Greece

 

 

One of the oldest civilizations, home to our favourite mythological characters, birth place of the Olympics, and now the most struggling of all economies in Europe.

Still a great travel destination, and our first cabbie in Athens pointed out, nearly 30mn visitors were expected in 2016. However, the disappointing thing for me when I began my research was that people seemed to travel to the beaches here rather than the historical monuments.

That was just sad, and I decided to ensure my travel would cover more landmarks than just the beaches and islands, and we spent 2 days in Athens doing just that, and the remaining 7... well, back at the beach! Not just because I succumbed to being another tourist, but because 2 days is more than enough to cover most of the historical monuments left to see in Greece!

Anyway, here go some tips before I dive into another travel tome.

Tips

1.       Withdraw cash. Many places in Europe accept cards and there's barely any need to pay in cash, but in Greece and especially on the islands, cash is sometimes the only mode of payment. 

2.       If you need to prioritize the islands, do Mykonos instead of Santorini. Not many people would suggest this as Santorini is world famous, but with similar sunset views, prettier walk ways, and far lesser crowd to guarantee clutter free photography, Mykonos is a much better option. Of course, the party scene is always an added advantage with Mykonos. 

3.       There are 2 popular ferries in Greece that get you to these islands, Hellenic and Seajet. Not many people will say this again, but Seajet is far better. Ship is more stable ensuring you don't fall sea sick, club class is more spacious, with a table in between seats giving you have enough space to leave your things around, an open deck to enjoy the seaside breeze, and most importantly, for me at least, ample big screen TVs to catch shows like Olympics from even the economy seats if required. 

4.       There are flights that sometimes even work cheaper than the ferries, but somehow the ferries are just more fun, and very well-coordinated, leaving you fairly content with the travel.

5.       While you can hire a car and drive around with an Indian license, it’s completely avoidable given the tiny streets that you would need to negotiate on the islands and their exorbitant rental charges that are completely unnecessary when there are ample buses and local shuttle services available.

6.       While Ouzo is what everyone will tell you to have in Greece, don't miss the Sangria as they are made from the Santorini wine which has a unique lava flavour making it far delicious than the ones you get even in Spain. 

7.       Dive straight into the Gyros and the Souvlaki the first place you see it. National dishes of Greece! In Santorini, don’t miss the local favourites; Fava and the fried Tomato/Zucchini balls. While fine dining, try the Mousaka or the Pistatio. Everything else is not necessarily Greek and sometimes you can get lucky, other times it’s a waste of money.

 

Aug 13

Certainly a nice date to begin the travel, we started with absolutely no sleep on Friday night given I was organizing Geetu’s farewell that evening, and then had to report at the airport by 1am. We landed at our transit destination Doha by 5am local time and spent the next 9 hours there till we boarded the flight to Athens.

There is an Airport Hotel and lots of lounges to catch some sleep, but Qatar wouldn't provide complimentary accommodation although they are supposed to for flights with longer than 8 hour transit times as the flights we booked are apparently "promotional fares", and we didn’t want to spend about 7k INR per person for just those few hours.

So we parked ourselves at the cafeteria where Mithu, one of Geet’s friends who worked at the Doha airport (yes, she really does have friends all over the place), caught up with us by about 7am just as we were finishing our morning coffee.

While we chatted with him I figured Doha airport was filled with ironies:

1.                   There's unlimited free wifi at the airport operating at a brisk 2 MBPS, but YouTube is banned in Qatar

2.                   All the eateries look really fancy, but even the Croissants weren't fresh – this early in the morning!

3.                   There’s a Burger King that serves the Whopper just like the ones you see internationally, but the bacon is made of Turkey.. no guesses for what’s banned here in Qatar

We caught up with Jeeth, Sachin and Soha who landed at 12 and time flew faster after this with all of us playing with Soha. Once we boarded the next flight, I caught the Safety Briefing video on the Qatar Airline which was the only thing I managed to stay awake for, as I was trying to make up for lost sleep in both legs of the flight. The Briefing video was one of the most entertaining I’ve seen as well as they used the Barcelona football team sponsorship to full effect in making the video.

We finally landed at 7pm in Athens and boarded Taxi’s to get to Acropolis. Jeethu, Soha, Mom and me in one cab and Sachin Geet in the other. Our cabbie was one of those grumpy old folk probably responsible for the situation Greece is in, and first he couldn’t locate the house, and next made a supremely big fuss when I realized it was Dollars I was carrying that Jeeth asked me to pick from Bangalore and not Euros, requiring us to find an ATM and withdraw money for him.

