Our Greece Adventure was one of those random decisions, all of the pieces fell into place, vacations that will go down as one of our top 5 … maybe even top 3 Horton family vacations ….so far 😉 It all began with Erin and Caitlyn floating the idea of a spring vacation. A random search pulled up a discounted Hiking trek through Gadventures to hike Northern Greece and climb Mt. Olympus and vacation decision was made!! As the excited planning began I couldn’t help but feel a little nostalgic for the days of our family vacations. My little kids were all grown up and heading off on their own adventures. 🙁 Happy for them – sad for me as they were off to a destination that had been on my wish list for decades.
I proposed that they extend their trip to Greece by a week to include ME touring Athens and Santorini with them. 🙂 Of course it was welcomed and the vacation became known as the Horton Girls take Greece ……which shortly became the Horton Family as there was no way that Dave was going to be left out of the adventure. 🙂
The decision was made early on to use carry-on luggage/backpacks only so my precious camera and lenses were left behind and all photos were taken with each of our various generations of Iphone. At the end of each day we shared our photos to a group chat. I loved seeing everyone’s views of the vacation and did not worry about missing out on a photo or not being in any of the vacation pictures.
This posting is a newsy/information sharing post of our vacation. I hope that you Enjoy!! I have also put together a second blog post for how to manage to take nice photos while dealing with the volume of people, weather etc. etc. You can find it at this link.
Athens
With only allocating a week to try and soak up all that we could I did my research and created a list of must see’s and maybe see’s before we left. We arrived in Athens at 11am, found our way via the Athens Metro to our Airbnb in the Plaka District. We stumbled upon this rental completely accidentally and it truly made our vacation!! The owners (Dimitrios and Family) greeted us in a traditional Greek fashion with a little historical information, sweets, maps and shots. He recommended restaurants and sites to see as well as places to avoid. Loved It and highly recommend!!!
We tied up our running shoes and headed off seeing every site that you could see. I did book one walking tour that was interesting and gave a little bit of new information but ended up ditching it about 2/3’rds of the way through the tour as we wanted to see different things.
In the Day and Half that we had dedicated to Athens we managed to see almost everything that we had put on our wishlist.
Places that we visited included:
The first afternoon we headed in a westerly direction from our home base. Taking in the following:
- The Temple of Zeus,
- Hadrian’s Arch
- Statue of Lord Byron,
- Archaeological site of the Lyceum of Aristotle,
- Panathenaic Stadium (olympic stadium)
- Athens National Garden
The following day was a HUGE one where we tackled the Acropolis and all of places within, Ancient Agora of Athens and all of the museums and sites within as well as Monistiraki Square and returning to the Panathenaic Stadium. We had arrived just as it was closing the night before so did not get to go inside. This was on our must see list. We went in, climbed the seats, ran a lap and stood on the podium. We found Athens to be super clean and friendly and loved roaming the city that is a museum itself.
Santorini
The following morning we caught an 6:30 am flight to Santorini to start the next leg of our adventure. I had long been dreaming about the 10 km Fira-Oia hike along the Santorini coastline. We checked into Airbnb #2, filled up our water bottles and headed off on our next adventure. The hike was amazing and I am so excited to have that experience!
I found Oia a little touristy …. or more exact to be filled with “Tourists”. You know what I mean… Tourists with a capital T. There is nothing wrong with being a tourist, I prefer to learn and prioritize the culture and history as opposed to running in grabbing the instagram picture and running out again. No judgement if that is your thing it just isn’t my thing.
Our household tends to have a sense of humour about life and the Santorini public bus system cracked us up. It is a perfect example of organized chaos. We often found ourselves standing in the corner of the bus yard knowing that we would eventually end up at some destination (maybe not the one we originally planned on) but it would be fun nonetheless. Finding our way to less touristy locations which we adored including: Akrotiri and Perissa. We loved being able to be active during the day finding hiking trails everywhere we went and ended each day toasting the glorious Santorini sunsets.
Sister Adventure
3 full days in Santorini and we were ready to head back to Athens. The girls waved goodbye and headed off to join their fellow trekkers in Thessaloniki for an amazing adventure across Northern Greece ending in Zagori/Preveza. They loved the trip and came home with many stories. Some they told us some I am sure we will never hear 🙂
Final Days
Dave and I spent one more day roaming Athens, enjoying drinks at a neighbourhood restaurant and basically not going too far for the first time in the vacation. 😉 The girls had emptied their backpacks of the majority of their belongings into our suitcase. It is amazing how little you need when you are faced with carrying it on your back for a week!! With my carry on at capacity I spent the afternoon wandering the shops searching for a cute bag to carry the excess on the airplane. We took in the sites that we had missed out on our first days here. We added Philopappos Monument, Sanctuary of Pan, and the Prison of Socrates to our list. Definitely they were worth a visit not nearly as crowded as the other sites they offered a different view of the acropolis and Athens that was amazing.
Summary Tips
We were there in early May. The temps were a little cool at the beginning but warmed up as the week went by. Over and over again we were told that we had chosen the best time to go just missing the busy season. We definitely loved it! It was relatively economical to feed a family of 4 especially with the restaurant recommendations from Dimitrios. Dave enjoyed paying $3 for a beer as opposed to what we pay in Canada at most restaurants. 😉 Our days were full, we pushed through the jetlag starting the days earlier and cramming as much as we could into every minute. Generally we ordered take out and collapsed with a bottle of wine on our balcony at the end of each day. The “collapsing” might have been a little jetlag kicking in but we managed 🙂
Check out My blog for Photo ideas and Suggestions in Athens and Santorini.
A Complete List of the Major Sites we Visited (in case you are planning your own vacation 🙂 These are the ones that I can Remember. Athens seems to be a museum itself. Every where you turn there are beautiful buildings, churches and landmarks.
- The Temple of Zeus,
- Statue of Lord Byron,
- Archaeological site of the Lyceum of Aristotle,
- Panathenaic Stadium (olympic stadium)
- Athens National Garden
- Acropolis (and all that the Acropolis Contains)
- Monistiraki
- Ancient Agora of Athens
- Stoa of Attalos
- Temple of Hephaestus
- Hadirans Libreary
- Statue of Theseus
- Philopappos Monument and all that the
- Filopappou Hill contained (sanctuary of Pan, Nymphs Hill, The Pnyx etc.)