The quirks of family vacation planning this year conspired to put two amazing trips within a short interval of each other. Less than 4 weeks after returning from France, we went to tour Greece.
Going to the country that we have never been to before, we tried to balance our desire of seeing as much as we could with the need to have some downtime on summer holidays. In hindsight, we probably erred too much on the side of trying to cover a lot of ground, even after cutting a few early-planning “musts” from the itinerary.
We spent a few days on Crete, a few on Santorini, a few on Naxos, one full day in Athens, and two more days driving to places on the Greek mainland. In addition to exploring on our own, we had 3 private half-day guided tours, one full-day boat-enabled excursion, and one full day of leisure sailing. With three ferry transfers of varying lengths between islands, we spent not an insignificant portion of the trip on water.
We set foot on 6 islands, dropped anchor at 2 others, and took a dip in waters of 5 different seas (or 6, if you include the overarching Mediterranean). There were many beaches, small villages, gorgeous vistas, plenty of nice walks, and plenty of interesting culinary experiences. A handful of World Heritage sites as well, of course.
I was barely a third of the way into processing photographs from the French trip when we left for Greece, so I will remain my usual methodical self and continue with France in my upcoming posts. You will have to wait a little longer to see Greece through my eyes. Hopefully, those who follow my lovely wife on Facebook have gotten a few glimpses of the beautiful country in her posts. And consider: I suspect that I will be posting vignettes of various Greek locales well into fall, if not winter. You’ll have my summer-y impressions and colorful palettes to help brighten up those dreary rainy days in November.
Something like this.
[Update] Travel notes from all visited locations are available in the Travelog.