Mykonos, Greece

Another of my favorites: Mykonos, Greece. This island was beautiful and had lots of "beach areas". The only downfall to this island was that is was extremely windy!! We didn't reach this island until 6pm so being that the sun was setting, it didn't warm it up at all. Still didn't stop us from exploring the village and enjoying ourselves.  This village was full of beautiful shops, restaurants, churches, windmills,and houses. The buildings here are also whitewashed twice a year.

They have an area known as "Little Venice" because of its high-arcaded Venetian houses built right up to the water's edge. It was a nice little area to relax and enjoy the sunset and dinner.

We watched the most beautiful sunset while on this island. I have never seen one so amazing.

 Because I was being so adventurous (or that it was so good) I ordered another pizza for dinner. Not to mention,that when the other 3 people tried to order something off the menu, they said they didn't have it. So I was safe with pizza! It was delicious!

After we were done with dinner, the servers decided we needed "a shot, on the house". hmmm...okay, sure. Yeah, it tasted like Cherry syrup. But it was a memory. 

We still had a few hours before we had to be back to the ship, so we ventured around the stores, got some souvenirs again, and hung out. This island was probably my second favorite island. If only it were during the day, in the summer and I got to experience a beach day!


All in all, we had a fabulous time on our cruise, bought lots of souvenirs, made tons of memories and are most definitely glad we took the experience. Can not wait for our next excursion!

Piraeus, Greece

The following day we had another very early morning.  We disembarked again at about 715am. J-Twice decided to stay behind and sleep in this morning. I almost wish I would have stayed with him! ha ha  After much debate, we finally got in a cab and went exploring.  We headed towards the Acropolis of Athens and of course, after 4 pictures, my camera decided to die. Go figure. Thankfully I had 3 other people with me that take fantastic photos and don't mind me "stealing" their pictures! We saw the Parthenon, Temple of Zeus, Philopappos Monument, and the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, to name a few!

After we visited these places, we headed toward the Parliament (or "home of 300 thieves" as our taxi driver called it! ha ha nice to see that is common all over the world and not just in America!)  and watched the changing of the guards at their Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Quite the experience in such a short time! We only had 2 hours to see all of this, and could have used much more. The architecture around there was just astounding! That is one thing I love about visitng all of these places.  I wish we could have had more time to explore more of the city life and not just the history, but at least we saw something. This def. wasn't one of my favorite places, but it still was better than Crete, in my opinion!

Santorini, Greece

After about 5 hours of sailing, we arrived at my most favorite island of them all, Santorini.  This island was ah-may-zing!! I loved it! Beautiful white buildings (which we found out they paint every year and that is why they are so white! ha,tricksters!), cobblestone paths, magnificent views, and lots of shops to roam! We arrived at this island by tender boat and had 3 ways to reach the top of the cliff.  Your options were: cable car, donkey ride, or a strenuous walk up 588 steps (which, by the way, is the same path the donkeys take...so watch where you step!).  I, of course being the adventurer that I am, chose to ride the donkey. Hello, haven't you ever seen Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants when Lena goes to visit her grandparents and rides the donkey to their home?! I wanted to experience that myself! After we returned home, I watched the movie and saw exactly where that scene took place. It was so cool! And was also cool to see "Oia Village in Santorini, Greece" listed at the end of the movie!

Kerisa, her husband and I were the only brave ones to attempt the donkey ride. All the others took the easy way out and rode the cable car up the cliff. It was awesome!! My donkey couldn't decide if he wanted to take it slow and easy or beat the herd (he went back and forth..fast then slow). They walk in a zig zag, stop for a snack when they want to (unless it was like mine and had a muzzle on his mouth), and run into each other which meant me having a donkey's rear in my knee at one point or being able to hug the person on the other donkey. ha ha It was definitely a lifetime experience, something I will never, ever forget.  Once they took us to our stopping point, we still had about 50 steps we needed to climb to reach the center of the Village. 

 We stopped at a couple shops and bought some hand painted pictures of the Village and then roamed around trying to find the rest of the crew. The 3 of us roamed around for at least an hour trying to find the others who left us behind. We eventually ran into them and realised we were in complete opposite directions of each other, but we got to see some things they didn't and vice versa. 

Once we finally found each other, we decided it was time for dinner.  Once again, we chose to take part in the Island's cuisine.  We found a restaurant that had a beautiful view of the Mediterranean Sea and we were able to watch the sunset. It was beautiful. 

Now, because I am chicken and don't exactly like to try to venture out and try new things when it comes to food, I stuck with Pasta.  This wasn't exactly what I expected but it was only spaghetti noodles drowned in garlic. ha ha No kidding, I was tasting garlic for hours, even after brushing my teeth multiple times! James ordered a Gyro (since you know, we're in Greece and all) He thoroughly enjoyed it! One of the other couples got an appetizer which had mussels on it (GROSS!!!!) and James had one of those...bleh.

It was a very enjoyable dinner had by all. Oh, how could I forget to mention the most amazing bread and the delicious olive oil to dip it in!! mmmhmmmm..yummmy!!!

Once we finished our dinner, it was about time to head back to the ship, so we chose to take the cable car down the cliff (it was not recommended to take the donkey's down the cliff, it gets a little crazy!).  The cable car almost felt like a roller coaster, but not as fast. Still glad I chose the experience of riding the donkey up the cliff. Took the tender boat back to the ship, and pretty much called it a night. (Karaoke wasn't exactly exciting that night). 
I will never forget this opportunity and the views it offered. It was an awesome experience!

