Mia

June 11th to 13th, 2022

We took a ferry to Athens, and were reunited with our bus driver George on the other side. He took us to the Archaeological Museum of Athens. We spent so many hours there, and honestly, I think we could have spent five more and not had nearly enough time. The wonders that this museum holds are endless. 

After the Museum, we headed back to our hotel, Acropolis Select, and we had one goal with what we were going to do with our freetime: buy Anna a new backpack.  

Mission accomplished!

We had our goodbye dinner that night, and it was harder than I thought it would be. We had become so close with everyone on in our group, who had all spent so much time looking out for us, that it felt like a real loss to let our new friends go. 

Once again, Anna and I found ourselves with an extra day in Athens. We used it to go to our final archaeological site, Kerameikos Cemetery. This place really creeped me out, but it was cool to see part of the wall of Athens. 

We saw the changing of the guards, did some shopping, got dinner at Ergon House, and enjoyed some final drinks and a view of the Parthenon. 

Our trip had finally run its course.

I would be going home, and I wouldn’t be seeing Anna again until late July. The time we spent together not only encouraged our love of travel, and built our love of Greece; it built our love of each other.

We’ve never been closer than we were since this trip.

I hope we can have many travels again together!

June 9th to 11th, 2022

Hydra was our last stop on the trip before returning to Athens. On the way to catch the boat that would take us to Hydra, we stopped in Epidavros, which was one of the neatest archaeological sites we saw. The theater was truly incredible, as was the museum. There was something about the theater that just had the feeling of ghosts, of people who had come before us. After Epidavros, we got on our little boat to Hydra. 

We had fun on Hydra. We did a lot of shopping and we did a lot of swimming.

The first afternoon we got there, we had a lovely lunch at Xeri Elia Douses Tavern and explored the town before checking into Greco Hotel Hydra, including taking a quick dip in the water off of some rocky platforms at Spilia Beach, before meeting up with the rest of the tour in the hotel courtyard, where our tour guide gave us all a little gift. 

We tried cuttlefish for dinner, and then finished off the night with ice cream cones and a lovely view of the sea.

The next day, the tour guide took us on a walk to one of the beaches of Hydra, Vlychos Beach, which had lounge chairs and drinks and food, as well as that beautiful warm water. 

We spent the whole morning and most of the afternoon on the beach, before taking a boat back around to the main part of town. There was no one else in the taxi at the time, so it was as if we got a private boat ride.

We got lunch at Kai Kremmidi and then went shopping, including buying some food for a picnic dinner. We went back to the swimming platforms at Spilia Beach for lunch and had our lazy dinner there, toasting to our last night before we were back in Athens. We also enjoyed some more swimming.

Despite having a few more nights, this almost felt like the end of our trip. The next day we’d be in Athens, and after that, I’d be home and we’d be separate for the first time in what felt like forever.

It was hard to say goodbye to Hydra, because in a way it felt like we were saying goodbye to Greece. 

June 7th to 9th, 2022

I was very excited for Nafplio (more swimming), but before we got there we’d be making a very important stop. Sparta and Mystras.

An interesting thing I learned about Sparta: There isn’t much left of ancient Sparta, because a lot of the buildings were destroyed and used to create the Byzantine city of Mystras. 

Mystras was gorgeous, and we even walked up to an active convent, after touring through many churches and winding down many narrow slippery streets.

After Mystras, we had a delicious lunch in Sparta. We ate with two friends we’d made on our tour, and one of them was so surprised when he learned our age that he literally spit out his drink at the table. 

We got caught in the rain in Sparta, but made it to our bus only slightly wet, and went forwards to Nafplio, where we stayed in the lovely Hotel Marianna.

We fell in love with Nafplio. Everything from the hotel room, to the different tiers of the town, to the delicious dinner on a cobblestone street, to the shops and museums; we walked through Nafplio all evening.

We got lost in Nafplio.

Anna painted out of our window in Nafplio.

