Greece 1994, 2018

This story is about our trips to Greece in 1994 and 2018.

Our first trip to Greece via London began with an unexpected adventure.  We landed at Heathrow on June 6, 1994—the fiftieth anniversary of D-Day.  Everyone in England was talking about it; it would be celebrated in Portsmouth with Queen Elizabeth and President Clinton aboard the US aircraft carrier George Washington.  We had a one-night layover so we rented a car and, although jet lagged and driving on the “other side” of the road, off we went to help celebrate.  Planes soaring overhead, the fleet passing by, and American and British national anthems filling the air all made for a thrilling and memorable event and a great way to begin our trip to Greece.

Guided by THE LONELY PLANET, we decided we’d fly into Thessaloniki, in the north, and take two weeks to work our way south to Athens.  Thessaloniki, also called Salonica, is Greece’s second largest city, located in the northwest corner of the Aegean Sea.  Since we were primarily interested in seeing the Greek islands we first headed east, to Kavala, and caught a ferry to the island of Thasos where we spent our first two nights.  Thasos is the northernmost of the Greek islands.

On the ferry boat crossing from Kavala to Thasos, a woman approached us to offer lodging at her home.  Only problem was she didn’t speak English and my Greek was limited to just a few words.  But she broke into Italian and I was able to understand enough of what she was saying. I conveyed that, yes; we were interested, so she gave us a ride in her “macchina”—Italian for car. We spent two nights at her delightful house and at a very low cost.

As we read more about the Greek islands, we realized that the ones we wanted most to see were the Cyclades, to the south, in the Aegean Sea.  We ferried back to Kavala on the mainland, found a travel agent and said we wanted to book a flight to Paros, a two-hour flight and not very expensive.  When the agent quoted the price, it was much higher than we expected.  When we questioned her, we realized she had misunderstood our flight destination and thought we had said “Paris,” not Paros.  That was good for a laugh.

We arrived on the island of Paros that evening and found a bit of heaven.  Paros, and the adjacent and smaller Antiparos, are the Greek islands you see in movies.  Picturesque fishing villages, beachside cafes with superb seafood and magical evenings.  But then again, this was twenty-four years ago, before the Internet enabled the world to learn about the Greek islands.  Glad we were able to have those wonderful pre-Internet experiences.

After Paros, we ferried to Santorini, also called Thira, one of the most visited Aegean islands, which in recent years seems to have been overrun with cruise ship passengers.  Santorini is truly beautiful and is often what is featured in advertisements for the Greek islands.  Gleaming white buildings with blue half-sphere roofs, carved into the cliffs overlooking the sapphire waters of the Aegean Sea, and sunsets that are a photographer’s dream.

The island was formed by a cataclysmic volcanic eruption in the sixteenth century BC, one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history.  It left a caldera, or lagoon, connected to the sea in two places.  One theory is that the eruption is the source of the legend of Atlantis. 

We took a room in a small hotel in the town of Fira (also called Thira), perched on the cliff overlooking the caldera.  We only stayed one night and a full day was enough time to explore the surrounding area.  That evening we were enjoying our ouzo’s (considered the national drink of Greece) in a small restaurant, with an amazing view of the caldera, when we saw a cruise ship pull in.  We were having dinner as we watched hundreds of passengers disembark and begin their journey up the hill on donkeys.  We knew we had enough time to enjoy our meal before they reached the top, when shops and restaurants would be overrun by cruise ship passengers.  We were so glad we weren’t visiting Greece by cruise ship.

From fellow travelers we learned about Folegandros, a small island in the Cyclades rarely visited by tourists.  The island, with its small villages, ancient ruins, no airport, cruise ships or cars and surrounded by the azure Aegean Sea, makes you feel as if you’ve stepped back in time and found Greece as it was hundreds of years ago.  A wonderful and memorable experience. 

We ferried there from Paros and spent several days in the small town of Chora, situated on a high cliff overlooking the sea.   To get around we rented a small motorbike so we could explore the rest of the twelve square mile island.  A highlight was lunch at an old woman’s house in the hills; an outstanding Greek salad, vegetables from her garden, feta cheese from her sheep and a fish that had been caught hours ago.  It doesn’t get much better than that.

A word about ferry boats in the Greek islands.  The ferry system is like the bus and train system in most other countries.  There are about 220 islands in the Cyclades, encompassing about a thousand square mile area.  The best way to get from one to another is by ferry boat.  Flying is faster but more expensive, the ferries have excellent schedules and it’s fun ferrying around the islands.   

This was our first trip to Greece and we were making our plans on the fly.  In retrospect, we might have rented a small car and taken it with us on the ferries and thus had transportation on each island.