Anyway, some extra money always shuts people up, and soon we checked into our cozy B&B at Athens. This was a 1BHK where a wardrobe in the hall would transform into a bed giving exactly the space required for 5 adults to sleep, including the sofa in the hall.

It was a nice clean place with a fully functional kitchen that I put to good use, experimenting even with the baking oven for the first time, and a tiny balcony where Soha would always want me to take her out to.

Naomi our caretaker here gave us a detailed download of things to do, and her words of advice manifested to some of the best moments we had in Athens.

Sachin and I located the convenience store she mentioned close to the place and got ourselves our first Greek drinks – Mythos beer and Ouzo. We then went hunting to parcel some food and actually chanced upon a Bengali Indian running a store serving burgers and sandwiches. Somehow we find our kind all over the place, and our trip was barely even starting!

 

Aug 14

In spite of 6 people in the house including Soha, we actually managed to leave before noon, which was quite an achievement as there have been many times just Geet and I aren’t able to get out by that time when we travel.

We decided to brunch at a place called Yiasemi that Naomi suggested before beginning our visit to the Acropolis and this turned out to be the best meal for the entire trip.

Yiasemi was a cute little place located in a street that’s actually a flight of stairs. So they even have some tables out on the street on those stairs itself. Inside they have one section with a fire place and one outdoor section amidst all the plants. The outdoor area was what we picked giving Soha ample space to move around and had Ouzo, Sangria, an unbelievably tasty potato lasagna with bacon, chicken pie and bruschetta. Everything tasted amazing, especially the Sangra which came with a Cinnamon stick adding an awesome tinge to the subtle ash flavoured Santorini wine.

After completely satiating ourselves, we walked over to Acropolis and left mom behind as Soha was asleep by then and went in to catch the Parthenon, the Propylaia and the Erechtheion.

The Parthenon is the most impressive of the lot, and the destruction it has undergone since its creation way back in the 5^th century BC, caused by frequent attacks of the Persians, Christians and the Muslims through the ages is clearly visible.

It’s surreal looking at a building created that far back using limestone marble brought from over 30km away from the Mount Pantela and dragged up the Acropolis plateau to still be standing in spite of going through so much; from being a temple, to a church to a mosque to finally a warehouse for gunpowder that caused the damage you see to it today. It actually seems like a bomb exploded from the inside of the building.

Stories also say there was a 30ft statue of Athena made of Bronze and Gold to who this temple was dedicated to after the interesting myth about the duel between Athena and Poseidon to lay claim on the land that is now Athens with a temple dedicated to her, and today nobody knows where the remnants of that statue may be.

We spent quite of bit of time looking for photos free of people clutter, and finally had to hurry back when Jeeth started getting the feeling that Soha has probably woken up.

We got back home by about 5pm and decided to catch a nap that extended all the way to the next day morning given how sleep deprived we all were.

 

Aug 15

We had croissants for breakfast that I made using the oven from frozen dough balls that I got from the convenience store (best use of the oven ever) and left once again by around noon to catch the remaining monuments around Athens; the Olympieion, and the Panathenaic stadium.

Given it was a Monday, the crowd was far lesser offering us enough time to take a peaceful stroll and a whole bunch of photos. Geet, Sachin and I shot some videos as well, mimicking the Olympians at the Panathenaic stadium which was pretty apt given the actual Olympics was happening simultaneously at Rio.  

We went searching for the restaurant Melilotos after this, another recommendation by Naomi, and while it looked a really nice fine dining restaurant, we just couldn’t get a table there, so walked on a little further and got ourselves introduced to the famous Gyros of Athens and the infamous beggars of Greece who consistently pestered us for the food on the table.

After a satisfactory meal we got back to our rooms and retired early since the next day our ferry was to depart to Mykonos in the wee hours of the morning.

 

Aug 16

Seajets was a really big and impressive looking cruise. There were 2 full levels for parking cars and only the 3^rd level for people. We got comfortable seats right in front of a big screen TV in spite of taking Economy Class seats and I caught up on the Olympics highlights that were on.

Once we docked at Mykonos, Geet and I left the rest at a café by the ferry and went to pick up our Nissan Note from a rental called Green Motion near the airport, which was to be our ride for the duration of our stay here.

It took nearly 2 hours to find the store, complete the car pick up formality and get back to the ferry terminal, which left all of them really frustrated, but I guess we made it up with the comfort the car provided for all our remaining trips here.

