GREECE

Familytrip to Naxos & Paros

It was about time for the usual summertime routine.. Greece here we come! This time would be different, as we invited our parents to join us to that beautiful country with its amazing cyclades islands. Vanessa’s parents, and my parents hadn’t been to Greece yet, and we felt like showing them what we’ve been fascinated about these last couple of years.

My parents have reached the age, where they keep on slowing down, and so we tried to make it a very convenient and easy trip for them. Traveling around with ferries can be quite convenient but also a hassle if you’re traveling on a high-summer peak. Therefor we opted for two places that we’ve already been to, and where we knew it would be pretty easy to walk around without any vehicles: Naxos & Paros.

Athens.

The usual ritual: taking off in Luxembourg, and landing in Athens. Meeting up with our taxi-friend Dimitris, who’d bring us to the city center. Athens was never the city we were raving about, it’s not that pretty, lots of traffic, there aren’t a hundred things to do in the center. However we keep on appreciating our times in Athens more and more each time we visit. It’s the food, the people, the fair prices, and the cool bars. The historic architecture is beautiful, but once you’ve seen it, it becomes a normal part of the neighborhood.

Our parents did enjoyed our first dinner, with a splendid view at the acropolis. Food was amazing, and we just had ordered too many dishes to share.

Naxos.

I won’t get too much into details, as we almost did exactly the same things like the previous year. Naxos is very cozy, due to its long pedestrian area. The strip is packed with restaurants and bars, and parallel to the main road you have an old town area behind the front buildings. Nothing really spectacular to take photos of. The main parts to film would be the Old Town, the sunset at the harbor and the Portara (the temple of Apollo). And from the Avaton Bar, you get a splendid view all over the Island. Naxos is a great island, for families, to walk through the tiny alleys, do some window shopping, enjoy the weather with great food and some bottles of wine. It’s not trendy or hip like Mykonos, even though Naxos attracts a lot of tourists, but also many greek tourists.

We had two fantastic dinners at the following restaurants:

  • 520 Cocktail Bar Restaurant (with a view at the harbor)

  • Apostolis (beautifully hidden and decorated with hanging lanterns)

Food was excellent on both occasions.

The hotel where we stayed at was called “Saint George Hotel”. It was a lovely but basic hotel, with the usual greek touch: white walls, some greek decoration. We were offered a bottle of housemade wine on our arrival (it was pretty bad, but we liked the gesture of the owner). Free cookies as well. The best part was the location, as we had a direct view to the beach in front of our room. The ocean was only meters away. Definitely one of the coziest hotels we’ve ever stayed at in Greece, considering the location, and its view once you step out of the room.

Paros.

It would be our third time in Paros, and still it wouldn’t disappoint. The location and the food are hard to beat. This year we stayed again at the Riviere Residence, with its lovely hosts Mina & Emma. Their guest house has the perfect location, comes with an almost private swimming pool (we were the only ones using it), and the breakfast is the best!

Actually this time we wouldn’t discover something new. It was crazy warm, approximately 38°. We enjoyed the family time in the pool, had some naps, enjoyed the views at the harbor, did some shopping, and worshiped the Greek food, we were craving for.

Paros is becoming more crowded from year to year… it’s obvious that such a beautiful place attracts the crowds. Especially the younger generation. At night it gets crazy busy, but until 19:00 in the evening, it still remains pretty quiet and peaceful.

We managed to convince our family about the beauty and hospitality of Greece. For my parents it was something new, they sadly discovered it too late in their life, how to jump from country to country, from island to island without any hassle. Vanessa’s parents they do have the travel bug, and have been to quite a few countries, but nevertheless they enjoyed Greek as much as we did.



















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Greece 3.0 : Naxos & Paros

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It’s becoming kind of a ritual, making Greece part of our yearly summer holidays. Within Europe it’s one of those countries, where we easily feel at home. Is it the Greek people, their climate, their food? Or it’s just maybe a bit of everything thrown together, that convinces us as a whole. This year, it would be our third visit to the Cyclades within a two year period. We don’t ever get tired of it.

