The Greek Isles

For the past few years, Matt and I have made a tradition of visiting the Mediterranean in September. We love the Mediterranean coast – the weather, the culture, the food – and September is the perfect time of year to enjoy its fruits as the crowds begin to thin out, the high-season prices start dropping, and the weather cools a bit to a manageably glorious temperature. I may have just revealed too much…Anyway, after doing Begur, Spain in September 2007 and the Algarve in Portugal in September 2008, we made the Greek Isles our home from September 5 to 13, 2009.

There are dozens of islands off the coast of Greece – varied and wonderful in unique ways. To make it easy on ourselves since we only had one week, we chose to stay in the Cyclades region. After months of consideration and very minimal research, we chose to visit Naxos and Santorini.

We flew direct from Amsterdam to Athens mid-morning on Saturday, and arrived around lunchtime. With plenty of time before our chosen ferry departed to Naxos from the Piraeus port, we decided to be all local and take the metro there. As we sat in the metro trying to figure out if we were on the right one, a Greek/Canadian man befriended us and took us under his wing. All we had to do was get off when he did and he’d point the way. Well, turns out that this man was not all too familiar with the new train system (presumably put in place for the 2004 Summer Olympics), and took us on crazy route that , after 3 metros and one bus, saw us sprinting to reach our boat a few minutes before it left the port.

Having just made it, we crashed in our seats for the first hour and a half of the trip, but then ventured to the outside deck to catch the sunset. We reached our destination, Naxos port, in three hours, and amid all the Greek tourists spotted our hotel car. We stayed at the Hotel Naxos Kalimera (“kalimera” means good morning in Greek) on Agia Ana beach – a clean, homey place with a firecracker of a proprietor. She was definitely the highlight of this hotel, offering rides to the beach (only a 10 minute walk) and into Naxos town whenever we wanted, and you heard her laugh before you saw her, since she always had her friends coming by for a chin-wag. She chauffeured us off to “her” restaurant, where we had the first of many abundant meals and glasses of Jesus wine (so dubbed by me because it is what I imagine red wine must have tasted like in the times of Jesus – watery and a bit tasteless). We had arrived in Greece, and this pleased us.


Our days in Naxos were marked by lolling around on the beach all day, lunching on crisp fried calamari (highly recommend La Trattoria on Prokopios beach), watching the sunset over chilled cocktails, and having incredible dinners. Our third day was windy and cold, so we skipped the beach in favor of renting an ATV. Matt drove, and I hung on the back for dear life as we bumped along on the dirt roads around the island. It was so much fun and the scary parts (like the near vertical inclines) only made it better in retrospect. Our reward was reaching a whimsical little town at lunchtime that was high on Matt’s legitimacy scale.
>


On the fourth day, we took the morning ferry to Santorini. The trip was only about an hour and a half, and the weather had improved from the day before to a mild, sunshiney morn. We arrived at the port to a frenzy of people touting hotels and rides. This ferry ride was also distinct in its number of foreign tourists – and they were all getting off at Santorini. Luckily, we had booked a hotel in Oía, which is on the north part of the island, tucked away far from the touristy mayhem. Our hired cabbie took erratic turns, passing tour buses on our way up the mountain, and about 20 minutes later, a bit woozy, we arrived at the Perivolas Traditional Houses. This place was a total splurge and worth every penny. Like many of the traditional houses in Oía, the hotel was carved onto the sunny south side of the cliff, offering picturesque views of the sunset over the caldera, and the rooms resemble caves that stay cool in the heat. It was pure luxury here. We rested our weary travel muscles (not really) in the sun by the infinity pool, reading and snoozing and, of course, eating. Dinners were had in the town, which was a short walk away and as enchanted a place as you could expect.



Though it was hard to leave the supreme comfort of our hotel, we did manage to get out and about during the days. Our second day we walked to one of the beaches in Oía, about a 45 to 60 minute walk from the town. All of the beaches in Santorini are black sand. Another day we did a catamaran tour around the caldera, and visited the red and white beaches – the sand at these beaches are still black, but the cliffs enveloping the beach (you can only get to the red beach by boat) are red and white. We also swam out to the hot springs, which were more like warm springs. They really should find a way for your boat to pick you up directly from the springs – having to swim back from the warm to frigid water was very unappetizing!


Our last night we walked down the steps from Oía to the Bay of Ammoudi, a little fishing village with a great restaurant. We toasted our fabulous trip with copious amounts of lobster and wine.

I’d say that for those wishing to visit the Greek Isles, doing both Naxos and Santorini is a good, well-rounded choice. If I may use a doll analogy here, if Santorini is Barbie – beautiful and remarkable, though maybe a bit cold and, dare I say, arrogant – then Naxos is Strawberry Shortcake – charming, inviting and sweet. Both offer the visitor different aspects of Greek culture, and both are not to be missed. This trip will definitely go down as one our favorites!