u/moneybagels

In May of this year, my fiancée and I took a trip to Greece for about 2 weeks. I largely planned the trip by lurking in this subreddit and reading old posts so I figured I'd give back and write a trip report, maybe it will help someone else. TL;DR we loved it.

Athens

I saw varied reviews of how long to stay in Athens, we spent 2.5 days. I'd say the total amount of time was fine but it did feel a bit rushed (to be fair, we didn't do a ton of the first day because of jetlag). I liked Athens more than the internet made me think I would, so an extra day would have been great.

Hotel: Silk n' Cotton. I 1000% recommend this place, as long as you're not the kind of person that needs a front desk / hotel gym / hotel restaurant, etc. It's more of an apart-hotel. We stayed in the Linen apartment. It was gorgeous, huge, and very reasonably priced compared to some of the bigger hotels. Perfect location in the Syntagma neighborhood, just steps away from both Plaka and Monastiraki - and crucially, it's on a small car-free alley, which means it was very quiet despite being in a really busy part of the city. Since no one was staying in our apartment the previous night, they kindly let us check in early, as soon as we got in - which meant we could take a nap after not sleeping on the flight. They also let us store the luggage there after checkout on the last day so we could walk around before having to head to the airport. So the lack of front desk wasn't an issue at all, they're very responsive via WhatsApp.

Food: We had our one fancy meal of the trip here, at Soil. We've eaten in plenty of fine dining restaurants, and this one was honestly up there for my favorite ever. Also loved and would highly recommend gyros at Souvlaki Kostas, Levantine food at Feyrouz, pastries at 72H Artisanal Bakery.

Sights: The highlight of Athens was the private guided tour of the Acropolis we did with Myths & Trails. I think I originally found Marialena from a random comment recommending her on this subreddit (or maybe /r/travel) and I am extremely glad we booked her instead of a group tour from one of the bigger companies. It was like hanging out with a friend (who is REALLY into Greek history and mythology). And the price she quoted us was for 2 hours at the Acropolis but we ended up spending a total of 3.5 hours with her! Especially seeing the giant groups being herded around like sheep up there, I 1000% recommend going with her. Other things: great views of the Acropolis from Areopagus Hill and Philopappos Hill. Walking around Plaka, Syntagma, Monastiraki, and Psyri. I really loved the nooks and crannies of Anafiotika, it felt so different from the rest of the city. Acropolis Museum was cool but I’m not a huge museum person and after a guided tour of the actual Acropolis, it was mostly good to cool off in the A/C.

Naxos

We flew in from Athens via SkyExpress (quick and easy flight) and spent 4 days in Naxos, leaving via ferry. We rented a car from Auto Tour Rent A Car with no issues.

Hotel: Emery Suites. Again, very happy with our choice and would definitely recommend if you want to stay in the Chora - beautiful room and very cheap. Great location, very walkable to everything in town but tucked away from the busy areas. I got a parking ticket parking on a nearby street the first night (even though there were no signs prohibiting parking and the curb wasn't colored) but after that we just parked in the big municipal parking lot, which wasn't too bad of a walk to the hotel.

Food: I read that Naxos was supposed to have great food, being an agricultural island, and we were not disappointed. I loved and would recommend: Doukato, To Elliniko, Scirocco. (Note: I didn't think we needed reservations given it wasn't peak tourist season yet, but the first night To Elliniko said it would be an hour wait. So after that we called ahead everywhere earlier in the day with no further issues.) Also great desserts in Caffe Greco in Chalkio.