Naxos.

As usual, we landed in Athens. Our favorite taxi driver Dimitris would pick us up at the airport, and bring us to the same bargain hotel, where we stay at every time we set food in Athens. Dimitris became part of our journey in Greece, as he picks us up, and drops us wherever, and whenever we need his service. Such a gentleman!

We only spent 1 night in Athens, but we tried as much food as we could on the first day. We can’t get enough, the food scene in Athens is a one of a kind.

Our new destination within the Cyclades would be Naxos this year. We heard lots about it, read its name in many reviews and blogs. However we still didn’t know what to expect, as beating Paros would be a though challenge. Funnily this year, the ferry ride was more entertaining, as our daughter Valentina, was socialising with everybody on the boat. It wasn’t as relaxing for us, compared to having a nap for the following three hours. But we got to meet a young couple from Athens, and a few other parents with their kids.

Three hours later we hit Naxos. At first sight it didn’t look as cozy as Paros (Nausa). We still were ready to give it a chance. The temperatures on the island were very summer-ish. We enjoyed the white houses surrounded by hills and the sea. That’s what we were looking for. While walking along the biggest pedestrian road, leading to our hotel, we noticed the countless restaurants and bars, and we couldn’t wait any longer to try them all. This year, compared to 2021, the prices of the hotels had doubled. You could notice the difference.

As we were traveling with a one year old kid, we didn’t plan to visit any sights outside of the city center, as we only stayed for 3 nights. Nearby our hotel, we checked out the Agios Georgios Beach. It wasn’t an eyercatcher, however we just wouldn’t mind, as we were enjoying our time in Greece.

The center of Naxos has its nice parts. You will get some descent places for dinner. There aren’t too many appealing bars. Our two favorite ones were the funky “Swing” and the rather cosy “Kitron” (where all the drinks were mixed with a local liquor that is made with the plant …guess the name… Kitron). Having a drink at Swing , we run into the couple that we met on the boat.

On our last day we discovered the Old Town Market. It looks typically greek, like the shopping alleys in Mykonos and Nausa. In the white maze, we randomly discovered the cute restaurant “Apostolis”, definitely an eye catcher, and so was the food.

As we stayed 3 days in Naxos, there’s plenty of choice from wine bars, cocktail bars, fish restaurants, Greek taverns. At night it gets really touristy, as thousands of people are walking up and down the pedestrian street. Lots of pretty people though. We enjoyed our drinks with a seaview.

As for myself, my favorite part in Naxos would but the bathing place, right next to the harbor, and in front of the Portara monument. It’s a place where many locals jump into the water to cool down, during the hot afternoons. It’s the place where old and young people meet. To me it just felt authentically greek. No bars, no shops, just salted water and a rocky landscape that surrounds it. The cruiser boats just next it, just diminishes its charm, however it really didn’t really bother me during my swimming session.

Naxos passed the test. It just wouldn’t compete against our still favorite place in Greece (Paros), however we noticed that there’s something likeable about Naxos. It’s most definitely touristic, and it doesn’t offer the vibe of our favorite island, however you can spend some lovely days in Naxos, and enjoy everything that we love about Greece: kind people, amazing food, the sun and the sea. And of course visiting neighbouring islands during the day would be another option, if you spend more days in Naxos.

Paros, mon amour.

Visiting one place for a second time, can be daring at some point. Usually if you do get back to a city, it’s because you loved it so much, and just can’t wait to feel that emotion of joy and pleasure again. However if we won’t feel the same joy again on the second trip, it could end up as a disappointment. Normally the second trip needs to convince as much, or even more, to make it a worthy comeback. Paros just wouldn’t disappoint this year.

We changed the hotel, as our previous one (from last year) was fully booked. Kind of disappointed we thought the new one wouldn’t fulfill our expectations, but we were wrong. The charming guesthouse “Rivière Residence” was perfectly located in the very center of Naousa. The breakfast was the best, we had ever experienced in Greece. The whole place was just super cosy and it came with a pool. Everybody was happy.

