Greece, pt. I

I finally got back on here, and relized I never really did the Greece trip posts. I'll aim to remedy that now.

The trip startd off in Athens...sleepily...at the Athens Backpackers Hostel. This place was dead in the center of town, three blocks from the Acropolis, and complete with a rooftop bar with some of what we were told was the cheapest drinking in Athens. I'd believe it. We got the complementary ouzo shot, and after that the local brew was only a couple euro for a decent size serving. We crashed for the night, then in the morning went to the Acropolis (which was free that day woo!), and then on a walking tour of the center of the city, which was put on by the hostel. Michael that did the tour grew up in the area, and really does some research on the history of the city and its landmarks and monuments. Then we came back, took a brief siesta, then went out in the evening to the Plaka (shopping district) and strolled around whilst being accosted by shop owners (by the end of the trip, the phrase "come in, you like" was a running joke between Jess and I).

After those first two days, we hopped on a high speed ferry to Santorini, and even at high speed, the ride was still 5-6 hours, but well worth it. Santorini is easily the most beautiful place I've been to. We spent that evening checking into our very quaint hotel, then going out for dinner and ice cream, which was probably actually gellato. The next day was beach day, going to Red Beach first - an amazing little cove with red sand, carved off of the sheer cliff face at the back of the beach - and Perissa second, a black sand beach, sand from the ground up volcanic rock of the island. Jess had her leg groped by an octopus at Red Beach. I didn't believe there would be one so close to shore, but sure enough it was hanging out right in the shallows. She saw a stingray at Perrisa, which I wasn't able to confirm, but I believe her. The last full day we had on Santorini we did the boat tour to the volcano, swam in the hot springs, visited the fishing/non-commercial island for lunch, then returned to the port and disembarked in time to get back to the top of the calderra for sunset. The next day we were off to Mykonos, and that will be covered in the next post!