You always see these amazing pictures of Greece (specifically the Greek islands), and they look too beautiful to be real. My friends and I got to Greece and were happy to see that it really is that perfect in real life.
Deepal and I flew out of London together to Athens where we were going to be meeting Michelle and Saryah later that night. Our flight was fine, but we had to take the metro to get into the city since the airport is pretty far away. We had been on the train for close to an hour when we had to transfer to a different train for one stop before we were in walking distance of our hotel. The metro was super crowded, but as we were getting on our second train, a group of four people were being really aggressive and Deepal and I got separated. The train hadn’t left yet and the four people that had pushed their way onto the train ended up getting off the train before the doors even closed. Deepal and I exchanged confused looks because it was strange of them to be so aggressive and then not even stay on the train. Deepal had been suspicious that they had pick pocketed her so she checked her bag, and it wasn’t fully closed. At the time though, she had only thought to check for her wallet and her passport (which were both still there). It wasn’t until after we got to our hotel and checked into our room that Deepal realized her phone was gone. We connected the dots and came to the conclusion that those four sketchy people on the metro must have taken it.
We got directions from the hotel receptionist to the nearest police station so that Deepal could report the theft. She didn’t expect them to be able to get her phone back, but she wanted them to be aware of the crimes on the metro. The whole police force in Greece was really dodgy. None of the officers were wearing uniforms or anything (when we first walked in I thought they were regular people also waiting to speak with an officer), and the guy that we spoke with was on Facebook when we came in… They basically told us they couldn’t help us, but they gave us directions to a tourist police office not too far away. The police there weren’t much help either. There were at least four other groups of tourists there who were reporting the same crime. It was pretty frustrating since the police officers were really no help at all. We ate dinner and went back to the hotel to wait for Michelle and Saryah to get there.
Just when we thought it had been a rough enough day already, Saryah’s bag got left in the taxi that they took from the airport. Luckily she had her backpack with her that had all of her travel documents and money, but she had lost pretty much all of her clothes that she had brought (Saryah had been traveling for a week and a half at that point and wouldn’t be back in London for another week). It had been a long day so we were all ready to get to bed and start fresh in the morning.
We spent the next day exploring Athens, and of course we had to start at the Parthenon. It was so hot out, and it was quite the walk up to the Acropolis. The front side of the Parthenon was completely covered in scaffolding since it’s basically always under construction, but we were able to get some cool pictures of the back side. We got some lunch and then we found a place to go shopping since Saryah needed to buy new clothes. About an hour into shopping Michelle realized that she had left her jacket in the hotel room and that her passport was in her jacket pocket. So the four of us split up, and Michelle and I went back to the hotel to find her jacket and passport. They had to call someone from the maintenance crew to get it, but her passport wasn’t in her jacket pocket. We checked our luggage that we had stored and sure enough, Michelle’s passport was in her backpack the whole time. Hallelujah! We did not need a lost passport on top of everything else that had happened in Athens.
After that mini heart attack, Michelle and I decided to go to the Acropolis Museum. We took the metro to get there since it was fastest even though we were scared of being pick pocketed after what had happened to Deepal the day before. We got on the metro and these two boys about our age were standing on either side of the train doors and they were watching us the entire time we got on the train. We stood on the opposite side of the train from them, but Michelle saw them look us up and down and then nod to each other as if to say “yeah, let’s get them”. After Michelle made a very loud statement that she would fight anyone who tried anything on her (lol), the boys looked to each other and shook their heads like “nah” and got off at the next stop. Very subtle…
The Acropolis Museum was really cool, and I’m glad that we went. Michelle and I were both in a class called London and Its Museums, and we had written a research paper earlier in the semester regarding the debate over the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon that are in the British Museum. I argued that they should be returned in Athens, and I feel even more strongly about it after having visited the museum. Afterwards, the four of us met up at the hotel, got dinner quickly, and headed to the airport for our flight to Santorini. Our short visit to Athens had been quite the rollercoaster, and we were all more than ready to get to Santorini. Our flight was so short, it was actually funny. The pilot announced that we were getting ready for landing eleven minutes after we had taken off… eleven minutes!! We were only in the air for 26 minutes! We took a taxi to our hotel, and after everything we had gone through in Athens it was the most beautiful sight.
Our first morning in Santorini we ate breakfast at a cliffside cafe and were just in awe of how beautiful it was. I love Santorini so much. The best way to get around the island is by driving so we ended up renting ATVs to drive around the island. We got two for the four of us to share, and then we split up. Michelle and I wanted to drive up to Amoudi Bay in Oia (on the Northern side of the island) to go cliff jumping! Oia isn’t that far from Fira (the main town in Santorini and where we were staying), but the signs that we followed to drive there took us the long way. Instead of just driving along the Western coast of the island for about 25 minutes to get to Oia, we ended up driving along the Eastern coast of the island and it took us closer to an hour to get there. It was beautiful though, so I’m glad we got to take the scenic route.
Cliff jumping was just a little scary, but a whole lot of fun. We had to swim out to the cliff, and the water was FREEZING. It took me a while to get in because it was sooo cold. It was pretty scary being up on the cliff and actually getting yourself to jump off, but once I jumped it was awesome. I’m so glad Michelle and I did that because it was one of the highlights of our time in Greece for me. We drove back into town and got some lunch before driving to Kamari Beach, which is one of the island’s black sand beaches. After hanging out at the beach for a while, we met up with Deepal and Saryah at the hotel and went out for dinner and to watch the sunset. The sunsets in Santorini are famous for being some of the best in the world, and they sure didn’t disappoint.
The next day we went on an excursion to two of Santorini’s surrounding islands to see the volcano and swim in the hot springs. We had to walk down to the port (and pass a lot of donkeys) where we got on our boat to head to the volcano. It was cool seeing all of the craters and hearing how the volcano’s eruption had created the island of Santorini. We hiked back down the volcano and went over to another island right by the volcano where we got to swim in the hot springs. To be honest, they really weren’t hot at all, but it was still better than the freezing sea water. Funny enough, we met a girl on our excursion who is also studying abroad at Queen Mary in London. What a small world!
We went back to our hotel to change and then we took a bus to Oia (the short way this time lol) to watch the sunset. Although the sunset in Santorini is beautiful no matter where you see it from, it’s supposedly the best when you watch it from Oia. It was pretty crowded, but we were able to sit on the edge of a terrace and get a great view. It was picture perfect, and I honestly could watch that sunset every night and never get sick of it. After the sunset, we went out with the other Queen Mary girl we had met earlier and stayed out pretty late having a fun time.
The next morning, Saryah and I had to catch a ferry back to the mainland so that we could fly out of Greece (it’s way cheaper to fly out of Athens than to fly out of Santorini since the airport there is so small). The ferry was about eight hours, but it flew by pretty quickly. We were able to sit in the sun on the back deck, and we played cards for a majority of the ferry ride. Once we docked in Athens, we had to take a pretty long bus ride to the airport. We were both flying to Rome (Saryah to meet up with friends and me to meet up with my family), so we got to stick together which was nice.
Greece was absolutely incredible, and it’s definitely one of my favorite places I’ve been to. I know I say that about nearly every place I’ve been to, but they just keep getting better! I met up with my family in Rome, and we spent two perfect weeks together in Italy. I miss them already 😦 I’ll write about that trip sometime this week!
Eva Around the World 