Our Big Fat Greek Holiday

August 31 - September 11, 2007

Our first taste of Greece was Athens. After arriving from Prague at 3.00am and spending a few hours under an escalator at the airport trying to sleep, we got on a bus into town.

It was bloody hot! Ignoring the warnings in the guide books telling us not to climb the Acropolis during the energy sapping midday heat, after checking into our hostel that's what we did. This was followed by a visit to the Ancient Temple of Olympian Zeus and over the next day and a half we wandered through the Roman Forum and other sites of ancient ruins as well as a couple of museums.

Maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the unfortunate abrupt and unhelpful nature of many of the public servants, waiters and tourism officers, but we failed to be completely inspired by what we were seeing. We appreciated it for its age, it is all very old! Maybe it also has something to do with our lack of education in Ancient Greek history and also because we've been to Rome and have been blown away by the ruins there and the experience is very similar.

Luckily we had other reasons for coming to Greece. The food. We found our first proper souvlakis on day 1 and they ony cost 1.60 euros each, so we had a few! It took us more than a day however, to learn that a souvlaki is made from meat on a scewer and a gyros from meat on a rotating spit. Aparently we get them a it confused back home in Australia. Turkey is next for us where we'll learn about the doner kebab... more on this soon! The Greek salads were also going down a treat.

After 2 days in Athens, we boarded an early morning ferry to Santorini, one of the Greek islands in the southern Cyclades. It is famous for its postcard white and blue churches and cliffside buildings, it's sunsets and enormous volcanic erruptions.

We stayed for 3 nights and spent our time either cruising around taking photos or sittin gon the beach taking advantage of the free umbrellas and sunbeds to elevate us from the scorching hot, black volcanic sand. We hired a scooter which we nicknamed Speedos Poppaloppados and he took us everywhere we wanted to go. Yes Mums, we wore helmets!

One highlight was wine tasting (they are very proud of their wine on Santorini). We were given a tray with 6 wines (3/4 full glasses rather than tastings0 and cheese, olives, bread and tomato spread and a little description of each of the wines, and sat on our table overlooking the islands.

Our second highlight was having dinner watching the sunset in the town of Oia (pronounced ee-ah). On our first night we rocked up shortly before sunset and were amazed by the hundreds of people lining the streets waiting for the sun to set. We were hungry and somehow managed to find a table in the best positioned restaurant on the cliff face. It was reasonably priced given the tourist trap it was and the food was also above the standard of what they could get away with. It was so good we reserved a (front row) table for 2 nights time and came back. We were treated with an even better sunset the second night. The first time the smokey haze from the recent fires in northen Greece meant the sun faded away before it reached the horizon. This night it set over the horizon and received a round of applause and a cheer from the crowd! Surreal?

From Santorini we sailed to the neighbour-ing island of Ios. It is known as a party island and attracts a lot of Aussies and other young tourists. Our plan was to stay here for a night but that turned into 4. We fell in love with our bungalow which had a real double bed, sheets, pillows and a fan which hasn't stopped. Also the 4 pools, the beach over the road, the restaurant which serves good cheap food and plays new release movies every night. And its all so cheap!

So it is that we've spent 5 days sitting by the pool or the beach, enjoying the sun, having a swim every now and again and just relaxing. Right now as we pen this entry, we are sitting by the pool, chiled music is playing in the background and about the hardest thing I've done today is picu up this pen. Tomorrow we'll be back in Athens to catch a flight to Istanbul in Turkey.