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.
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.