Sights: We did one day of wandering around the Chora. Beautiful town, a labyrinth of tiny, narrow streets with cats around every corner. Great sunset from the Portara. A second day was Plaka Beach, with a stop at Demeter Temple. We rented chairs from Tohu Beach Bar (free with a small minimum order) and chilled there for a few hours. It was one of the few places open in mid-May, I didn't think it would be so deserted. The beach itself was fine - big, wide, sandy. The weather was beautiful but the water was cold and full of seaweed. Not sure if the seaweed situation gets better later in the season or if a different beach would have been better. A third day was driving around the mountain villages - we walked around Chalkio and Apeiranthos, stopped by Damalas for pottery, and went to Ano Potamia intending to hike to Apano Kastro but it was on-and-off raining all day and it got fairly heavy at that point so we turned back. Disappointing, but it was the only bad weather day of the trip so I can't complain. Ended up in Melanes for dinner. Driving around Naxos was a blast, I loved the winding mountain roads. The fourth day was a wine tasting at Saint Anna Winery, visiting the Eggares Olive Oil Museum, and doing a marble carving.

A Layover in Paros

I did a poor job planning and booked the hotels before confirming ferries, just assuming there would be good ferries running between Naxos and Milos, but the only two on our travel day were small ferries that went really roundabout ways (~5.5 hours with many stops), which we didn't want to do. So instead we took a morning ferry over to Paros (~30 min), stored our luggage at Loukis Rentals near the port via bounce.com (zero issues, super nice staff), and explored Paros for 7 or 8 hours. And then took an evening ferry to Milos (~2 hours, 1 stop). Happy with how this worked out, but in hindsight it would have been nice to have this day to add onto Milos or Naxos.

Food: Had lunch at Almond in Naousa. Felt very instagrammy but the pancakes were undeniably delicious.

Sights: We split our limited time between Naousa and Parikia since a bus ride between the two was pretty quick and easy. The waterfront in Naousa was cool and Naousa was probably prettier but also felt more bougie than Parikia. All in all, didn't do much here, just walked around both towns and took photos.

Milos

We spent 3.5 days in Milos, getting in by ferry and leaving via SkyExpress flight to go back to Athens, before a flight home the following morning. The ferry was delayed and we got in pretty late, but thankfully the sea was calm and the horror stories I read about the small ferries and seasickness didn't materialize. I was also concerned about leaving because I read that sometimes they leave luggage behind in order to take off on the short runway, but it was fine for us. We rented a car from MilosCars .gr with no issues, and they were very nice staying late after their office closed to wait until our ferry got in.

Hotel: Noma Milos. We picked it because it had a Michelin Key. Gorgeous hotel, smaller room than the others but really nice outside space. Incredible breakfasts delivered to the room. The only downside is it's kinda located in the middle of nowhere, so besides a couple beaches, everything else is a 15-25 min drive (on a main road, at least). Also the water pressure in the shower was weirdly bad.

Food: Excellent seafood at Medusa. Barriello was a really nice fancy-ish place. And the aforementioned Noma breakfasts were great. We unfortunately didn't make it to O Hamos, the one miss of the trip.

Sights: Sarakiniko! It lives up to the hype for sure. We actually went twice, it's a much different vibe around sunset - so much emptier (since there's no direct sunset view) and the colors turn pastel. Also Firiplaka, Firopotamos, Mandrakia, Tsigrado - all so cool and so different. Walking around Plaka and climbing to the castle at the top for sunset. And of course, you gotta do a boat tour around the island because there's so many spots only accessible by boat. We went with Polco Sailing's catamaran tour and would recommend them. I'm sure all the companies provide similar experiences, just make sure you go with one that stops at Blue Bay on Poliegos because that was probably the coolest spot, the water color was unreal. Similar to Naxos, the water was a bit too cold to be super enjoyable but it was definitely still swimmable and we got in at several stops.

That's about it. We loved Greece so much - the sights, the food, the weather, the hospitality, the cats... and it's a photographer's dream. We will definitely try to get back to Greece at some point, I know we've barely scratched the surface. The only thing that I would really have changed was 1) planned the travel days better so we could have gone direct between Naxos and Milos by ferry without the layover in Paros and 2) maybe done Athens last, so we didn't waste a last night going back to Athens before the flight home in the morning.

IG: @ moneybagels for more photos that didn't make the post here

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