02 May Greece

Santorini

Smooth sailing overnight and into the next day saw us arrive in the caldera of Santorini, some 4,000-5,000 feet deep and the inhabitants on the ridges of towering cliffs, best reached by cable car but also possible via donkey up a long zigzagging track.

The day was perfect and we wandered around the shops in cobbled alleys and enjoyed a great view to ourselves in a hotel overlooking the sea. It was very busy even with only 2 cruise ships in the harbour, but also very pretty. Exquisite glassware, some good shopping and also some very overpriced and badly-made local fashion.

Monemvasia

Not an island but an isolated peninsula and our clear favourite so far. Access to the town is via a 1.5 k steep walk, or a bus. We took the bus.

None of the ubiquitous white and blue associated with the Greek Islands, and instead ancient stone buildings and cobblestone laneways, steps, and side alleys. Lots of friendly bars and restaurants overlooking the Mediterranean, and a relaxed vibe.

It’s the most genuine or original of the Greek stops so far and our favourite.

This is somewhere we’d be happy to come back to and just hang out. Free internet is great.

Hydra

On our Star Clipper journey from Egypt, we stopped at Rhodes, Santorini, Monemvasia, and Poros.

The Poros stop was instead of Hydra, where we had planned to get off the ship a day early and stay 3 nights. Instead we had to get a ferry from Poros to Hydra in order to get to our AirBnB.

Hydra was supposed to be our one and only actual stay in Greece and our accommodation was a beautiful AirBnB accessible by donkey straight from the harbour.

We were however unaware that May 1 is traditionally a transport strike in Greece, so had to cut short our stay in order to still make our connection from Athens to Zurich. That meant booking the mule to come and get our luggage, a 2-hour ferry ride, and a driver to our apartment in Athens.

Athens

We saw next to nothing of Athens this time, but our apartment was in the most amazing restaurant street. We went looking for souvlaki and found a top place, eating it back at the apartment with a bottle of bubbles from the ship.