Greece 2018

A few days after I was released from school, I hopped on a plane to Greece with my family.  Earlier this year, I visited my first country in Europe, Portugal, and Greece I must say, was one very different country.  Its capital, Athens, went on strike against Uber the day we got to the city so there were no taxis to take us to our hotel.  Athens was the third part of Greece we visited, and it resembled the life in a typical city, with high traffic, rambunctious street nightlife, filled with both natives and tourists.  Overall, we went to three different islands in Greece: Santorini, Naxos, and Athens and our vacation lasted 13 days.  Each island was vastly different from the last, with different cultures. 

Santorini may as well be the epitome of a Greek island, most widely known for the three sky blue domes located on the cliffs in Oía.  Santorini has an interesting configuration, there are three major towns located along the main portion of the island and Oía is the last of the three.  Oía is so famous that my family actually visited twice in our four night stay on Santorini, and it is particularly renown for sunset viewage.  It was horrifying crowded on the night we watched the sunset, people we clambered on the castle, filling the restaurants, and crowding all along the sidewalks facing west.  When the sunset ended these massive crowds dispersed throughout the town and perhaps it was the busiest then for the shops as people squished through the narrow streets trying to get as quickly as possible to the bus stop.  In Santorini, the buildings are primarily white, because it becomes extremely hot in Greece throughout the summer (it was nearly 90 degrees in early June!) and the houses are built of a rock/clay material which kept the insides of the house cool.  People in Santorini, at a glance are the masters of building houses on cliffs.  Hotels were even built on cliffs and since cars cannot drive down on the cliffs (there are no roads), people had to drag their luggage to their hotels down the narrow and bumpy roads. 

Three domes

Naxos is presently a fishing town.  Dissimilar from Santorini, the houses are built as high on cliffs and the main part of town is ocean level.  This naturally allowed for a huge rowdy port, and every night seemed to be a festive one.  Restaurants were lined up all along the dock, most with a view of the sunset and the sailboats.  The most famous ruin in Naxos is the Arc of Apollo, and at sunset, the sun set at an angle that shown directly through the arc.  Naxos has an old market/town, located behind the restaurants bordering the docks.  The old town has windy and narrow streets, filled with clothing, jewelry, and souvenir shops.  Restaurants are located around central locations and mini squares in the old market.  The old market was built with white houses, and the frames of the house including the windows and doors were painted bright colors such as yellow, red, and blue.  During our five night stay in Naxos, we took evening walks along the port and amongst the rowdy and musical streets which were truly relaxing.  The sound of the waves was ceaseless.

Arc of Apollo

Our final destination in Greece was Athens.  Athens is known almost solely its ruins.  True to word, we visited Acropolis, which was ancient Athens.  Acropolis was located in an advantageous point on a mountain, so the ancient greeks constructed their city there.  In Athens, it was hot.  I mean, really hot.  The sun never failed to shine and it was over 90 degrees each day we were there.  The neat thing about Athens is that there is both a modern and ancient side to the city, both encompassing a little of the other.  In Acropolis, on the Parthenon (which was the temple for Athena), there was construction.  Modern technology rebuilding and strengthening old structures.  However, much of the modern parts of the city are influenced by the ancient, with sculptures, museums, and other remaining ruins which used to be the suburbs of Acropolis now located in the modern part of the city.  As I mentioned earlier, when we went to Athens, there was a taxi strike which minorly impaired our ability to get around the city; the tourist part of Athens is fairly walkable.  The taxi strike targeted Uber and for the first two days of my stay, there were no taxis.  As soon as the strike ended, it seemed that 40% of the cars on the roads were taxis, especially since June marks the beginning of the tourist season.  

I was very excited to visit Greece because it is quite different from what people typically associate with a European country.  I believe what comes to my mind are old churches, intricate opera houses, and luxury shopping, but Greece is quite different from that.  The architecture is one of a kind (especially the blue domes) and the history of the country is truly extensive and interesting to explore.   

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We also visited Mykonos during our stay in Naxos by ferry. Below are some photos from Mykonos and perhaps the most famous view here is the mills.

Little Venice