Europe 2016: GREECE

When I think about how we went to Europe for two and a half weeks, I can hardly believe it! The decision to go, the planning, the trip... It all went by so fast.

I have always wanted to travel. I want to travel the world, as cheesy as that sounds. My dream places to go have always been Greece and Italy. Because Dustan hadn't really ever dreamed about traveling to Europe, we made the decision to visit Greece and Italy after some research. This blog post will be about the first part of the trip, primarily taking part in Greece :)

We chose to spend a majority of our vacation time in Italy, dedicating about five and half days to Greece and almost nine full days to Italy, plus a few days for travel. With such little time in Greece, we had a hard time choosing where to visit! Athens was an obvious choice. And both of us wanted to wanted to visit the island of Santorini, but it was so far from everything else in Greece that we potentially wanted to visit. But after MORE research (this trip took a ridiculous amount of planning and research), we found travel plans that made Santorini realistic :)

Traveling to Europe

We were able to find the cheapest flights to Europe through Norwegian Air, which ended up being about $450 each roundtrip to fly from Los Angeles to Oslo, Norway. Then inter-Europe flights were never more than $40 each one way. Total, our flights cost only about $1,000 for the whole trip, which we were pretty excited about! By flying through Norway, our travel time obviously took a little longer than we would  have liked, but it was worth the cost.

(We think Norwegian Air is awesome, by the way. You have to be careful how you plan, because extra perks of flying like checked baggage, food, carry ons above certain weights, etc. can really jack up the prices. But the flights are cheap, there were movies on board, and somehow we actually got a free meal!)

Our flight from LAX was late on Sunday April 23rd. The flight lasted about 10 hours, but with the nine hour time change we didn't arrive in Oslo until their Monday evening.

Oslo, Norway

We had about half a day in Oslo (including when we would be sleeping) before our flight down to Greece. After arriving in the airport, taking a train into Oslo, wandering around the city to find our airbnb, it was past dinner time. If you didn't know already, Norway is a very expensive travel destination. Since it wasn't one of our main stops, we didn't worry too much about experiencing the Norwegian culture. So....we found a cheap Indian place for dinner, haha. We walked around the neighborhood until it began to get dark.

We woke up the next morning, repacked our little carry-ons (that's all we brought for the trip due to flight baggage restrictions, so we had to pack light), and headed out to explore the city a little and catch a train to the airport! Our first stop was at a cute little cafe chain that is all over Norway called Kaffebreneriet, where we ordered hot chocolate and pastries.

We were able to hit a couple of the main sights of Oslo, including the Opera House (no good pics though) and the Oslo Cathedral. As we walked around, we found that the city was fairly comparable to a typical major USA city.

The Oslo Cathedral

After sore shoulders from lugging around our carry-ons (they can roll on the ground AND be converted into backpacks, awesome!) we headed back to the train station, traveled to the airport, and flew to Greece.

Crete, Greece

A second short destination solely for travel purposes. Crete is both the largest and farthest south Greek island. We arrived at our airbnb late at night in the city Heraklion after taking a long bus ride from Chania, where the airport was. Then we took a ferry early in the next morning to really start our vacation. Crete was our first glance at the Greek culture (and food). It made us SO excited to make it to Santorini!

The view of Heraklion, Crete from our ferry to Santorini

Santorini, Greece

We finally got to Santorini, our first vacation stop on Wednesday, April 27! The first thing we had to figure out how to do was to get from the port to the city we were staying at, Imerovigli. We had chosen to stay in Imerovigli because of its central location on the Island, the more quiet life, and the extremely cheap accommodations we were able to find on airbnb.com. Once we made it to Imerovigli, we couldn't even find our hotel! We were comletely lost. Thank goodness the Greeks on Santorini typically had very good English. After asking around, we found our hotel--Mero Vigla Studios. We obviously got what we paid for (which was only about $50 a night) with a not so comfy bed and very little hot water for showers, but we didn't mind. We were there to explore the island, not lounge around at home. But on the plus side, our little room had some great views!

We walk just a couple minutes from our hotel, and this is our view.

Cutest little apartment, right?!

Since it was only the early afternoon, we decided that we needed to immediately get out on the island. We decided to take the famous hike along Santorini's caldera. For those of you who don't know what a caldera is (I had to look it up), it is a large crater created from a volcanic eruption. Santorini was formed along the edge of that caldera.

The typical hike is from the capital Fira along the edge of the island to Oia, stopping in Imerovigli and a couple other small cities. Since we were already in Imerovigli, we decided to just start there.

