You’re going to Greece? And swim the English Channel?
Currently at Qatar waiting for the flight to Athens, should arrive there in 6 or 7 hours.
In the end we’ll do Athens, Santorini, Crete and Meteora; we are going to rent a car in Crete to drive around but for the rest we’ll walk or use touring services.
On my last three trips to Greece (all three within a fortnight), I loved Santorini and had a love-hate relationship with Athens. The visit to Santorini was on a cruise ship, and we just took a bus to Oia (Οία in Greek – yes, all vowels), and spent a few hours there.
With the visits to Athens, I lost my wallet to pickpockets on an underground train from the airport to my hotel. I didn’t care much about the cash (about 100 euros and 50 pounds sterling), but it’s annoying to lose your credit card at the start of a six-week trip. For the rest of the trip, I had to depend on my wife’s credit card. I reported the theft to the police, but they don’t seem to care about pickpockets. The other thing that I hate about Athens in the traffic on those narrow streets – but apart from that, Athens is wonderful.
We spent about six hours on Athens, well, actually in a hotel not far from the airport to catch some sleep before flying out to Santorini after a sleepless 16 hour flight from Bangkok (including a stopover in Doha). I think we managed 4 hours of sleep before leaving, arrived at Santorini at 6AM, check-in at 2PM… we left the luggage at the hotel and zombied our way through from Thira to somewhere midway to Oia and back. Tiring but it was really nice, there’s a full Moon and from where we stay the town looked amazing as it set on the horizon. Now we are at the hotel, getting some rest.
We plan to go to Oia tomorrow, I want to go to Akrotiri before that but let’s see how things pan out.
After this we go to Crete and then back to Athens to spend a couple days there.
There also is a scam , to friendly invite you to a bar, then Oder drinks/ beer then tell you it’s 10 times the cost.
I’ll write that down as reason #153 why I don’t drink. 
Reminds me of the time someone tried to scam me in Kuala Lumpur, the scam usually runs like this, man approaches, asks a few questions and the hook is that coincidentally his sister, who just so happens to be hanging around over there, is planning to go to your country to study your or something related to your career.
It was fun when the poor woman tried to say with a straight face that she was planning to go to Uruguay to study 3D animation.
That’s a very common scam in Bangkok too, perpetrated mainly by Filipinos. Quite a few farangs (Westerners) have been approached by them around Villa Market on Sukhumvit Road.
As for Greece, I’ve never been, but an English friend in Bangkok goes there every chance he gets. He loves the islands but especially Santorini.
For some reason my wife just sent me this story.
Be careful hiking in Petrota.
When you are in Oia, I recommend you have dinner at the Ambrosia Restaurant. It has the most amazing views especially if you get a table at the edge of the cliff.
This was our view for dinner: Ambrosia Restaurant in Oia, Santorini, Greece - Imgur
More info here: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g482941-d739518-Reviews-Ambrosia_Restaurant-Oia_Santorini_Cyclades_South_Aegean.html
Bam! Pow! Another zombie down!
Yesterday was our last day in Santorini, on a whim I rented a dune buggy to drive around. Girlfriend not amused but it was fun.
We didn’t had much time to go places, but managed sunset at Oia and it was spectacular.
We left by ferry to Crete, takes about two hours to get to Heraklion, this morning we picked up the car we rented to use here (a proper one, with windshield and everything!) and spent the day driving from Heraklion to Rethymnon, down to Hora Skafion, Frangokastello and then to Agios Nikolas were we are now.
The roads in Crete are absolutely fantastic, the landscape is amazing but specially in the south coast they can be a bit unnerving. I told my GF, as it was getting darker, “I don’t know what’s scarier, to turn the headlights on or keep them off”. At places I could only see the edge of the road and the sea far away and far bellow; no barriers either. Still, gorgeous, we’ll see where we head out tomorrow morning.
We got there on the nick of time to take some picture and see the sunset, as soon as that was over we went back to the hotel to rest from a very tiring day.
I’ll upload some pictures later.
On the ferry from Crete to Athens, we got a cabin for the overnight trip.
