Greece has been on my list of places to visit from the very beginning. I have always been drawn to what I’ve seen in photos and videos over the years, even as an adolescent. Britta even recalls me saying that Greece was one of the first places I mentioned wanting to visit when she asked me early in our dating life. I specifically recall seeing a photo of the island of Crete and thinking “wow, that might be the most beautiful place I have seen in a photo”. Specifically, the Greek islands have pulled me the most. I was telling Britta while we spent the last couple of weeks in Greece that it is amazing how all of these islands are under one nation. They are all so different and have such different characteristics as you will read about below. But, one thing stands for each and every island that we saw: stunning white buildings and even more stunning sunsets.
Greek Food & Drink
Greek food is very unique and has its own flavor (pun not intended). It seemed a lot of the dishes were based around a protein (pork, chicken, seafood, etc). They also make incredible pastries with a lot of different fillings.
Pita & Tzatziki
First of all, the pita in Greece is amazing. It is the perfect combination of a fluffy interior with a nice slight crunch of the crust. It paired really nicely with the ever plentiful and even more fresh tzatziki (pronounced tuh – zee – kee) sauce. For any of you that have had a gyro, you probably already know about tzatziki. It is a cucumber sauce but can be just as good by itself as it is alongside the main Greek dishes.
Souvlaki
Speaking of main dishes, we had some really tasty ones; but, probably the most common one that we saw was souvlaki. What’s not to love? A kebab of well-marinated meat: most commonly pork or chicken. The way they are prepared makes for a very juicy yet well cooked set of meat and veggies.
It comes with some “chips” or french fries. Some places would give us tzatziki on the side, and others would give us some type of mustard sauce. It really scratched the itch we have for good sauces. You can just dip the kebab and french fries in the sauce and have a small salad on the side as a fresh change of pace.
Moussaka
One dish that I knew nothing about before coming to Greece is Moussaka. At first glance it sounds like an eggplant shepherd’s pie. There is ground beef, eggplant, cheese, and some really interesting spices. We were pleasantly surprised by the pure complexity of flavors in this Greek staple. There is nutmeg and cinnamon among the spices which really make it quite different from that of a lasagna. We really liked this meal and, again, you see it everywhere at restaurants on multiple islands in Greece.
Ouzo
Any black licorice lovers out there? I know a couple of you and I know you would love this drink. Ouzo is a liquor that is very prevalent in Greece. It was even featured in the movie ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’. It is delicious and tastes very similar to the candy ‘Good & Plenty’. It is commonly served in a glass with a bowl of ice to add as you like. We found that it is more delightful (and approachable) with ice added.
Ouzo is one of a couple different liquors or alcoholic drinks that are common in Greece. It is by far the one we enjoyed the most though. We were pretty underwhelmed by the Greek wine we had. It was pretty infrequent that we would order a glass of wine and wanted to buy our own bottle. And, after talking to some locals, a lot of Greeks tend to like the local Mythos or Mamos beer. Greece doesn’t really have their own cocktails; they tend to serve more cocktails like you would see in the U.S. like mojitos, margaritas, or pina coladas, for instance.
Gyros
Admittedly, I was expecting the iconic Greek “sandwich” to be more prevalent than it was in Greece. Whenever I ever thought of Greek food, I thought of a gyro. It is so common to see in the States and is quite unique and memorable. Surprisingly, gyros were not as popular as Souvlaki or “portions” of different meats that basically had the ingredients of a gyro but deconstructed. But, it was still fairly easy to find “pita gyros” which are equivalent to the American-known gyro.
But, that isn’t to say that we didn’t have the best gyro of our lives on this trip to Greece. While on Mykonos, we stopped into this little shop called Jimmy’s Gyros. They had pita gyros and a small menu of other take away items. Britta got a pita gyro with chicken and I got one with pork. It was DELICIOUS! We had a couple other gyros on the various other Greek islands and nothing was as good as those at Jimmy’s.
Mykonos
Mykonos is probably one of the most visited islands in Greece. It is one of the Cyclades islands which is an island chain just south of the mainland of Greece. It is also one of the most “touristy” of the islands. Being touristy isn’t a bad thing, it just comes with some different expectations for what to experience and what level of crowds you might see. Experiencing a culture is one of the things I want the most on this trip. So, our stay in Mykonos was more about the sights and the food and less about sitting and people watching; that would have just resulted in us seeing people file off the multiple cruise ships that come in daily.
