Whoop! Greek island hopping. Here’s my account of our three week trip exploring the Cyclades before heading to Athens. We travelled in September, which I’d highly recommend as accommodation is cheaper due to it eeking outside of season. It’s still lovely and hot (you might want a cardi for the evenings though) and it’s a tad quieter.
We flew into Athens and started our trip on Andros island, before moving on to Tinos and Mykanos.
Andros
Andros is one of the closest Greek Islands to Athens (only an hour and a half away) and is the northern most of the Cyclades islands.. Andros is a very attractive island with some traditional and very picturesque villages. The capital of the island is well worth a visit (we hopped on a bus from the port near our accommodation and went there for a day). It combines Venetian and Cycladic architecture, narrow stone paved alleys, arcades and bright coloured flowers. There are some great little restaurants and a lovely buzzy atmosphere. Andros is known for its magnificent landscape complete with rolling mountains, steep gorges and stunning valleys. Getting to Andros from Athens is very easy with frequent ferries leaving from Rafina port and also Lavrio port. We stayed at the Blue Bay Hotel in Batsi, which boasted little self catering studios with sea views, a communal swimming pool, a secluded little beach and an included breakfast. I couldn’t believe it was only 2 star!
Tinos
Tinos is one of the biggest islands of the Cyclades. It is famous for its huge Church of Panagia which attracts thousands of pilgrims from all over the country. The island has many picturesque mountainous villages, superb dove cotes and a tradition in marble carving. In my opinion though, Tinos didn’t have quite the same charm as Andros. There weren’t any beach bars to enjoy a refreshing cocktail or bite to eat on our beach (that may have just been where we were staying though) but the main town, although not quite as pretty as Andros, had a great lively atmosphere. We enjoyed a few big nights out and tried some yummy tavernas. We stayed at Akti Agua, which had a gorgeous pool leading onto a large beautiful beach. I wasn’t massively impressed though. The pool was closed for a couple of hours every afternoon for siesta time, the pool bar was rarely open and had a very limited selection of drinks and we were only told on the afternoon of the third day that breakfast wasn’t included and we’d be charged for it at the end of our stay. If we’d know we probably would have had breakfast elsewhere as the buffet was pretty lousy. Another cool thing we did in Tinos was go on a day tour around the island to see the basket weavers and little villages in the hills. We also made a new friend (below).
Mykanos
Mykonos is famous for its nightlife, its cosmopolitan capital and its lively beaches. The capital of the island, Hora, is very pretty with lots of windy streets and is considered one of the most beautiful towns of the Cyclades, with its snow white cubic houses with blue and red painted windows and doors and its lovely whitewashed churches with blue rounded domes. The best way to get round Mykanos is by quad bike. We hired one for a few days and explored some hidden beaches and parts of the island we would never have seen otherwise. Be warned though, a local described the quad bike hire companies to us as “the mob”. Being young and naive we were indeed taken advantage of. Determined to get a good deal, we visited a hire company and drove a hard bargain. We then left to think about it and check out a couple of other hire places. Realising they were offering the best price, we returned the next day and hired a bike. However, after handing over our card details etc they wheeled out the rustiest, oldest bike I have ever seen and we drove off on it like two fools. It then broke down in the middle of nowhere. We went back and insisted that the bike was changed. They gave us a better one but we still looked on in envy at the shiny new models other people were driving around the island on. The moral of the story is to always ask to see the bikes before you hand over your money. We learnt the hard way. We stayed at Soula Rooms and I cannot recommend the place enough, it was just perfect. The little self catered studio apartments are so pretty and charming. Guests are also allowed to use the luxury sunbeds on the beach which belong to the hotel next-door.
Athens
A visit to Greece would be incomplete without visiting Athens. So that’s where we spent our last few days. We stayed in a little hostel which I can’t really rave about much but it did have funky roof terrace a pretty cool view of the Acropolis. We’re weren’t in Athens for long so we just had a general wander about in the markets and a mooch about town, it’s an interesting place: busy and bustling but quite dusty and run down. We also went up the Acropolis which I definitely recommend. The architecture itself is amazing but the views over the city at the top were breathtaking. If you’re a student remember to take your student card as you can get in for free – we didn’t realise this and had to run back to our hostel to retrieve them.
flipflopsandbackpack 