That night was glorious. The next day we would find ourselves facing some slight problems. 

I woke up early the next morning and went to the honey market where I purchased some delicious honey, then met back up with Anna for breakfast and to head out on our day trip.

Our day trip was taking us to Mycenae, and we were both giddy like kids on Christmas to be seeing this ancient city.

Here, though, our problem arose: Anna, who was staying in Europe after I went home and backpacking through several more countries, had broken the strap on her backpack. This was a problem that would have to be solved after Mycenae. We hiked up everywhere in Mycenae they would let us.

They took us into Agamemnon’s Tomb and I cried. Anna painted a gorgeous picture of it.

We headed back to Nafplio from Mycenae, and decided to ship some of Anna’s clothes home so that she could just use her smaller bag for her trip.

We went to the post office and we waited for hours, then they refused to ship our box; this was our road bump.

We were able to salvage the remainder of our afternoon, got a lovely lunch, and then joined the rest of the tour for a group dinner, where a traditional Greek band played music for us late into the night. 

June 5th to 7th, 2022

We made three very memorable stops before arriving in Monemvasia. The first was in a town where we enjoyed a tour of some gorgeous old churches, and were treated to Greek coffee.

Next, we had an olive oil tasting at a traditional stone olive oil press.

Finally, we had lunch at an absolutely stunning restaurant, Takis to Limeni, where we were visited by a sea turtle! 

Just in time for an orientation walk and dinner, we pulled into the town we’d be staying, which was just adjacent to Monemvasia, a medieval town carved into the side of the mountain.

We settled in our hotel room at Hotel Panorama and then set out to see the restaurants, stores, and the huge rock emerging from the sea.

Meet the group! And see how well-protected this Medieval town was.

The next day, we took a bus across the bridge and into Monemvasia. We had to enter through a tunnel, and then we found ourselves in a gorgeous town protected by ancient castle walls. Relics of medieval pottery were mixed with the gravel under our feet, and our tour took us all around the town and to the lighthouse.

After the tour, we made the very surprising decision to take the steep stairs to the upper castle before swimming off one of the rocky beaches. It was one of the most gorgeous hikes I’ve ever been on, providing sweeping views of the Aegean Sea.

We had lunch up there, and we were very hot and very excited to walk all the way back down to Portello Beach and swim.

This was my favorite swimming spot of the trip.  Floating in bath warm water bright blue water, looking at urchins and fish beneath me, I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that we were swimming right off the coast of a Medieval city, where sea battles were fought; people lived and died on these walls, and we had walked and swam on them.

Then we got lunch and headed back to our hotel with the group to get ready for our cooking demonstration, where I learned the recipes for some classic Greek food like baklava and tzatziki. I’ve made that tzatziki many times since getting home, and while it’s always a treat, it never tastes as good as it did that day.

The next day, we would be traveling further down the coast and staying in Nafplio, where we would experience our first (and only) road bump.

June 3rd to 5th, 2022

Kardamyli would rebuild our trust in the tour after our collective heartbreak from leaving Lagkadia.

Luckily, this time we would have two nights. There was just enough time to get a short hike in before the tour bus left in the morning, and Anna and I were treated to some gorgeous sunkissed views for our efforts.

Then it was goodbye Lagkadia, and goodbye mountains; Kardamyli is on the coast.

Personally, I was very excited to get some swimming in, but before we got to Kardamyli, we would be making one very important stop: Olympia. 

Once again, we made an extra trip through the museum after our tour guide had finished, and had an extra little bit of exercise after our tour guide had finished showing us the archaeological site, only this time instead of hiking, it was running.

We both ran the Olympic Track, and we both felt pretty victorious afterward! (I completed it about a second faster than she did, and I’m not just saying that as a competitive younger sister)

After Olympia, we had a lovely lunch as a group in a gorgeous little hotel/restaurant called Bacchus Tavern, and then traveled into Kardamyli. Those were some of the scariest roads I’ve ever ridden on, and after that day, George our bus driver became a hero to us all. 