Relaxation
But, being in a paradise location like Mykonos was just begging us to try to relax. We actually treated ourselves to a massage and I even had mine outside on our hotel room terrace overlooking the town and water. It was a great opportunity for us to remind ourselves to be present. We have seen a lot of things in the past few months and we knew we needed to think about the change we are experiencing and acknowledge that our bodies aren’t used to it. So, a massage really did it for us and helped us reset a bit.
Another really relaxing thing we did was utilizing GetYourGuide to book a sunset cruise around the port of Mykonos. It leaves a little before sunset and you carve out your own relaxing seat on a small-ish boat deck. They come around with some wine or soft drinks and a little set of snacks as you slowly troll around the port and out toward the setting sun. They play some nice music and stop the boat a little before the sun actually sets. It was really beautiful and was really relaxing and made for a great opportunity for us to just sit and take in the views.
Naxos
When we started looking at islands to visit on our travels to Greece, there were a plethora of options. The most popular to visit are Mykonos, Santorini, and Crete. Each of those islands have a good set of restaurants and hotels to accomodate all kinds of visitors. But, there are a decent number of islands that are lesser known and quieter. But, like I said at the beginning of this post, they are just as beautiful and maybe even more beautiful.
Naxos was an island that came up in our searches a couple of times. It is up and coming for American tourists and has less accommodations. But, it was fantastic. We stayed at a hotel a couple blocks from one of the stretching beaches along the Aegean Sea. The sand is really “packy” and tight unlike you would see on a beach in California. It makes the beaches a bit easier to walk on without kicking up a bunch of sediment. But, that texture of sand also makes for a really cool experience in the water. Many of the beaches on the islands we went to have very gradual gradients from the beach into the water. You can walk out almost 20 yards before the water gets above your midsection. This makes the water a little warmer and also really cool for seeing the bottom easily and clearly in the ultra-clear water. The sand is packed on the bottom but as you kick it up while walking through the water, it makes the water shimmer! The particles are so shiny because of how fine the sand is that they act like snow in a snow globe that shimmers as it drops back down to the bottom. It was really cool to see and something unique to other beaches we had been to in Europe thus far.
Temple of Apollo
As I said, Naxos is a bit quieter and smaller. But, that made for some really great walks through and around the town. It was easy to get around and there were lots of places to see different waters and cool sights. There was this really cool and iconic structure that looks like a door frame right off the port of Naxos. This is called the Temple of Apollo and here you can read a bit more about the history. It made for a really cool little hike and a perspective of the town along with a bit of history.
Paros
Of all the islands, Paros was the one we spent the most time on. This is another up and coming Greek island for American tourists that benefits from not having as many cruise ships stopping in like that of Mykonos or Santorini. You can see Paros with the naked eye from Naxos and the ferry between is fairly short. Paros has a little more to do and is just as beautiful. Where Naxos is mountainous, Paros has more gentle hills.
We ended up staying at a boutique hotel called Pyrgaki Hotel about 10 minutes drive out of the main port town of Parikia. Pyrgaki is a great little place on top of a hill overlooking the port where you could see the ferry boats come in and out. It also makes for a great viewing area for sunsets. They had a great little pool area where we spent a bunch of time unwinding. The cool thing is they help set us up with some light transportation to get around the island easier.
The thing is these islands are just big enough that you can’t really leave the town you are in without getting a taxi or doing a bus tour. But, many of the islands have options to rent cars. Or you can do like what we did and rent a UTV. We rented what they call a “Summer Car” which is a side-by-side two seater buggy. It only gets up to 35 MPH, but it gave us a lot of freedom to go around the island and even to other islands as you will read about in a bit.
Britta setup this really great Airbnb cooking experience with a local woman, Maria. Maria taught us how to prepare a 6 course Greek meal and there were 10 of us from different parts of the U.S. that worked together to make these really delicious dishes as we sipped on wine. It was a really cool experience because we got to meet other travelers, but also got to learn about other cultural food in Greece. Maria was a blast and we got to make things like Greek meatballs, grape leaf rolls, cheese bread, prawns, sea bass, salad, and orange cake. Orange cake was another thing we got a lot of in Greece. It is a custardy cake with bits of phyllo dough and a great fresh orange flavor. It is DELICIOUS.
