Itinerary
Greece in 10 days: Obviously you can add and subtract whatever days or destinations you like from this. The take-away should be that Athens will end up being your central hub for everything regardless of where you want to go, remember to bring your student ID for discounts, and get your ass to Meteora.
Greece was so fucking hot. Granted, we decided to go in the middle of August so that was 100% our fault, but if you choose to travel there in the high season don’t expect the island breezes to cool you off. The island breezes could care less about you. Cost and accommodations varied for this trip because it was a honeymoon trip.
If you can choose when to go: April to mid-June, and September to October. Basically, the months bordering the tourist season. The heat waves have cooled off and there will be less fucking stampedes trampling you down to see the sunset, for example.
Athens
Day One: flight from Boston to Athens
Flight took over 6 hours to get trans-Atlantic putting us in Paris. Flights from Paris to Athens takes about 3 hours. Any flight to any of the islands in Greece will originate from Athens, so we decided to stay in Athens for two nights to recover from the jet lag and to eat our weight in pita bread.
Days two through four: check into hotel in Athens, half day to get over jet lag, two days to explore.
Where We Stayed:
A super boujie hotel called the Gran Bretagne because we felt like we should ball hard (have unlimited breakfast in bed) for our honeymoon. It was the only part of the trip that was not fiscally responsible. BUT the taxi drivers who work for the hotel are legit. Fun fact: there is a straight up taxi mafia in Greece and then will hard core rip you off with ridiculous fares if you don’t already know how much things should cost. This hotel also had a spa and we wanted to try and not get boners while we got couples massages.
What We Did:
Food Tour: These kinds of tours are a serious three in one – you get a walking tour of the city, this eventually becomes a history lesson from a local, and you get to figure out what foods you should be eating other than pita and moussaka. We had Greek (Turkish , but actually Armenian, good god stop conquering each other) coffee, pastries, main dishes, snacks, street food, and more. They usually take half the day.
Acropolis at Sunset: Bring your student ID for discounted tickets! Plan to take your time exploring everything ahead of time because the Acropolis will close very soon after sunset. You should also carbo-load beforehand. Its a bit of a hike to the top, so ladies:
- Ditch your super cute rompers that you picked out just for your Insta sessions, and PLEASE wear grippy shoes. Once you get to the top, everything is made of old marble, including all the stairs and ramps and the ground itself. Bitches be slipping every 5 minutes.
- Its also windy up there so don’t bother with your hair.
- You cannot sit on the marble for pictures, there are security guards everywhere who will blow a whistle at you, make you take out your phone, and delete the picture. I DON’T KNOW THIS FROM EXPERIENCE. I AM A LAW ABIDING CITIZEN
Trip to Meteora: If there is one thing worth an entire day trip for, it is this. It is UNREAL. As some kind of penance to get closer to The Big Man/Woman Upstairs, monks scaled these INSANE mountain faces before there were roads, carrying up their own construction and survival supplies, to build a series of monasteries over the course of hundreds of years. In the process they got shredded for Jesus, or so I imagine. The views from all the monasteries are hard to comprehend with your tiny human brain.
To get there, you spend several hours on the first train out of Athens in the morning, around 7am, and get to Meteora in the afternoon. Most tours will take you to about 3 or 4 of the monasteries and let you explore the mountain side. You will need to bring something to cover your knees/shoulders in the monasteries, otherwise an actual nun will literally give you something to cover up with. BONUS: there’s tons of sleepy cats up there you can pet. You get back to Athens late, around 10 or 11pm.
What We Wish We Had Time For:
- Acropolis Museum: This was probably our biggest “aaaah fuck we shoulda done that” but we barely had time to make it to the Acropolis at all.
- Traveling on the Ferry: We chose to fly to Santorini from Athens because we didn’t want to spend a whole day on the ferry and not drinking wine on the roof of our Airbnb.
- Different Day Trips: Delphi; Hydra, Poros and Aegina day cruises; Cape Sounion and the Temple of Poseidon. If you spend your whole trip on the mainland, this is probably what you’ll end up doing, you little archaeologist, you.
Santorini
Days four through seven: quick 40 minute flight from Athens to Santorini, deal with the clusterfuck airport that is in Santorini, two and half days to get wild.
Where We Stayed:
YOU WILL DEFINITELY NEED to arrange for an airport pickup and a guide to take you to/give you directions to wherever you’re staying. There are literally no addresses in towns like Ia. Don’t ask me how they deliver mail because I have no fucking clue.
Santorini has a few really cool towns, but Ia is the really chill one on the north end of the island that everyone goes to for the sunset. The other towns are either in the middle of nowhere or are the ‘party’ towns, and you’ll spend most of your day trying to drive up to Ia anyways. We picked a really cheap Airbnb on the top half (most northern part) of Ia because its less crowded. Hotels with their own websites will charge you 5x the price of the Airbnbs you can find like ours (pictured below) with the same amenities and ~private pool~. For the most privacy, you’ll want to stay as high up on the cliffside as possible because otherwise everyone can see down onto your balcony/pool. This is also a HUGE lifesaver when you don’t have to carry all your luggage up and down the unpaved, and really fucking steep, cliffside.
What We Did:
Wine Tour: We pre-gamed with an entire bottle of wine and have no regrets. Santorini is the only place on earth that wine is not grown on those 6 foot high trellises that you see in your usual vineyards, they’re actually grown in weird little bushes close to the volcanic soil. Its fucking delicious. We smuggled 10 bottles out of the country. A huge selling point is that most tours will end in some private, tourist-free, look-out point with your final glasses of wine so you can enjoy the famous sunset in peace.
Catamaran Tour: This is easily the most popular trip to do on the island. They take you all around the island, for a swim in volcanic hot springs, to three separate beaches, snorkeling, ITS OPEN BAR, and they’ll grill you up a sweet ass Greek lunch. This is not a drill. It is your quintessential vacation experience. I would do it 9 more times. The catamarans are huge and have tons of comfortable lounge space.
What We Wish We Had Time For:
The famous hiking trail from Ia to Fira was on our list, but full disclosure we were drunk too often to go for it. Its not strenuous, supposedly its very flat and unchallenging, and most people can do it in a sturdy pair of sandals. It takes a few hours and the views are supposed to be very beautiful. I thought this view was more beautiful:
Rhodes
Days seven through ten: Rhodes is the furthest island from the mainland, and there is no connection via ferry or plane that you can take to get there unless you head back to Athens. Both flights were less than an hour. That being said, it is another very relaxed volcanic island away from the crowds of other popular islands, and we wanted to go explore all the medieval cities.
Where We Stayed: After combing through their guest book, I think we were the only Americans to have ever stayed in the Lindos Blu Resort. Lindos is about 40 minutes from the airport in Rhodes. It was pretty affordable within the parameters of our honeymoon budget, brand new, had its own beach with big beach chairs, or cabanas if you’re feeling dramatic, and was really private. When we got there we learned that it was voted the #1 luxury hotel in Europe or something that only hotels keep track of, and is a top 20 resort in the world. It was so fancy that when we asked the beach service staff for a bucket of beer they were confused…we had to walk them through it.
What We Did:
Fucking chilled out, mainly. We went into the town of Lindos for a night and explored their medieval castles (above) and ate some incredibly authentic Italian food (ie: we ate a giant ball of mozzarella) at a restaurant called Brocolini. We planned to spend another day in the Old City of Rodos, but we left after lunch because it was so hot we could barely move our arms enough to drink our recovery beer. Rodos is very cool, but you can’t explore the big castle there as much as you think, and trying to eat there will cost you an arm and a leg. We bought a bunch of wine and bounced.