Greece - A Whirlwind Vacation

Take two people who are terrible at planning, put them in Greece and what is the result? One week of jam packed activities, awesome experiences, great views and lots of delicious food. My friend and I who are both frequent travelers decided to go to Greece on a very last minute sort of trip. Neither one of us have been before and thought it would be a great place to visit.

We had a grand plan; Athens, Mykonos, the Peloponnese and back to Athens. Little did we know that the skyfather Zeus had different plans for us. We started off in Athens and staying in the Plaka district. Very touristy, beautiful and a stone’s throw from the Acropolis it was a great spot for our first night. Our plan was stay one night in Athens and take a high speed ferry to Mykonos the next day…which we had not booked tickets for. When we did look up tickets, the only ferry leaving the next day was at 7 am and returning at 3 pm the following day. We hadn’t planned on spending that much time on Mykonos, but in retrospect it was a good idea.

Our hotel in Mykonos, Tharroe had a friendly German Shepherd that greeted us on check in. Leaving our stuff in the hotel, we wandered down to Old town Mykonos which was about a kilometer away. Now rumor is that Mykonos was built like a maze to confuse invaders. Well it confused the heck out of us too. It felt like we were walking in circles. But the narrow streets, bright buildings and colorful stores were a wonderful sight. We stopped quite a few times for coffee, gelato and snacks.

Now Mykonos is known for its night life and you would be surprised how much easier these streets are to navigate after a couple drinks! The next day we hightailed it back to Athens on a ferry to arrive just in time for dinner. We found some rooftop bars to take in the Acropolis and the Athens skyline. We had our grand plan of driving around the Peloponnese the next day.

Picking up our rental car, our first stop was Mycenae, the ancient power of Greece. Walking around the ruins, I could hear thunder in the distance and storm clouds moving in. Just as we finished the tomb of Agamemnon, the heavens opened up with thunder and lightning racing across the sky. The torrential downpour had us trapped in a restaurant for a couple hours. Once the rain slowed down, we hightailed it to Olympia, the site of the first Olympics. The interesting thing about driving through this region is realizing how close all the city states were. Most of them were within a couple hours of driving. This makes sense why they were all fighting in ancient times.

Our plan was to spend the night in Delphi, but given our slow going, we decided that returning back to Athens would probably be a better idea. In Olympia as if on cue that we were there to see the Temple of Zeus, the rain stopped. We wandered through the ruins, stopped at the ancient wonder and then went to the Olympic track. My friend wanted to run it and he did a quick lap around the track. As we were heading out, the rain started again and we decided that we would dedicate a bottle of wine to Zeus when we returned to Athens.

A relaxing night, some good food, a dedication to Zeus and we were energized for the Agora and the Acropolis the next day. The Agora was the ancient Greek forum. Haven seen the Roman Forum and it’s grandeur, the Agora was a little disappointing. It was mostly foundations and the only building that was still standing was the Temple of Hephaestus. We made our way to the Acropolis which was a tourist zoo. Now this was impressive. You could see all the way to Piraeus from up here. Just imagine sitting up here and seeing hundreds of boats sailing in to the harbor.

Just like that, our vacation was over. A literal whirlwind. We didn’t get to see a lot of the islands so we are already planning on going back to see those. After all those islands played a huge role in the shaping of the region.