The city I'm dramatically looking at is Oia, our destination.

The city on the far left is Imerovigli.

The hike was simply gorgeous. The weather was perfect for hiking, warm in the sun with a cool breeze. We had stunning views of Santorini's white buildings, little blue domed churches, and the Aegean Sea. This was also a good chance to play with our new camera, which we were quickly becoming obsessed with.

At one point during the hike, we ran into an LDS couple who were BYU alumni. The Mormon world is truly a small one! We enjoyed chatting with them for a while, and they were nice enough to take some pictures for us so that we actually had a couple of Dustan and I in the same picture without a selfie stick.

After a couple hours of slow walking and way too many pictures, we made it to Oia! Oia (which we never figured out how to correctly pronounce the whole time we were visiting) is known for its romantic atmosphere, good eats, high end shopping, and killer sunset. We did some window shopping, and my wonderful husband bought me some earrings :) We stopped at a restaurant to eat the most amazing crepe we've ever had and a delicious dessert called Kataifi that looked like it was made of hair--but don't worry, we're pretty sure it wasn't, haha.

After a little more wandering through Oia's winding white streets, we decided to stake out a spot for the greatly anticipated Santorini sunset. By the end we were freezing. The wind had picked up and the heat from the sun was gone. But the sunset was absolutely gorgeous!! We'll be honest though... We've seen better ;) We definitely don't regret our choice to watch the sunset there though! From there, we took a bus back to Imerovigli for the night. Funny thing, on the bus we met a girl who is actually from El Segundo, California where we are living for the summer. Small world!

Day two in Santorini started with renting an ATV from a local shop. SO WORTH THE MONEY. It was great not having to rely on public transportation. We could drive our ATV from one end of the island to the other in just about 30 minutes. It really is quite small. Not only was an ATV more time efficient, but it was an absolute blast. It nearly had Dustan and I fighting over who got to drive, haha.

Then we stopped at a pastry shop for breakfast. No joke, we went to this pastry shop for breakfast each morning after, and each evening for a treat before bed. We were obsessed. We love Greek pastries. Or really any European pastries. They're all delicious. While in Santorini, our favorites were the vanilla custard (pictured below) pastry, the cheese pastry, and the spinach and cheese pastry.

After renting and breakfast, we headed to the southeast end of the island to go to Kamari Beach. We got incredibly lost on the way, but it was fun to zip around on the winding roads. Kamari Beach is a black sand beach, which was quite hot on our feet. The water was chilly, but we did some swimming anyway.

After some relaxing on the beach, Dustan did a little cliff jumping (he guessed about 20-30 feet high) while I watched and took pictures. He loves the rush, and I love watching him. It works out nicely.

From the beach, we drove up this tiny winding road up to Ancient Thira. The site was closed, but the view from the top of the hill we drove up was incredible. Somehow I convinced Dustan to let me drive back down this road, which was SO much fun. Didn't even have to use the gas it was so steep!

On our way back to Imerovigli, we found our first gyros to eat (though we found a better shop the next day). We ate gyros every day on the island, and Dustan got sick of them.

That night, we watched the sunset from a little church in Imerovigli. We had a great views of the whole caldera and of Skaros Rock, which is part of some old ruins from the 1400s. This sunset was actually more impressive than the previous night's sunset in Oia, and far more private. The colors we saw were just incredible.

Our last full day came. We decided to spend the afternoon at Ammoudi Bay in Oia. Ammoudi Bay had cute little shops and seafood restaurants tucked into the bay. It was all a little out of our price range, so we decided to wait and eat until we were back in the heart of Oia.

Baking octopus in the sun

The weather wasn't quite as warm as we would have hoped, but we never pass up chances to go swimming. As usual, Dustan got in the water quickly, jumping in again and again. I took a while to get coaxed in. But once I was in, I didn't want to get out! The water felt great, and I was no longer sitting in the chilly wind. We had originally planned to swim over to a rock island/outcropping to do some cliff jumping again, but the sea was a little rough from the wind so we decided not to risk it.

We had an incredibly enjoyable lunch. I got moussaka (basically a noodle-less lasagna with much better cheese than America has) and Dustan got cod. We had baklava for dessert, which--though delicious--didn't quite live up to our favorite pastries, haha.