From Folegandros we ferried to Piraeus, the main seaport of Athens, a distance of about 140 miles and a six-hour crossing.  We weren’t planning to stay in Piraeus so bussed into Athens where we had reserved a hotel for two nights near the Acropolis.  It was mid-June and Athens was steaming hot.  We didn’t realize it at the time, but Athens is considered one of Europe’s hottest cities and has the distinction of having the highest temperature ever recorded in a European city (118 degrees Fahrenheit). 

Combined with lots of smog from traffic-clogged streets, our first impressions of Athens weren’t very good.  But after two days of sightseeing, shopping and wonderful Greek lunches and dinners, we realized that Athens, the cradle of Western civilization and the birthplace of democracy, had lots to offer.

When we planned this trip, we had booked a round trip into and out of Thessaloniki, so to get there we rented a car and took two days to drive the 300 miles to the Thessaloniki airport. 

The road north took us west and at one point we reached the Albanian border.  We had never been to Albania and, because we always like exploring a new country, we were tempted to cross over.  But we didn’t have much time and knew that Albania was having all sorts of political problems, do we decided to save Albania for another trip.

We spent our last night in a small village in the region of Zagori, in the Pindus mountains.  The next morning, we got an early start, drove the 200 miles to the airport, made our flight to London and then onto San Francisco.  Thus ended our first trip to Greece and we left with many great memories.

Our 2016 trip to Greece:

Our second trip to Greece was part of a longer trip to the Balkan countries of Albania and Macedonia in 2016.  We hadn’t planned to go into Greece, but when we were in Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, we felt we had seen enough of the southern Balkan countries and, since we were only 150 miles from the Greek border, we decided to go into Greece, one of our favorite countries.  We entered on the eastern side and chose Thessaloniki as our first destination.

We arrived in Thessaloniki on a Sunday and, because of heavy traffic and a bicycle race, had difficulty getting to the Daios Hotel, located on the Aegean Sea, which Misti had booked the previous day.  The hotel was definitely first class, especially after the strange communist hotel the previous night in Strumica, Macedonia.  Sitting on the terrace of our room overlooking the sea, drinking a glass of wine, watching the sunset, a castle turret in the distance and people out for a Sunday stroll along the Aegean waterfront, made us realize how good life can be.

We stayed two days in Thessaloniki and loved every minute.  It’s the second largest city in Greece, next to Athens, with lots of museums, art galleries, shops, and great restaurants.  Not as hot or frantic as Athens and much easier to navigate by car or foot.   We were happy just wandering the streets and enjoying great seafood lunches and dinners and shopping in the central market. 

One thing we quickly learned was not to refer to Macedonia, the country we had just visited, as “Macedonia.”  Greece did not consider Macedonia as a country and for years convinced the world to refer to it as “FYROM”- meaning Former Yugoslavia Republic of Macedonia.  The Prespa Agreement, mediated through the United Nations in June, 2018, gave Macedonia its new name “The Republic of North Macedonia.” 

Since we weren’t planning to come to Greece, we didn’t have any maps or books. We bought a LONELY PLANET guide and a highway map and, with the help of a very nice travel agent, decided we’d explore the Ionian or western side of the country, which we had never seen.

We weren’t sure how many days we’d spend in Greece, and thought we’d play it by ear.  We looked at the map and decided to head for Ioannina (town of John in Greek), a three-hour drive through mountainous country on a recently completed four-lane, divided highway, with an amazing number of tunnels.  We were just about the only car, and we thought this brand new, multi-lane highway that was empty, may be a reason why Greece is so broke; why build a highway nobody uses?  We later learned that the funding came from the more affluent EU.

We stayed one night at a hotel Misti had booked the day before, and in the morning met the owner who was the first true “Stalinist” we had ever encountered.  The hotel was covered with posters and photos of Stalin and the guy wore a Stalin tee shirt.  His English was good and we discussed his interest in the infamous Soviet dictator.  When he learned that I knew a great deal about his beloved Stalin, and that we had actually visited Stalin’s birthplace in Gori, Georgia, he hugged me and said I was his brother.  He gave us a wealth of information on where to go in the next few days, including the best towns, beaches and restaurants.

On his advice, we drove to Parga, a small beach town on the Ionian Sea, and spent two nights there.  Parga is a paradisical hideaway with impossibly beautiful beaches, a laid-back atmosphere and tons of excellent seafood restaurants.  Wooden fishing boats, small offshore islands, a castle on the hill overlooking the Ionian Sea and a waterfront that resembled Italy’s famous Portofino; lots to like here. Tourists were mostly Greek and German and I don’t think many Americans know about this place

After five days in Greece, we decided we’d spend two more days going south to the island of Lefkada, on the Ionian coast.  But as we started driving south, the transmission on our rental car began overheating and we were concerned about breaking down.  So we changed our plan and headed north, back into Albania, to spend our remaining time there.  We decided we’d save the Ionian coast for another trip.

Art Faibisch