The nightly dinners were just perfect, we felt happy at the right place. We opted to check out different places, instead of the harbor restaurants. “Kapari” was one of the better places, that we discovered in Greece. Great service, excellent food, and the hanging lanterns gave the whole a magnificent vibe after sunset.

Actually we didn’t do that much within the city. We just relaxed with our daughter in the pool, went for some walks through out the city center.

We booked a rental car for one afternoon, as we wanted to explore Anti-Paros. The nice part of the trip to Anti-Paros is, that you drive straight onto the ferry without geting out of the car, and it will bring you to the other side of the ocean within 5-7 minutes. Hassle-free for 10€. Be aware that you only have a bad internet connection on the island. We were looking for some touristic spots on google maps, however we had a hard time making our internet work. The island just looks like any other deserted landscape on the Cyclades. The city center during the day was quite pretty, but because of the high temperatures and barely no shadows along the street, we rushed through it. I can imagine that Anti-Paros is more enjoyable at night, however you always have to rely on your car. So drinking wine and driving back to Naussa, isn’t the best option. We were told by our taxi driver, that Tom Hanks and Monica Bellucci own a villa on Anti-Paros, with the reason that it’s super quiet, and far away from the crowd, as it is less busy or populated than Paros.

As this was already our 3rd holiday-trip on the Cyclades I just would keep repeating myself about our fascination of the islands with its white houses and the blue rooftops. You either love them, or you don’t. While we were meeting up with a friend in Athens, he told us, that he was less impressed with the dry landscapes in Greece, and that he’d rather visit Korfu because of its green natural surrounding. That would definitely be a point, that I could understand.

But once again, we loved Paros (well Naussa) that much, that we decided to get back for summer ‘23.




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The Greek Islands: Mykonos & Santorini (with a baby)

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What a year it has been so far. The second wave of our pandemic kicked in during the first quarter of the year. Europe locked itself down, and traveling went into pause-mode… again. That same first quarter of 2021, in march, I became a father of our lovely daughter. Three months later, we decided to get out of our country, and see what it feels and looks like to travel with a 3 month old baby.

In my opinion we chose the perfect location to make it an easy journey with a newborn and still experiencing something unique within Europe. It took me too long to make it to Greece, so glad that our daughter had the chance to see those beautiful cities after opening her eyes not too long ago.

Arrival in Athens.

We booked a flight from our homecountry to Athens, as it was the best city that would match our schedule and budget. The arrival happened without a hassle, we just had to hand out our negative result of the PCR test and we were good to go and jumped onto the first taxi waiting in line, outside the airport.

The taxi driver happened to be Dimitris, a gentle 40-year-old man. During the ride he turned off the taxi-meter and the first thing that came up in my head “that man is about to rip you off”, so I asked him, why he decided to turn off the taxi meter. We were told, that we pay a fix price for the airport transfer (35 €), we looked it up online and he was right. He stopped his car just to proove us that he wasn’t lying, showed us a pamphlet with the taxi fares. I almost felt bad for asking.

The good thing about our story, Dimitris seemed to be a very trustful person after our complicated start, that we decided to keep his phone number, and call him for every trip we had in and around Athens.

My impression about Athens.

Initially we didn’t plan on spending too much time in Athens. While preparing our trip, we couldn’t find too many sightseeing spots that would catch our interests. So we decided to book a hotel close to the Acropolis, to witness its beauty in the early morning from our balcony.

We also visited that main attraction in Athens as it was located only 10 minutes walking away from our hotel. To be honest I expected something more impressive. We were glad that the top-hill wasn’t packed with tourists, due to the covid pandemic. However they were still restoring and fixing up the Acropolis. The monument looked like a construction site. The entrance was 20 Euro per person, not the cheapest attraction I’ve been to.

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The Acropolis has been one of those things that I’ve known from the history books since I was a kid, and finally managed to see it in real. Therefor I didn’t regret spending the 20€ bill to see “the show”. You get a pretty impressive view of Athens from top of the hill.

