Blog Category: Greece

Athens embodies the financial pain that much of Europe is enduring more than any other place we visited.  Despite that, it’s impossible to not be awed by a city that has been so integral to so many moments in history.  Remnants of Athens’ ancient beginnings are woven throughout the city like an amazing tapestry of new and old.  This is a great example of ancient history in Athens getting in the way of modern progress.  The plaque on the opposite side proclaims that they found these artifacts by accident while excavating for a planned subway station and as a result, ended up having to move it to over 100′ to...

When we first arrived on the ferry from Crete (where we had booked our accommodation in advance), we were absolutely overwhelmed by the sheer size of the crowd of eager Greek salespeople hoping to fill their hotels, hostels, guesthouses, and camping space with unprepared tourists.  As we waded through the crowd keeping one hand on our wallets and our eyes out for cafes advertising free wi-fi, we were met by a most unlikely suspect – a Californian surfer-gone-restaurant-manager who pegged us as North American from a mile away and hustled us into the restaurant.  Our new friend, Nick, turned out to be a great guy who had helpful advice on where...

We ended up on Crete somewhat by accident, it doesn’t have the cachet that Santorini or Mykonos enjoys, but once we got off the airplane, we were amazed by what we found.  Crete is a substantially larger island than most and having no idea what would differentiate one part of the island from another, we simply picked the highest rated hostel, the Youth Hostel Plakias and set out figuring out how to get there. While we arrived safe and sound to Crete at about 9:30pm, the same could not be said for our bags which took an unexplained detour to parts unknown. We had plans to rent a car and...