We checked into Porto Mykonos hotel which we soon found out was the place SRKs Chalte Chalte was filmed, and was a hotel offering amazing locales within the property itself for some really good photos. Geet and I carried our wedding clothes as we hoped to take some photos here and this hotel itself seemed to offer the perfect setting.

Jeeth and Sachin got a nice room right next to the reception from which they got a nice view of the Aegan sea and the Mykonos town. And since the next room was taking time to get ready, we stepped out to catch a bite.

The receptionist recommended Roca but we ended up at Blu Blu next door given they had the same entrance and were immediately sold on the seaview seats of Blu Blu and didn’t really bother looking further. Here we had our first Greek salad of the trip and this turned out to be the only good dish. Fresh veggies with the tastiest feta cheese. Crepes that Jeeth ordered in both chicken and pork was not good as the crepe base was sweet. Sachin and I had Alfa beer after seeing it all over the place. Very regular. Sangria Geet had and was possibly spiked as she felt high with just one glass. Jeeth had pork fillet and that required a lot of cheddar to taste any good. Only good think about the place was that the price was in line with Athens, which was quite unlike rest of Mykonos that charged a near 100% premium on all dishes. 

Once the rest of us completed our check in, we headed out to catch the sunset at Mykonos and this was when I figured driving is really tough in this town coz there is just about enough space for bikes and ATVs that people prefer to rent, leaving barely any room for cars.

I struggled to find parking after dropping the rest near the windmills, and just about managed to catch the sunset, followed by dinner by the beach.

We dined at Nice n Easy restaurant. Typical tourist restaurant that serves dishes high on presentation and low on taste. Baked salmon, chicken fillet and meatballs with basmati rice were all equally terrible. 

After wrapping up dinner, we dropped Jeeth, Soha and Mom home and the rest of us decided to check out the famous clubbing scene of Mykonos. We took a bus to Paradise beach and hit Tropicana first, followed by Super Paradiso. There was only one other club, Cava Paradiso, which we skipped as they were charging an entry of a whopping $50 pax. The other 2 we visited also were fairly sober. It could have been the result of simply being a weekday or the fact that Paris Hilton had apparently visited just the day before, but we definitely found the entire situation to be just a lot of hype.

We did the make the most of it drinking and dancing, and eventually got back home by about 2am.

 

Aug 17

Breakfast at Porto was quite a disappointment. Raw bacon, bland omelet, limited fruit options and machine tea and coffee that all tasted sad.

We had a quick bite and changed into our wedding clothes to use Sachin’s creative skills and the properties portrayal of Greece’s signature white and blue hues.

The caretaker here noticed what we were up to and even opened the chapel that was part of the property for us to pray as well as take some more photos. It was a really kind gesture and we overall managed quite a bit of photos that Geet has been wanting to do for a really long time now.

After this we headed towards the Old Town, which was one of the prettiest streets we’ve seen. The entire place almost looks like a studio set straight out of FTV. We walked all around the place buying stuff and then had lunch at Jimmy Gyro which came highly recommended on Tripadvisor and worth every ounce of effort put in finding the place.  

Tried the Souvlaki for the first time here. They had options in Beef-Lamb, Pork and Chicken. Tried the first 2 as Geet already had her share of Chicken Gyros and they tasted awesome! Perfectly cooked meat with a spice that made it simply outstanding. Topped this with dessert from Happyo which was fresh Greek yogurt with even fresher fruit.

We then drove to a solitary windmill on the road that we may have never really visited if not for the car at our disposal.

Spent some time here and then drove back to our hotel where we dropped the car and immediately left to a place called Salparo as it was on the section of the pier closest to our hotel offering an amazing view of the sunset, and I was tired of driving around in the narrow streets of Mykonos and just wanted to leave the car behind and have a drink peacefully. Turned out I wasn't in much of a mood to drink or eat given the extremely heavy lunch, and so were the rest.

So we just ordered a fried squid and Greek salad with a few beers and wasted half of even that food given the squids tasted terrible. Salparo is not known for its food and people seem to visit just for the sunset view, and squid in Europe is usually not a good idea as it isn't as deep fried as we Indians like.

 

Aug 18

Another morning ferry to Santorini this time, and another trip to the airport to drop the car off before heading out to sea. Everything went like clockwork on this day until we reached Santorini and then it was mayhem.

Santorini is a crowded, tourist heavy, poorly coordinated town. The moment we got off the ferry we were accosted by a travel agent for shuttle service. Not wanting to waste too much time searching for the best price, I agreed to the first guy only to avail the poorest of service after that. First they made us lug our bags all the way to a shuttle outside the port where they loaded our luggage in and even got us seated, then asked us to get down and walk back right where we began to board another shuttle.