As it was already 18:30 when left the main attraction, we walked downhill towards Plaka, and Monastiraki Square. Without its historical monuments, Athens would be comparable to an average Italian city. The family houses look quite similar. And the city shares another common thing with Italy… the amazing food ! And the show must go on… after our first culinary experience in Athens, we came to the conclusion, that the Greek cuisine made it among our favorites of Europe. On our way back home from the islands, we spent two more days in Athens. We discovered so many hip & fancy looking bars and restaurants. Every dish we ordered was delicious! You can never go wrong with a Greek dinner. I would really love to see what night life looks like, after the city has recovered from the pandemic.

Getting on the ferry.

I wasn’t sure about what to expect from “island hopping”, as that topic always came up when talking about Greece. As there are plenties of islands to discover further away from the mainland of Greece, the choice is yours. We decided to do two of the most popular islands: Mykonos and Santorini. Obviously we knew both islands because of the beautiful photos of those white houses that regularly pop up on social media platforms.

From the city center of Athens, we made it to the Piraeus Port in less than 20 minutes by taxi in the early morning, thanks to Dimitris. There are two ports in Athens, which offer a slightly different time schedule for your ferries to the Islands. The travel-time of the ferries, as well the price, might differ from port to port. (The second one is called Rafina and is located further away from the city center, but closer to the airport).

The prices of one-way tickets vary from 30-70€ per ticket, per person.

There are slower ferries and faster ferries. For example, we booked the “Seajets” ferry to get from Santorini back to Athens. The ride took around 5 hours. With the slower ferry (Blue Star Ferry) it would have lasted over 7 hours. Sometimes it’s worth spending the extra bucks, to make the trip more pleasant.

Mykonos.

As we really didn’t know much about Greece and its many islands, we opted for the two most popular ones: Mykonos & Santorini. As we heard many negative echoes about Mykonos: the jet-setter island, party town for rich kids, the expensive island… all these criterias which actually don’t match with our lifestyle, turned out to be less disturbing, as we really enjoyed our time out there.

What did I like most about Mykonos? It’s clean, it’s less posh than Santorini, distances are shorter, and like we always whispered while walking through the tiny alleys of Mykonos Town: “do you feel the joie de vivre” (joy of life). The scenic view of Little Venice, while having lunch or breakfast is priceless. The tiny Greek houses, a mix of white and pastel colors, the windmills, the waves hitting the shore just two meters away from your dining table. The hospitality of the Greek people is flawless. You just wanna lay back, enjoy the view, and being grateful to have it made to that beautiful island. There aren’t too many attractions. As it was our first trip with a baby, we decided to move on step by step, to get the feel of traveling as a family. And I think it was just the perfect destination to experience it for the first time together. We didn’t care about sightseeing or tourist spots… the white alleys, with detailed pastel colors on the houses, colorful red flowers… it just looked very photogenic, it was such a pleasure to discover the tiny corners of the old town. We spent 3 days in Mykonos, and every day we discovered a new hidden gem, even though the old-town looks pretty much the same.

The first food experience happened in Athens, however the magic just went on in Mykonos. We didn’t have one single bad dish. We kinda fell in love with the Greek cuisine, as we barely ever had real greek food at home.

Prior our adventure, we were told that Mykonos would be super expensive. To be honest, it isn’t more expensive than the country of Luxembourg, where we live. We spent 3 nights at the “Hermes Hotel”. The pick-up and drop at the harbor was for free. The room was quite beautiful, with a big window facing the ocean, which allowed us to witness the daily sunset from our room. Our stay cost 70 euro a night per person (140€ / room). I remember paying 50€ a day in a Hostel in Hamburg. Therefor don’t let the prices of Mykons or Santorini intimidate you. While browsing for hotels in Mykonos, we found lovely apartments for 70€ a night, right in the heart of Mykono’s Old Town.

