Greece—All-Time Classic

We recently visited Greece, the all-time classic tourism country. It was a fun place to visit—I was especially impressed with Athens and its history. Santorini has an amazing history—almost 3,000 years of history, but I could do without the beaches—more about that later in the post.

We arrived in Athens in the afternoon—in the middle of the rush hour. Athens airport is about 30 miles from the touristic area of the city (Acropolis area). We were staying maybe a five-minute walk from Acropolis. Because we arrived during rush hour, it took us a good hour to reach our hotel. Our taxi driver commented that it took us as much time flying from Istanbul to Athens as from the airport to the hotel!

Taxi Basics

So Greece has a strong taxi union. They don’t allow Uber. Well, technically there is Uber but all they do is call a taxi for you and charge $1 or $2 on top. One other thing about Greece is that taxi drivers rarely use meters! So it is important to get your fare agreed upon before you sit in your cab😊 You can book your taxi in advance from the official taxi union website—which is what we had done.

During my research, I found there were no Hilton properties in Greece. That was a little surprising since they are in over 100 countries worldwide. So we ended up choosing a small regional chain hotel in Athens. It was a nice boutique place right in the middle of all the action. Everything was within a walking distance. After settling down for the evening, we were ready for our adventure the next morning.

On the first day, we decided to start at the Temple of Olympian Zeus. You would think it is someplace spectacular but quite frankly we found it underwhelming. The next stop was the Panathenaic Stadium and National Garden. All of these are within a 10-minute walk from each other. Again, the Stadium is nothing to call home about. You can certainly do without. Our next stop was Syntagma Square. This place is happening. There were so many people! We found a small currency exchange place with good rates so we ended up getting some Euros there. Since King Dollar was so strong, it felt good to get Euro for so cheap! Last time I exchanged USD for Euro at this rate was back in the late 1990s at Frankfurt Airport some 25 years ago.

After the exchange, we found this store where everything was locally made in Greece. They had dried strawberries, dried blackberries, the freshest walnuts we found since Peru, and Kalamata olives. I was like a kid in the candy store! After buying some fresh items, we decided to just hang out in the area. The place had so much energy.

Quest for Indian Food

After spending some time, we decided to find a place for lunch. My wife wanted Indian food so we decided to walk a mile or so to a local Indian restaurant. After this long walk, to our surprise, the place was closed! Since we were on our feet for the better part of four hours by now, we took a cab to another Indian restaurant near our hotel. To our surprise, this place was also closed! So, we gave up.

There was a nice pizzeria across the street. They had amazing pizza. The pizza here was Rome style, where you get a piece cut from a big rectangular pie. The owner was friendly and suggested we open up a pizzeria in Denver!

The next morning we started early as we knew the Acropolis was known for large crowds. The Acropolis is worth a visit. Amazing history. Beautiful architecture. There are quite a few steps to climb so just be prepared. They have a restoration project going on to make sure that the architecture survives another 2,500 years. Check out some of the pictures below.

After a few hours at the Acropolis, we continued to Ancient Agora. It is right in the shadows of the Acropolis. It always amazes me when I see advanced water and sewage systems. A look at Agora ruins makes it clear how advanced the running water and sewage systems were in those days. Hats off to the Romans! After the Agora, it was time for some food. We found this really wonderful hole-in-wall vegan place. We had a veggie burger and falafel. One of the best veggie burgers I have ever tried, bar none! It was served on a charcoal bun that was cute as well.

We decided to just browse in different shops for the rest of the evening. It was all around a wonderful experience. The next morning, we were off to Santorini. No visit to Greece is complete without going to one of the classic islands. Santorini being the most famous, we decided to spend a few days there. We were flying from Athens to Santorini but you could also take a high-speed ferry from Athens to Santorini which puts you there in four hours or so. It was a quick 30 minute flight. Santorini has very few taxis on the island, so it is not easy to get a taxi at the airport. Knowing that, we pre-booked a pickup from the hotel. We stayed at a boutique place located a block from the beach in the Kamari area of the island. After settling down, we walked along the beach. I say “along the beach” because the beach is full of pebbles so it’s not really walkable. There were nice restaurants on the beach and the place comes alive at night. Must be the party square of the island! We ended up at an Italian restaurant that was supposed to be really nice with an Italian chef and all. They ran out of pesto! Can you imagine an Italian restaurant running out of pesto? How crazy is that?

The next day, we rented a car and decided to roam the island. We took the smallest car they had and I am glad we chose a small car. The roads are small and parking is tough, so it was a blessing. We started with the classic town of Oia. Due to the geography of the area, the buildings are almost on top of each other. Everything is built in a very tight place. The alleys are so small. I commend the surveyors who have to survey the property lines. It was impossible to tell where one property ends and another starts! There were so many tourists there. The next stop was the City of Fira, the capital city. We visited the famous Three Bells Church. Again, the architecture was great. The views are amazing from just about anywhere you stand. One interesting thing I noticed is they have a lot of open-air theaters—like the drive-in theatres we used to see in the US. They run some classic popular movies such as “Mamma Mia”!

Guess what? It was time for Indian food since we did not get a chance to find one in Athens. We found a place in Fira so decided to sit down. There were a number of Indian couples at the restaurant. It turns out one of the major watch companies—Titan (A Tata Enterprise)—had their dealer network meeting in Athens a few days before and a few of them decided to extend their trip and came to Santorini!

Beach, what beach?

After a nice lunch, we headed to the famous Red Beach. It is made up of red, black, and white sand. I found the beach underwhelming at best. I think since tourists are here everyone visits these beaches, but it is not really a beach island. The next stop was another disappointing beach called Perissa Beach. Anyway, we were tired from an all-day outing so we returned the rental car and called it a night.

The next morning we booked a boat tour to volcanoes, hot springs, and a local village called Thirassia. A bus picked us up from the hotel early in the morning to go to the port. As soon as you step on the boat, you notice the difference in attention to safety. I am sure it is a safe place but there were no safety briefings, no instructions on life jackets, etc. A few of us from North America immediately noticed the difference and made a comment! I was surprised to see the developing world’s attitude to safety in a developed country. Our first stop on the boat was the volcanoes. The volcano was a fairly recent one. Only 430 years old. The hike up to see the crater is a little over one kilometer. It is a steep hike for sure. Once up there, the so-called “active” volcano is not really active. You can see some smoke coming out on one rock, but I have seen thicker smoke coming out of an Istanbul hookah bar!!!

After the volcano, we continued to the hot springs. Since you have to swim to reach the hot springs from the boat, we decided to just watch from on-board instead of jumping in the water. We continued to the island of Thirassia from the hot springs. It is a beautiful little place with some nice restaurants on the shore. A typical tourist place for sure but we had a nice lunch at one of the restaurants. It was time to return to Santorini after two hours on Thirassia Island.

We stayed at the hotel for the rest of the evening since we had a flight back the following morning. I really enjoyed Athens but for some reason, I found something missing from our visit to Santorini. Maybe my expectations were too high and I had set myself up for disappointment! I made a comment to my wife that Santorini reminded me of Kim Kardashian. Famous for being famous!!!

Have you had mixed feelings about a trip? Please do share in the comments section below. Until next time…