Antiparos
Since we had this buggy, we could take advantage of the island and travel between cities and grab dinner in different places. But, it also gave us the opportunity to go to Paros’ sister island Antiparos by taking a quick ferry. You can easily (and cheaply) back your vehicle or buggy on to the ferry and take the 10 minute ride to Antiparos. This island is the least populated and built up island we saw in Greece. But, all signs pointed toward it becoming a more built up island in the near future. We saw plenty of new buildings in progress as we slowly drove our buggy on the island roads. The experience of going to Antiparos was one of the most unique and fulfilling while in Greece.
The Cave
We went up the large hill to the top of the island just to descend into a deep cave there. The views from the entrance to the cave is already a treat in itself. You can see two different openings out to the water and can see the various shades of blue in them.
The cave has a long history that is pretty hard to explain, (read a bit more here) but it is very easy to explain the experience of being in it. It is damp and DEEP. I counted the number of steps when coming back out and it was 342 steps! It was quite interesting, but I have to admit I had a little bit of claustrophobia and that is not usually a problem for me. But, I’m glad we did it. It ended up being a pretty good workout.
A Private Beach
After climbing back up the cave and grabbing a bite to eat for lunch, we took our buggy down a dirt road toward the end of a peninsula on the island. We had researched a beach at the end of the peninsula that we wanted to check out. However, we got something even better.
On our way, we came to this little cove which had this glorious little beach. There was only one other couple there close to the beach. So, we parked our buggy and took to the beach. It is hard to describe or even capture in photos how beautiful the water was off this beach. There was a yacht anchored not far off the beach but just barely on the edge of our sight out to the water. We put down our Sandcloud and laid out on a rock with our feet in the sand. We waded in the water and watched the multiple fish swim by our feet. This is one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever been to and it was basically private to us. It was good for the soul and worth the whole trip to Antiparos.
Athens
We heard a lot of mixed feelings about Athens before landing there. Some people said it was dirty and hot and not worth more than a day in the city. We didn’t feel that way. We loved that the city was full of trees, plants, and flowers. The people were so friendly and it was easy to get around by metro or on foot. We ate at several places and all of the food was delicious. It was humbling to be in a city and among ruins that have been around for thousands of years.
The Acropolis
The main attraction in the city is the Acropolis and the towering height of the hill and the glimpse of the Parthenon draw you up the hill. We bought a ticket to hike to the top and we explored other ruins of the city as we made our way.
We made use of an audio guide you can buy with the ticket to go up. It is just an app with a map of the Acropolis grounds and a series of spoken stories and directions up the hill and across the top as you visit. There are so many Greek myths and stories. The mythology alone is such a vast and, frankly, overwhelming amount of information to take in. The stories we heard here and throughout the placards describing the ruins in the city could take days to connect.
With all that said, the sheer majestic views of these buildings and structures that have been standing since before Christ were worth the trip. I learned that when the Acropolis was being built, it was decreed that each of the districts of the Greek Empire were to give 1/60 of their profits toward the building of the structures. They put a lot of time and money into building structures meant to mostly honor Athena and some others as well.
Before reaching the top of the hill, there are some of the oldest amphitheaters and theaters of their kind. Even one of the theaters still has performances. The performances were that of mostly tragedies and they actually had theater competitions in these places even. They eventually had comedies as well.
The Parthenon is exactly as you probably picture it. However, some of it is under restoration currently. There are a decent number of the structures that had some sort of scaffolding up as they are in constant repair and preservation. The view from up on the hill next to the Parthenon is that of literally everything in Athens. Athens is expansive, but the view from there gives you a real idea of how truly large it is.
Bottom Line
Like I said at the beginning of this post, Greece was on the top of my list for most of my life coming up to now. I wasn’t disappointed at all. The unique views and the rich culture are almost everything I would have expected. The islands are so very different from that of Athens. And the character of each island is quite unique as well. Though we haven’t yet gone to Crete, I would definitely say it will be on our list for the future. The hospitality and the color of the waters will draw us back.
Recap
Miles Walked
- 54 miles over 16 days
Next Up!
- Croatia
