The Greek Isles – aka My New Permanent Residence

   

We’re not sure whose idea it was to go to Greece, but it was one of our best decisions yet.  Papa Garcia, although there are not many places we never want to return to, some places have definitely moved to the top of our ‘must return’ list – this is one of them. 

Our plane touched down at the Athens airport at 1am and after sleeping for 4 hours in the wonderfully clean airport, we caught our 7am ferry to Mykonos.  We lucked out in hotels – ours was just a few hundred yards from both the heart of the city and the water.  We immediately wandered off and began exploring the maze of narrow winding streets - there was tons of great shops, delicious smelling food, and beautiful white washed buildings.  It was clean without being sterile. 

Our first night we were a bit tired, so we grabbed our bottle of Jamisons and soda water - quick props to our dads here as we’re both scotch drinkers thanks to you – sat on the hotel wall overlooking the ocean, and had a drink while watching the sun set.  Nice.  The next day, we baked in the sun on a beautiful beach and then checked out the bars on the waterfront and the nightlife in general. 

After two days, we ferried over to Naxos.  Naxos is a bigger island and has a bit more of everything.  Wider streets, a longer harborfront, mountains, and beaches.  Our first day we took a short boat ride over to the neighboring island of Delos.  There we toured the islands ruins and tried to envision it as it once was – a religious center for Greece.   Pretty impressive.  The rest of the day we spent touring the harbor town of Naxos on foot.  The next day we rented a scooter to explore the rest of the island.  A word of advice here about scooters, if putting two people on the scooter, get one with more than 90ccs!  Neither of us is particularly large and we saw plenty of people riding these scooters around town.  However, when we took that thing into the mountains the 90cc engine was STRUGGLING – and actually died once!  Happily, after taking a rest break while we hiked Mt. Zeus, the scooter came back to life.  We also toured the island’s citron distillery, saw a traditional olive press, and discovered our own private beach where we spent the afternoon. 

Overall they were five great days on these two islands.  Mykonos, with it’s small town feeling, was Tamara’s favorite, while Daniel prefered the open spaces of Naxos.  We’re looking forward to seeing Santorini and Crete next!  Thanks to Thomas C for such good island recommendations!