Greece HM Review (July 2005)

We spent an amazing 3 weeks in Greece for our HM, but word of advice, unless you like the heat, I'd probably go another time of year. It is EXTREMELY hot for sightseeing, and you go through a ton of water, so I personally would go in June or September. Other than that, we loved it!

Why Greece?
- DH and I are both avid travelers, and wanted to go somewhere neither of us had been before
- We wanted a nice mix of both sightseeing and beaches
- We wanted to go somewhere memorable, with both romance and fun!

General comments

We visited the mainland, Mykonos, Santorini and Crete. We were also supposed to go to Rhodes, but thanks to the worst airline on the planet (Olympic Airways), we never made it there (more on that later…)

One of the confusing things we found about Greece was that every place had about 3 different names or spellings for it - aagh… very confusing when you don't speak the language!

The other thing about Greece is that people run on their own time... generally things run about 15 minutes late, including all forms of transportation! The bus schedules are posted, but we found that they just came and went as they pleased. Service in the restaurants also run on their own time - they are much less attentive there than in North America.

We found everything pretty expensive there, except for cigarettes and water! You can buy huge 6-packs of water there for under 2 Euros (which you'll definitely need in the summer) and cigarettes are all under 2 Euros a pack - no wonder there is so much smoking there.

Note - I didn't include any specific restaurant reviews since we basically just stopped and looked around when we felt hungry. We made some effort to look for some of those featured in the Lonely Planet and Frommers, but they generally weren't any better than those that we just wandered into.

Athens:

Accommodations
- Royal Olympic Hotel - It's rated as a 5*, but I think they were a bit generous in the rating. It was undergoing construction while we were there, but the lobby was very nice. Our room was small, as expected by European standards, but nothing very memorable. One of the few places that had a tub. Good customer service and an AMAZING breakfast buffet - lots of hot and cold selections, including my favorite spanakopita!

Things to do - TONS!
- The Acropolis
- Ancient Agora (same day as the Acropolis)
- Temple of Zeus (same day as the Acropolis)
- Archaeological museum
- Shopping! Fun stuff like shoes on Ermou (it's nuts - never seen anything like it!), lots of markets - the Plaka is great, and there's also the bug flea market in the Monastiriki area too. As many designer knock-offs as you can dream of too :

Day trips from Athens
- Sounion and the Temple of Poseidon - I thought it was nice, and a really scenic ride, but if you're pressed for time, it's a really quick see. It takes 1.5 hours to get there, but only ½ hour to see, so it may be skippable
- Corinth, Delphi, etc… - if you like Greek mythology and history, it's a full day trip to these sights.

Mykonos:

Accommodations
- Hotel Hermes - this is a little gem! My TA suggested it and it's not written much about, but it's a 4* at a great price. It's about a 5-10 minute walk into the centre of the town, but it's perfect if you want quiet. It's at the top of the hill above the town, so you need to walk, but you get an amazing view as a result (see pics). The staff is very helpful and the rooms are excellent with your own balcony. It has a tub too! Decent breakfast - they even will do a café frappe for you!

Things to do
- It's definitely a party town… basically the town wakes up after 10pm, and you sleep in a lot. TONS of designer shops in the winding streets, café bars to drink/dance/watch the sunset… it's a very laid back lifestyle. Lots of beaches - we only hit Paradise. I was surprised that it was a rocky beach.

Santorini:

Accommodations
- Sunrocks - another great place to stay. It's in Firostefani, so you need to walk like our choice above. It's about a 15 minute walk to get to the center of Fira. It's a great walk, especially if you take the route along the water. It's built up on the hill, with an amazing caldera view so you get great sunsets… recommended. I didn't like the breakfast here as much as the others.
- I totally recommend getting a place with a caldera view… it's so nice to sit on your balcony and watch the sunset there. LOL - it helps when they throw in some local wine when you're on your HM!

Things to do
- Spend a day in Fira - like Mykonos, it has tons of shopping, great food, and more! I took a donkey ride while I was here - definitely a unique experience.
- Wine tasting - Santorini is famous for its white wines… take a tour. We went to the Boutari winery and really enjoyed ourselves!
- Historical stuff - we did Akrotiri on the same day as the wine tasting… I was personally a little disappointed by it since it basically looks like rubble underneath some scaffolding. Probably a better bet would be to see Ancient Thera instead.
- Beaches - Red Beach is near Akrotiri… with reddish sand to go along with it. There's a few beaches in a row here to visit.
- Oia - a must see!! I loved this cute little village - it's much quainter than Fira, and it's the place with TONS of those infamous blue-domed churches and buildings!

Crete:

Accommodations
- Hotel Lato - this is a little gem… it had rave reviews in Frommers and Lonely Planet, and this was one of my favorite hotels ever. Amazing customer service and the manager there rocks. Fabulous breakfast buffet - tons to choose from, including my favorite… crepes!! The rooms are a little small, but the view is to die for. Get one of the ones with a view over the old fort in the water - it's stunning. They too threw in a welcome gift since it was our honeymoon. Another bonus of free internet!! Gotta love that. Super stylish lobby and room décor - worth every cent.

Things to do
- I LOVED Crete - I know everyone raves about Santorini, but Crete was my favorite - so much to see and do!
- We stayed in Heraklion because we wanted to be more central. It works well if you're on limited time - it takes WAAY too long to get out to Chania in my opinion (3 hours). If you want to do more sightseeing rather than just relax, I totally suggest staying in Heraklion. If you want to just lie around, I think Chania or Agios Nikolaos are perfect options since they're quieter. Basically all the big sites are in Heraklion or 1.5 hours drive from it.
- The Archeological Museum - like the one in Athens, this is a must see. Tons of Minoan ruins there. A perfect air-conditioning break during the mid-day!
- Walk around the town - Heraklion is easy to get around on foot, and there's so much shopping and some AMAZING bakeries and cafe bars… I totally fell in love with these while in Greece. It's so fun so hang out with DH and people watch while sipping a café frappe!

Day trips
- Knossos - a must see! Loved it! Make sure you hire a tour guide since there's little signage, and we got so much more out of it. We had an awesome lady named Chris - she really puts a story together.
- Phaestos - I was a little disappointed by this one after Knossos, largely because it hadn't been remodeled to make it more realistic. It's in a beautiful area though - amazing views from it.
- Matala - we loved it! It's a cute beach town - do the exploring of the Roman graves first (they're the things that look like caves on your right0, then spend the rest of the day on the beach!

We unfortunately never made it to Rhodes because of repeated cancellations and rescheduling of our flights - so we never made it from Crete to Rhodes. Rather, Olympic Airways managed to get us stuck in Athens... so we decided to make the dest of it and just decided to stay on the mainland, after wasting 2 days in various airports!

I just wanted to post a warning out to others considering using Olympic Airways... DON'T!

They have terrible customer service, and would not refund our money. We ended up having to pay for accomodations in two places during that stretch since we pre-booked our Rhodes hotels and could not get our money back.

We had previously used the ferries with no problems, so I would suggest using that, or looking at the other Greek airline, Aegean Airlines instead. I don't know if Aegean is any good, but it can't possibly be worse that Olympic.

• www.tripadvisor.com - LOVE this site - I use it for all my traveling. Generally the reviews are pretty accurate.
• Dolphin Hellas (TA: Uli Perschau) - this TA is based out of Athens, and I did most of my bookings (except our international flights) through her. Wonderful service and great prices! I know Fantasy Travel is used here on the Knot a lot, but when I shopped for the exact same package, it was several hundred Euros more to go with Fantasy - no problems with Dolphin… everything was waiting for us at our Athens hotel.