Greece

Wednesday 16th July
Arrived in Athens and met up with Christos. So nice to see a familiar face! Christos showed me around the central Athens area and gave me a lot of tips which was fantasic. Enjoyed my first Greek meal... yum! I'm going to have to do a lot of walking in Greece...

Thursday 17th July
Spent today retracing our steps from last night a bit and finding my way around in the daylight. Saw a lot of the city and found all the main ancient monuments (didn't go in as I start my tour tomorrow and not 100% sure what we're doing then). Walked up Filopappos Hill and got a fantastic view of the city as well as the Acropolis.

Met my tour in the evening, 29 people, all but 1 Aussie... the % is getting more and more every time. Although we do have a couple of guys this time at least (albeit only 5). Our tour leader is Svetlana from Russia... that is 1 thing Topdeck does have a wide variety of, I've had very different leaders for each tour, all of which have been good, I have been lucky.

Friday 18th July
A proper walking tour of the city this morning, thankfully taking a different route to mine yesterday so saw a few different things. Also got a lot more information (and had a few flashbacks to high school Ancient History lessons).

In the afternoon some of us did the optional extra to Cape Sounio. We drove down the coastline from Athens, stopping for lunch and a swim. Nice to actually be at a beach, the water was perfect, so clear and calm. The cape is famous for the Temple of Poseidon (the Pathanons 'sister temple' so to speak). Amazing views!! Greece is just beautiful!

Our official welcome dinner tonight back in Athens, complete with traditional Greek dancing!

Saturday 19th July
A very early start this morning to make our way to the island of Mykonos! The island is beautiful with the traditional white & blue buildings. It surprised me to see how baron the land is but it makes sense that it wouldn't exactly be green and luscious in the Greek climate in July!

We had a relaxing afternoon at the beach/pool and enjoyed the start of our island adventure. We did our walking tour of the main city area at sun set which was just gorgeous. (Again sorry, the photos are on my camera.)

Sunday 20th July
Today's optional activity was a trip to the Island of Delos, a basically uninhabited archeological site. It was really interesting to see the ruins of a city from approx. the 3rd century BC and how sophisticated they were before everything was destroyed. It reminded me that I enjoyed ancient history at school and how interesting it all is! I love how Greek history is a mixture of facts and mythology intertwined.

Monday 21st July
Off to Paros Island today. Paros is relatively new on the tourist scene so it is immediately relaxing. We did a quick walk through town on the way to our hotel. The town is a cute little town full of shops and our hotel has the most amazing view over the ocean!

We had another relaxed afternoon, primarily by the pool followed by the most amazing sunset and dinner from our hotel.

Tuesday 22nd July
Another island, another optional... today was around to the north of Paros. First we visited the 'Church of 100 Gates' and then we went up to the fishing village of Naoussa. It was a cute little area, we climbed the remnants of an old fort with amazing views of the ocean and enjoyed greek frozen yogurt (when in Geece ;) ). Then it was to a cool beach surrounded by rocky cliffs... the beaches here are definitely different to ours at home.

Wednesday 23rd July
Woke up with an extremely sore throat (there is a lot of coughing going on in the tour) but no time to be sick as today we're off to Santorini!

After getting settled we drove to Oia to watch the famous Santorini sunset. While it was of course beautiful, there was a lot of humidity and therefore mist on the horizon so I think the sunset in Paros trumped it. Oia is absolutely gorgeous though... the traditional Santorini view.

Thursday 24th July
Our optional here was a boat trip to the volcano of Santorini. An extremely hot hike up to the top we saw the little bit of smoke escaping from one of the craters. They reckon the volcano will erupt again in the next 50 years or so... I think it's got a long way to go before that happens. Our boat then took us around to the hot springs where we swam. Pretty cool to swim at the base of a volcanic island! Then it was back to the 'mainland' for our token Santorini donkey ride to the top! The donkeys were a bit crazy but I think that made it more fun. These things are always questionable when you think about how they treat the animals though.

We were back in Fira in the early afternoon so a few of us made the most f our time here and headed down to one of the famous black beaches, Kalmari (?). You couldn't really get anymore different from our whute sandy beaches... the beach was black pebbles! It was great to see and so nice to chill out for a little while after our hectic morning.

Tonight is our last real night of tour (as we'll be travelling tomorrow) so we had our farewell dinner in Fira with an amazing view and got to see another beautiful sunset.

Friday 25th July
Explored a little more of the town of Fira this morning before our 8hr ferry ride back to Athens.

No idea what I'm going to do after this tour though. I've been researching tours to get onto another one in time for my birthday but Topdeck seem to be the only company that has last minute availability. After multiple emails back and forward I just missed out on a tour through Scandinavia and am still trying to get onto one in Eastern Europe. I still need to see the main historical monuments in Athens, so I'll spend a few more days here until hopefully I figure out my next move.

Saturday 26th July
After saying our tour farewells and sorting out some accommodation for the next couple of nights, I started my monument visits at the Temple of Zeus. It is so ridiculously hot and humid here, I definitely can see why people say to avoid Athens in August, I don't think I could do it any hotter than this and it seems to be getting hotter every day! So next it was to the Acropolis Museum (the aircon was calling) before I met Alana and Lauren (from tour) to visit the actual Acropolis. The museum is relatively new but they have built it on top of ruins with a lot of glass flooring so you can still see it, nice touch! The actual Acropolis is very impressive, although the magic of it is a bit ruined by the amount of scaffolding on the Parthenon and the crane in the middle of it! After surviving that (in the heat), we headed back to the main part of town and got some dinner. It was still ridiculously hot on my way home at almost 10! Definitely think it's time to start heading north!

Sunday 27th July
Off to see some more historical sites today: Keramikos (ancient cemetery), Ancient Agora, Roman Agora, Hadrian's Library. Had lunch over looking the Ancient Agora with the Parthenon in the background... you know, just an everyday lunch ;)

Tonight we (Lauren, Alana & I) are off to see Otello at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus (a legitimate ancient Greek theatre)!