidated at the idea of “Greek Island
Hopping” thinking it would be too costly or difficult logistically. It was
neither of those and we hope you get the chance to explore it soon! We didn’t
get the chance to explore anywhere else in Greece but we aren’t planning for
this to be our last trip there!!! If you haven't seen the highlight video yet you can see that here too:
We would also like to announce that as our time in Doha
comes to a close we will be launching a new blog (gosh did I learn a lot from
keeping this one!) in the coming months. The blog will be called “At Our Witt’s
End” and it will be a bit of travel advice, a bit of logging our adventures,
and really our own version of keeping up with the Sawittzkes! Stay tuned for
updates!