Took so much time to finally reach our hotel Maistros Village, but thankfully had a very smooth check-in with one of the friendliest receptionist we’ve met. Jeethu Sachin got a very different looking place once again thanks to Soha. However, this one seemed to be with far fewer benefits than the one Porto offered with a malfunctioning AC and telephone in the room.

Visited Fira towards the evening and caught the sunset of Santorini from here. It was a hat-trick of sunsets for us and probably one of the most and the best we’ve seen on any trip.

Then we walked the Caldera stretch which was again similar to Mykonos Old Town but with the beautiful view of the sea from an elevation that you are offered here. Some shopping followed till we reached the restaurant Argo that came highly recommended for dinner in Fira but was unfortunately booked out and decided to instead dine at neighbouring Italian restaurant Rastoni which offered a similar view and ordered the Moussaka, Pork Seak, and Spaghetti that Geet wiped out. It was the first time we had Moussaka on the trip after just Gyros and Souvlaki everywhere, and it tasted like Lasagne with ground beef.

The waiter there offered Tobasco as a friendly racist gesture assuming Indians like their food spicy as it wasn't part of the sauce set available on the table. That instance apart, the dinner with the view was pretty neat.

 

Aug 19

The breakfast spread here was far better than the one at Mykonos. More options, tastier food, and much better coffee!

The plan was to visit Oia in the day as it tends to get really crowded by evening, and that wasn’t the best of ideas as Oia, very much like Fira is just a Caldera stretch with barely any space to find shelter over your head to save from the blistering heat.

We anyway ended up spending a lot of time with Soha here as she was in a major mood to walk around on her own. Then followed it up with some shopping and some bright light photography, till we decided to break for lunch.

There were a lot of restaurant options in Oia but I went looking for Skala or Ambrosia as they were once again the recommended ones for this area, and settled in Skala once I spotted that. None of us were in the mood for a lot of food given the heavy breakfast we had and that gave me an opportunity to try the famous short eats of Santorini; the Fava and the Fried Tomato Balls. Both of these turned excellent choices as everyone enjoyed them. We topped these with fancy local beers called Yellow Donkey (Blonde ale) and Red Donkey (Pale ale) and very conveniently even spotted the famous donkeys of Santorini pass by just as we had those drinks. 

 

After getting back to our rooms, we caught up with Sindhu’s finals at the Olympics and then hit the swimming pool where even Soha joined for a swim. Post this we decided to get some food from the hotel itself as they were actually pretty good, and Sachin and I just shopped for some liquor from a nearby store.

However, the moment we sat on the bed about to start drinking, both Geet and Soha slept off. So the rest of us just had a few drinks and retired even before the clock struck 12.

We took consolation in the fact that I was wished for my birthday in IST and called it a night with that.

 

Aug 20

One more incredible breakfast at Maistros later, we checked out and boarded our ferry to Athens. It was Hellenic this time instead of Seajet and just not as much fun, but it did come with a shopping stall where mom purchased a bag that she’s been dying to pick from Greece.

Once we hit Athens there was a bit of a delay in locating our B&B as it was in a Commercial area where all the stores were tight shut by 7pm on a Saturday. Man, it was becoming increasingly obvious why the economy is struggling here.

Thankfully, Acropolis was not too far and Mellilotos was in fact the closes of the restaurants that we were still following from Naomi’s list and decided to make that our spot for the birthday dinner cum final meal of the trip.

It took a bit of time for us to get ready and out as Soha was beginning to feel ill and Jeeth was all sorts of worried about her. We somehow managed to step out, and had a classic fine dine experience.

Meliloto would allow more than the required time to decide on our dishes and then serve meals that would come as an ensemble that tastes good only when had together. For example, we had stuffed chicken legs with basmati rice and tomato marmalade. Each of the elements were vapid on its own, but together tasted pretty good. 

We also tried the chicken pasta with mushroom, rib eye steak (our first steak of the trip) and the Fava. All the dishes were fancy for sure, but mediocre on taste. Yiasemi may have been a better choice as we intended to repeat the place from the first time we went there, but given Soha's illness and moms fatigue towards the end of the trip, we just decided on the place closest to our B&B.

However, Melilotos did offer a classic Greek meal and the perfect end to an awesome Greek trip.

It was everything we hoped to experience in this country, and most importantly, a huge tick mark for me in terms of organizing a family trip to an international destination.