Crete was amazing, we should come back some day because I have a list this long of places I didn’t get to see or didn’t spend as much time as I would have liked to.
As I said before the driving is spectacular, in the end we traveled almost the entire length of the island, on the second day we went from Agios Nikolaos down South to Iearapetra and then to Xerocampos in the South Eastern corner of the island; there’s pretty much nothing there as a destination but the treat is the views along the road, along the Southern coast, up the mountains, across gorges, then down the mountains again, stunning through and through.
Today we went back from Agios Nikolaos to Heraklion, stopping at Spinalonga island for an hour or so, it’s well worth the detour. At Heraklion we went to Knossos (one of the places I wish I had more time to visit) before turning in the car, dinning and heading to the port for the ferry.
I wish we had spent at least six nights rather than three at Crete, I loved the place.
We got to Athens three days ago, the ferry arrived at 6AM so we left the luggage at the hotel and walked to the National Museum; one of my items on my bucket list was to see the Antikythera Mechanism, I got goose bumps when I walked into the exhibition room, it’s an absolutely fascinating artifact that should blow any sensible person’s mind six or seven different ways.
After the museum visit we decided to call it a day and rest because the next day was going to be long.
We caught a train to Karambaka early in the morning to go to Meteora, a five hours and a half trip. A tour bus picked us up at the station and we had just two hours to visit Meteora, stopping at a few viewpoints and two monasteries before getting on the train for the return trip.
It wouldn’t had been too bad if the time of the day we spent there wasn’t the late afternoon, the lighting was just not right for photography because all the best views had the sun behind the rocks and monasteries, I think early morning would make a much better time to visit the place.
Today we moved to a new hotel, a little closer to the city center, we spent the day walking around it a little and visiting the Acropolis, twice. We went there around 2PM and again close to sunset when the lighting is really nice.
Unfortunately the face of the Parthenon that faces the sunset is covered in scaffolds and a platform for a crane on tracks so… bugger.
Now we have to plan what to do tomorrow, I reviewed the comments on the thread to pick up some ideas, let’s see if we had the time to make use of them.
My views Living here for 3 months and still currently in the islands
- gifted with some very beautiful blue green seas. The seas are incredibly blue in colour. Sight to behold.
- most people you will meet are very helpful and kind. Greeks by nature are friendly.
Now the bad parts
They should have a shoot to kill policy for anyone possessing a spray paint can. The place is full of ugly graffiti. Its a total eye sore. Demonstrates a very bad civic sense or lack of pride in their environment.
The greeks have to realise that oregano is not the only spice in the world.
The greeks have to realise that meat that resembles an elephants leg and rotates round a grill is considered to be the lowest form of meat in the world. Putting it in a large plate with some salad leaves doesnt make it gourmet food. Most tourist places serve only this type of crap. You have to search for tavernas that make Moussaka. And they serve chips with everything. There are other things you can make with potatoes you know.
Fish is plentiful. So dont charge a fortune for a grilled sea bream. 16 euros in a crappy taverna. Comes with 3 tomato slices.
Mixing cut tomatoes with cucumber and green leaves is not really the height of cooking even if you dose it liberally with olive oil. So dont make a big deal by calling it greek salad. The world over does this type of thing.
Their bars are noisy and absolutely characterless.
I noticed the graffitis, I can only shake my head at what kind of dumbass would, for instance, spray paint the walls of Hadrian’s Library.
Heh, yes, I’ve had my fill of gyros by now and my girlfriend is a bit desperate for a good salad.
We are going to Plaka today so I’ll see if I can find the restaurant recommended by Angel of the Lord to try the fish there.
I forgot the photos, a few at least… 
We arrived at Santorini around 4AM, there was a full moon setting across the caldera.
Hopping over to Crete, a stop to take in the landscape on the roadtrip along the South coast.
Spinalonga fortress on Elunda Bay.
Can’t go to Crete without visiting Knossos.
Back on the mainland, day trip to Meteora.
And another
Finally, and of course, the Acropolis, seen from across the Agora.
We also took a drone with us and I put together a short video with some of the footage from it.