As we were traveling with our baby daughter, we skipped the beaches, because of the aggressive sunlight, that gave me a rough sunburn on our first days in Mykonos.

On our last day, we headed uphill to the 180° Sunset Bar, which wasn’t located too far away from our hotel. We missed the sunset by half an hour, however we were glad for discovering this gem of a bar which gave you the best view over the bay. The entrance, which came with a free drink, was quite pricey for 20€ per person. However it was all worth it. The design, the tables, the bars and the decoration on site had a feel of the Coachella Festival.

After having enjoyed our stay that much in Mykonos, Santorini had a tough time to top it.

Santorini.

The ferry to Santorini took about 3 hours. While stepping out of the ferry you could already feel that we reached a tourist spot, as the locals were waving with panels for shuttles, car rentals, the different buses. Everything happened with a rush, and it felt like “you gotta leave from here ASAP”. 10 Minutes later, we sat on a shuttle with a bunch of other tourists (50€ for the 3 of us).

Santorini’s two biggest cities are: Oia & its capital Fira.
Where to stay?

To make it short, Oia is nicer to walk around, Fira offers a more impressive view of the ocean surrounding the islands. Oia is posh and has a luxurious feel, Fira gathers the usual tourists. The typical “clichee” photos of Santorini were usually shot in Oia.

We had decided to book 3 nights in Finikia, which was right next to Oia, 15 minutes walking. Even though we were kinda disappointed about Santorini in our first day, as we expected something different, it turned out that Oia was a good starting point to discover the Island, and later on to enjoy the evening walks in the city center.

How could Oia be any kind of disappointment? When following the white shiny marble path to the end of the Island, where everybody’s is heading to see the sunset, you slowly get surrounded by luxurious boutiques of all sorts of expensive brands. Jewelry stores, fashion stores, watch stores… they had it all; Luxurious hotels with an endless amount of swimming pool.

It didn’t feel like the “joie de vivre” we experienced in Mykonos, however rather a tourist trap. Nothing felt traditionally Greek. You can walk through Oia within two hours. As we were visiting during a pandemic year, there were less tourists, which made the city center still enjoyable. The shop keepers told us that during a normal summer, approximately 3000 people would come daily around 8pm to witness the sunset, and that you would have to stand in line 3 hours before sunset, to get a descent view. Thank god, the place was less loaded in 2021.

Oia is located on the very top of a hill. You can walk down to Ammoudi Bay, that looks like a charming fisher village, surrounded by cute little houses and lots of fisher boats. However on site, it turned out that Ammoudi Bay was a bay packed with restaurants to attract the tourists. We skipped it, nevertheless the bay was worth a photo.

We rented a car (35€ a day) and visited a couple of places, spread across the island: Red Rock Beach, Fira, White Beach, Pyrgos and the Akrotiri Lighthouse. Besides Oia and Fira, no other spot was a must-see.

As we were glad having it made two both islands on the same trip, we clearly prefered our stay in Mykonos. While getting back to Athens with the ferry, we passed Ios, Naxos, and a couple of other beauties. All these looked cosier and more enjoyable than Santorini.

Spending another day in Athens and we didn’t get bored. We managed to discover a bunch of entertaining night-life streets and a couple of shops. Athens wouldn’t be the place we could recommend for a city-trip, however it’s the perfect starting poing to visit Greece. Every night in Athens we enjoyed the evening walks to the restaurant, through the very lively alleys, while having a view onto the Acropolis.


To me, Greece fullfilled all the expecations I could have on a trip:

  • great food & drinks (sometimes pretty cheap as well!)

  • if I can post more than 2 photos a day on instagram, and I get enough footage for a travel video, you can consider Greece to be quite photogenic. The pastel colors of the architecture, and the scenic blue & greenish landscapes makes the country very attractive for photographers and videographers.

  • the hospitality of the greek people was out of this world. thank you!

  • getting around with the ferries was very convenient, and made traveling easy, even with a baby.

If Asia or America won’t open any time soon, we would definitely come back to Greece in 2021.