Athens and Mykonos

Hey Everyone,

Once we arrived to Greece we took to the streets right away to see the city. Our hotel for some reason was not having power from 8am to 6pm which was really lame. Our first day was on a Sunday so it was really quite since nothing was open till later in the day. We enjoyed a nice cup of coffee and read through our Lonely Planet travel book to see what we should do. Our hotel, the Hermes Hotel is right in the Plaka area of Athens which is actually a great area for shops. We took the first half of the day to just relax and read in some coffee shops since it was so hot. Then we headed out through the streets of the Plaka area and found some lunch. Farrell got the awesome Greek salad with huge pieces of feta. Over our entire time at Greece we ended up eating a ton of feta. We spent the rest of the day just walking around and trying to get a feel for Greece. We booked a walking tour for the next day so we could see some of the sights.

On our next day we went on a walking tour of Athens. We got to see the Parliament building where the Greek soldiers guarded the tomb of the unknown soldier. We got a lot of good pictures. The soldiers were wearing some interesting uniforms. They had on tights and shoes with pompoms. Not to mention they walked really funny. The picture tell the story. After Parliament we went to Acropolis. The famous city built on the hill that literally overlooks Athens. It is such a sweet sight. Our tour guide was pretty good and explained a lot about the history. Acropolis was amazing. We hiked up the hill and say all the great temples and theaters. We felt like we were back in Rome. After Acropolis we went back down to the Plaka area and got lunch. Lunch was great and then we headed back up to the Ancient Agora. We got to see the Church that St. Paul came to Athens to preach in. It was really tiny but so cool. Then after Agora we headed back to the hotel to meet up with our group for our Contiki tour.

The next morning we had a nice 6am wake up call and then headed to the port to get a ferry over to the island of Mykonos. It was a 5.5 ferry but once we got to Mykonos it was so worth it. We checked into our hotel and it was nice to have a really clean room with no bugs, a good break from Thailand. Our room was so nice and had an amazing view off the balcony of the Aegean Sea. The island is just so beautiful with its white buildings and sparking water. That night our group had a nice dinner out. After dinner we took to the streets of Mykonos for a pub crawl. Knowing us we only made it to two of three pubs. It was still a great night and our group was pretty cool. The next morning we decided to rent a 4wheeler to get ourselves around the island. We got on and went to drop off our laundry. Got that done went back to the hotel and met the group to go to the famous Paradise beach on the island.

Paradise beach was pretty crazy especially for us. It turned out to be a huge dance party on the beach. Farrell was evening dancing on tables of you could believe it. The beach was all pebbles not sand which is common for Mykonos but still very different. We spent our time relaxing, dancing and hanging out in the water with some drinks. After a couple of hours the group got back on a coach and headed back into town for dinner since the party had died down and would not pick back up till 2am. After getting dropped off in the center of town Farrell GUIDED Dan over to cab and they got in to go back to the hotel to sleep. The party was a lot of fun and definitely once and a life time.

The next day we set off on our sweet 4wheeler to a gorgeous beach we had saw the day before. We had lunch at a restaurant on the water and then stayed there on some chairs for the day. The beaches are just incredible as you get to look out onto this picture perfect water. After a great day relaxing in the sun we headed back to the hotel and showered up. We were planning on going to a special dinner that night since it was our 3year anniversary. We jumped onto the 4wheeler and drove to a really nice part of the island for a spectacular dinner. Not knowing our way around lead us into a little bit of an adventure since we could not find the restaurant that we had planned to go to but ended up asking a bunch of locals and going to a different one. It was called Bellimisimo and we had an awesome time.

Then the next day we had an early morning since we had to check out and return our pimpin 4wheeler. We packed our bags, left them in reception and went to a new beach for the day. Later that evening we were going to be boarding our cruise ship but we still had the entire day to go out. This beach was another incredible site. We had lunch right on the water and then found ourselves sleeping and reading on some padded lounge chairs. It was hard to get any better. The water was so nice and refreshing in the hot sun. Once we left the beach we headed back to the hotel to get on the cruise ship.

We then were headed to some more islands in the Aegean sea. The next morning we were going to Turkey then Patmos, Crete, and Santorini. We were definitely sad to leave Mykonos since we had just the best time.

Lots of Love,

Farrell and Dan