Heraklion, Crete

The next morning we arrived in Crete, which is Greece's largest island. We got off to a late start so we didn't have a whole lot of time to explore around.  (7am is when we were able to disembark the ship, there was no sleeping in on this cruise!) Once again, we took cabs to the main attraction. On this island, it was The Palace of Knossos.  This cab ride was the complete opposite of our cab ride in Patmos! Patmos it was "how fast can you go?" Crete was "how slow can you go?". Either way, we got there...had a view hours to venture around the Minoan site and search the souvenior shops, then head back to the ship.

This palace was first built in 2000 BC and after 300 years, was destroyed by an earthquake.  The second palace was immediately rebuilt but destroyed again in 1500 BC.  The excavated site revealed ruins of the two palaces, as well as Europe's first amphitheatre, evidence of the earliest drainage system known, and the first flush toilet in history. Crazy, huh?! This palace was more like a maze and had many different areas such as workrooms, living spaces, and storage rooms. They stored such things as wine, cereals, and olive oil in large clay vases.

While this was our least favorite of our adventures, it was still cool to walk through the area, reading the history.  Had we had more time to explore the island, we would have chosen to tour the vineyard instead! Next time!
After we were done exploring the Palace, we roamed around the souvenior shops and headed back to the ship.  We only had about two hours to do all of this, including transportation! Ahh...maybe we shouldn't have stayed up so late the night before! ;)
On to the next island!

Patmos, Greece

Our first island was Patmos, Greece.  One we reached the island, we anchored in the middle of the sea and had to board tenderboats to reach the island. They stuffed these tenderboats full and took us to the pier. From there we ventured around the village and saw what the island had to offer.  One thing I loved about the islands is all the different doors they had. They were all different colors and sizes and were beautiful!

We bought sweets from the bakeries, checked out the wine they offered, shopped around in the different stores they had, and tried to enjoy the quaint life they seem to live.
Once we roamed around the village for a while, we decided to take a taxi to explore the Cave of the Apocalypse and the Monastery of St. John. Before I go into that let me tell you about the taxi ride.  I wish I would have taken a picture of how winding the roads were, and a picture of the speedometer of the car. In other words, they.drove.crazy!!!! We thought we experienced quiet a different world of driving here in Turkey....this experience was much more different! ha ha You can tell these taxi drivers drive these roads back and forth, up and down, all day long.  Who needs the Indy 500 when you have the roads of Patmos!?
Instead of paying a ridiculous amount for the excursions on the ship, we decided we would get taxis and explore on our own. It was most definately worth it.  We roamed around the Cave of the Apocalypse and stood where it is said that John received his Revelation. That was a rather unique experience. To stand where such a thing took place. It gave me chills to think about what went on in that exact spot.  One of the Priest was giving an explanation about what happened but unfortunately he was not speaking English, so we weren't so sure of what he was saying. 
After we were done with that, we went up to explore the Monastery of St. John.  Unfortunately, we had gotten there right as the place was closing.  We got to see some of the area, but not inside.  Aside from that, we got to see a wonderful panoramic view of Patmos.  This was by far one of my favorite islands. (and even after venturing around 4 others, it is in my top 2!) 

We had a little bit of time before we had to be back at the ship, so we all decided we would have some dinner on the island vs. the ship. We shopped around for souveniors and then chose to eat at a pizza place.  It was agreed that it was some of the best pizza we had eaten since we've been in Turkey. Either we all miss American pizza, a lot, or this place was that delicious!! ha ha

Greek Island Cruise

J-Twice and I just returned from a lovely 3 day Greek Island cruise with some friends. It was awesome. We had such a great time.  This being my first cruise experience, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect.

 
 The food was okay, nothing special like I had heard cruises were, but I am blaming that on the fact it was a European cruise line vs. American.   Breakfast was nasty eggs, flat, rubbery pancakes and waffles, decent fruit salad, lots of danishes (prob one of the best things on the ship was the bread!), typical tomatoes and cucumbers, awesome hash browns, and some omelets. (I didn't try the omelets but I heard they were pretty tasty) For lunch we typically ate at one of the buffets on the ship...it was hit or miss in my opinion. J-Twice enjoyed some "chow mien" at one of the lunches. Since we were exploring the islands at dinner time, we chose restaurants to enjoy local cuisine.  The lounge areas and such on the ship were nice, the rooms were a bit outdated.  We enjoyed watching karaoke a couple nights and watched one of the crew members perform some songs another night.

Definitely made the most of our time there and made some awesome memories.  It was extremely windy out on the decks and since it's just starting to warm up around these areas, it wasn't exactly sunbathing temperatures (even though lots of people were trying!) It was so nice to just sit and let the sun hit your face for a while, but I could only do so in jeans and a sweatshirt or jacket. ha ha None the less, we enjoyed it. We ventured around 5 different islands in our 3 days and enjoyed something from each of them. I will talk about each island separately in the following posts. Going to Greece has always been a dream of mine and I am SO happy I got to mark it off my bucket list! It was beautiful and I can only hope to go back one day.



The boys before we set sail.




The girls before setting sail

 Enjoy reading about our adventures! Bon Voyage!

Happy Birthday, Momma!!

Just wanted to wish a very, happy birthday to my momma!!!! I could not ask for a better woman to call "my mom"!!! Hope you have a wonderful day today and can't wait to celebrate with you, soon! Love you!!