We got there fairly late, and the very first thing we wanted to do was go swimming. So after checking into Hotel Esperides, we went for a sunset swim off a pebbly beach and floated in the almost bathlike water, before wandering down the main street of town looking for a restaurant. We ended up finding a place called Lela’s Tavern that had a little table left, out on a rock jetty by the ocean. Flowers bloomed around us and we sat together, watched the sunset, and ate good food. 

The next day was our first free day since the tour started, and we were determined to make the most of our time, starting with a 5 am hike to see the Hagia Sophia. 

Only one of us made it all the way to the church. I turned around and went for a morning swim off of one of the bathing docks instead, but I did get to see some baby wild boars! 

Anna says the hike was one of her favorite experiences of our trip, and the scenery has since inspired many of her paintings. I’m glad I didn’t miss that early morning in the sea; there wasn’t a sound but the water and the rocks, the crab and the fish and me.

I was thoroughly refreshed and met back up with Anna for breakfast at our hotel, a meal we shared with other members of our tour group, who had opted to use their free morning to sleep in. 

Our plan for the day: go to the beach. 

We opted to take a rather long walk through town to Ritsa Beach, the one recommended in our Rick Steves book; I was glad we did, we were able to use lounge chairs for as long as we wanted, to get drinks, and to swim. We spent most of the morning and a good bit of the afternoon relaxing on the beach.

The beach was well worth the trip, and honestly the perfect way to have some down time in the middle of our very busy tour.

After the beach, we were hot, hungry, and ill-prepared for our walk back.

We ended up deciding to take a shortcut through an olive grove, getting mildly lost, walking in flip flops down the side of the road, and eventually finding our way back to town and eating a huge lunch at Maistros. 

Once we were out of the olives, full of food, and had done a little shopping, it was time for our daily siesta; just a quick, two-hour nap to prepare us for the rest of our day. 

We decided to get gelato, and then explore some of the historic district of Kardamyli, walking up to Castle Mourtzino.

What a view! And the salty sea air put us in just the right mind for a fish dinner. We found a place called Psaras that had tables out near one of the bathing docks, and we sat there for hours, eating and talking about life. 

With that, we said goodnight to gorgeous Kardamyli! Tomorrow we would set out bright and early for our next two-night stop: Monemvasia.

June 2nd to 3rd, 2022

Lagkadia was the town that none of us wanted to leave, that none of us had enough time in, that none of us thought could be beaten.

It was the town that almost had us mutinying against our tour guide and our Rick Steves itinerary.

But the journey there was almost more exciting than the town itself. After a long drive (in which we could see more and more of the coast) we detoured back into the mountains, our bus driver George dropped us off at a train station, where we took a cog train ride to a small town in the mountains.

This was, perhaps, the most gorgeous natural scenery of the entire trip; the views of the valley from the train were unlike any other.

After the train, we went by bus to a very small restaurant called Piges in the mountain town Kalavrita, where we served trout that had just been caught in the stream the bubbled next to our tables; one of our adoptive trip parents had to teach me to debone my fish since it came out whole, head and everything.

After that delicious lunch, it was just us and the long, gorgeous ride into Lagkadia, down winding roads and through the mountains, listening once again to Greek myths. 

When we got to Lagkadia, it seemed almost too good to be true. It was a tiny, quiet town, snug in the mountains, which could be picked out from the scenery by its gorgeous, terracotta stone roofs.

We were welcomed like family by the owners of Hotel Kentrikon where stayed, and then were sent across the street to view some traditional Greek dancing at the Maniatis Restaurant.

Many of us, including Anna and I, were pulled into the dancing group! 

After our gorgeous views, gorgeous dancing, and wonderful dinner, all there was left to do was go to bed; this is why it was so hard to leave Lagkadia, we were there for such a short time and it was so wonderful!

The entire way down the mountain the next day, we complained about our too-soon departure.