At this point, the weather wasn't looking too good. We had planned to drive over to the southern end of the island again to go to Red Beach to lounge and swim, but decided to just make it a sightseeing stop instead. The color of the sand was a beautiful red color (duh) and made a nice contrast with the blue sea. As I drove us back hope, I was going so fast and the wind was blowing so hard that my helmet would have blown off if there hadn't been a chin strap! Then it started raining, and let me tell you, rain does not feel great at 60 km per hour. I loved every minute of it, haha. We tried to watch the sunset again that night, but the weather ruined it. It was too cloudy to see anything.

We had just a short morning on Saturday before we left on a ferry to Athens. We decided to eat our last pastries, gyros, and Greek frozen yogurt, and look out on the caldera one more time, then wander through the Imerovigli neighborhoods near our hotel :) Then it was time to get to our next stop: Athens!

Actual Greek gyros are better because they put fries on them.

Athens, Greece

We arrived at the port near Athens late. Very late. The public transportation was all closed, so we ended up having to pay more and just take a taxi to our accommodations in Athens. We arrived close to midnight on Saturday night. Interestingly, that Sunday was Easter in Greece! When midnight hit, we saw people walking through the streets with a candle on their way to a midnight mass.

The next morning, we woke up early to walk to church. We had originally wanted to stay in Santorini until Sunday, but we found that there is no church in Santorini, so we needed to be in Athens so that we could take the sacrament. When we walked into the church, Dustan saw a missionary he knew (Elder Seth Burton) from Muscatine, Iowa (a city his family lived in)!! Again, small world. We didn't understand a lick of church--it was all in Greek. The important thing though was that we were able to partake of the sacrament and renew the covenants we have made with God. We understood that part of the meeting :) It was cool to see that even though we didn't understand a lot of the meeting, the feelings and format were the exact same as in the USA. But funny thing--the sacrament bread was some sort of sweet bread with berries in it, ripped into pieces so big I had to eat it in three bites!

After church, we simply walked around city. It was unbelievable how much history was in this city! Just right across the street from the church was the ancient Arch of Hadrian and Temple of Olympian Zeus. You could be walking through the city and seems like any other US city, then round a corner and see something amazing like this.

Hadrian's Arch

Temple of Olympian Zeus

All through the city people were roasting whole lambs to celebrate Easter. We enjoyed walking through winding streets and neighborhoods in Athens. We went to the National Gardens, which were beautiful and perfect for a Sunday afternoon. We also ran into the Athens government building, the Zappeion. We thought it was amazing, and we hadn't even been to the Acropolis yet!

Toward the evening, we walked up the Mars Hill. Paul (as in Bible Paul) used to preach to the people from this hill. It also offered gorgeous views of the city and the Acropolis. We had also wanted to watch the sunset from up here, but there were too many clouds. I was bummed, Dustan not so much, haha.

The next day, it was time hit up all the major historical sites! They had been closed on Sunday for Easter. First thing in the morning (after delicious crepes for breakfast), we headed to the Acropolis! We really enjoyed walking through the city on our way. I loved seeing all the greenery, which was a stark contrast to Santorini which--though had beautiful views--was really quite brown. There were orange trees lining the streets and vines climbing the sides of buildings.

We hadn't bought tickets for the Acropolis beforehand, so we ended up waiting in line for about an hour before we began our sight seeing. And dang, the weather was hot! We were sweating just waiting in line that morning.

There isn't much to say about the Acropolis, to be honest. The architecture was beautiful and very impressive. We could believe how long these temples and monuments had been standing! A majority of the structures were from 6th or 5th century BC. So, we will just dump a bunch of pictures here and hope we label them correctly with what they were :)

The Acropolis! Yes, there was construction going on :( 

The Propylaia 

I think from the picture... The Temple of Athena Nike 

The Theater of Herodes Atticus

The Parthenon 

The Erechtheion 

A picture with columns... No idea which building, haha 

The Temple of Hephaestus

We have many more pictures of the ancient sites in Athens, but I figure those will probably do. After exploring the Acropolis we walked through Plaka, one of the nearby neighborhoods, on our way to see a few more of the ancient sites for the day and the Acropolis Museum. We love Plaka! It is so darling. Good smelling food, greenery, cute little walkways, etc. I could definitely live in that neighborhood.

After our last sight seeing stops, we walked back to our apartment to pick up our bags and head to the airport. We were going to Italy!! We throughly enjoyed our time in Greece. We probably won't be back--we feel like we did everything we could have wanted to, especially in Santorini and Athens (we can't quite say the same about Italy...). We are so glad we chose to visit Greece!

Stay tuned for the blog post on Italy :) We also hope to make a video of our travels, but that will probably take a while. Thanks for reading!