Adventures in Greece Continued

Our path through Greece went as follows: Rhodes - Crete - Santorini - Naxos - Hydra. Our guidebook was very helpful in narrowing down which islands to hop to. They are all so different from the next.

Santorini = Awesome Views/Romantic/Luxury

Naxos = History/Beaches/Family Friendly

Hydra = No Cars/Relaxation

After our Medieval stop in Rhodes, our next stop was Crete which was HUGE. It is the largest Greek island and once we got there we realized we would need to come back and visit Crete all by itself. So we only visited one city and saw the old town, the museum, and some ruins.

Venetian building, now city hall, in old town

The ruins we went to see were the Palace of Knossos, which was the place where King Minos had the Minotaur that was trapped in the Labyrinth, from Greek Mythology. It was interesting because the information placards only referenced Greek Mythology. I still don't know who actually lived there, if it was an actual king from history, or what was going on at the time or anything. The mythology seemed to be the history.
Also, the ruins were discovered by a rich British guy in the early 1900's and then "restored" to how he thought they should look, so it was a weird mix of old and new.

Partially restored Queen's Room and Throne Room

And on Crete we had some of the best gyros I've ever had:

Drool...

Next up was Santorini. The place you think of when you think of Greece: blue-domed churches and white washed buildings. I had over 200 pictures from Santorini ALONE, so stand back

Lookit!!

 

Right?! Are you looking up plane tickets right now?

One of the highlights was that you could walk from village to village across the top of that cliffside. Streets were narrow and because this is a cruise port, they were also PACKED with people, even though it was later in the summer; we were there in September. Taking this nice picturesque stroll was so beautiful.

Oh yes, and the donkeys

In case you don't want to take the stairs from down here, to up there!
But there was also a bus, which was the option we chose.

The other best part of Santorini was the sunsets. The island is famous for them and everyone comes out to watch and cheer as the sun goes down. Did not disappoint!

This sunset gyro also did not disappoint

The other, other best part of Santorini was the place we found to stay. A private villa with a private pool for a steal of a deal! Most afternoons were spent here relaxing and it. was. awesome.

View from the balcony. Yowza!

After being in the crazy crowds and heat, we were ready for some chilled-out beach time.  Our next stop was Naxos, which was so perfect. Small beach bum towns, good food, good beaches, and as a bonus: free cake with every dinner!  Naturally we loved it!

View from the ferry pier. There's a castle up on the hill

This was the bus stop near our hotel. So chill

This island had a castle and some old 9th-10th century churches. With some original Byzantine artwork still inside them. No biggie. We rented ourselves a scooter and took a tour of the island, stopping at roadside churches and little towns.

This lady took us all around the church, speaking full-on Greek, telling us all about it (I assume)
I just kept nodding and smiling

Freaking old Byzantine art

View of the island from the roadside

Exploring the narrow streets of the castle and fort

View of the port from the castle

A Greek temple (of Apollo I think?) that was never finished

And for the sake of consistency: a picture of food

Calamari and crab cakes. And the ever-present orange Fanta

We got to the end of our stay on Naxos and decided to stay one more day. We arranged it with our hotel with no problem, and found out the next day that there had actually been a ferry strike going on for 3 days, so we wouldn't have been able to leave on the original day anyway. Ferry strikes are common and they announce them beforehand - although we were clueless.

After Naxos we were headed to Hydra, and had to go through the Athens port to change ferries. Because of the strike, the ferries were packed and ours ended up getting in 2 hours late, which made us miss our connection. Our guidebook helpfully pointed out that the Athens port town had the highest crime rate and whatever you do, for the love of all that is holy, do NOT sleep outside. Walking past several homeless people and beggars we found that the ticket offices were closed and we had to come back in the morning to sort out our ticket. Thankfully our phones had free data so I hopped online and found a fancy overpriced hotel only a couple blocks away. Yes please. 

The next morning we were successfully able to transfer our tickets to a ferry for that morning. So it all worked out well and we didn't have to sleep outside in the gutter. On to Hydra!

There are no cars on Hydra so it was a very small and charming place. They had some donkeys at the pier that local people used to haul supplies up the steep streets to their homes.

Cookies from heaven!

We took a hike up to the top of the hill to a church (which was closed) and a monastery (which was also closed) but of course had beautiful views

From the top. What a view!

The next day we checked out the deserted pebble beaches and ate lots of good food

Can't go wrong with seafood risotto

We had our last meal in Greece at a restaurant overlooking the sunset (the restaurant was appropriately and uncreatively called "Sunset"). This is one of the most beautiful places we have ever been!