Amazing Greece and Romantic Santorini

Planning for a holiday trip, it’s not that easy with the whole world open in front of you. For almost 3-4 months my wife & I were discussing to choose a place for our anniversary trip.

After a long search, Voilà! we chose the birthplace of the Western Civilization, GREECE. Initially the confusion was to whether go as a package trip or plan the itinerary ourselves, and finally after much research we concluded that planning the itinerary with the help of a tour operating group was a better option. In our case we took help from Al-Hind Tours & Holidays.

Now, the next issue was acquiring the Schengen visa, with me having only a 2 month vacation and getting the visa processed within two weeks was not an easy job. Thought I could get the visa, we had to wait until the previous day of the trip to get my wife's visa. After all the planning and bookings, we were a little apprehensive thinking about the 'ifs' & 'buts' in case we don't get the visa.

We had already made a rough plan of our trip; for 6 nights and 7 days

• 2 nights in Athens.
• 3 nights in Santorini where we will be celebrating our first anniversary.
• 1 night at Athens.

It was an early morning flight from Bangalore and with a transit at Dubai, we reached Athens after early noon. After the immigration and other procedures, when we got out of the Athens International Airport, our driver was waiting for us. He was very pleasant and was mostly asking us about India. He gave us a brief summary of the whole trip. He dropped us at the Melia hotel at Athens which is around 1 hour from the airport. On the way to hotel we had a glimpse of Athens University, Parthenon and other various monuments. We were informed to be ready for a night tour at 6 PM. Melia hotel is at centre of Athens, very close to National Archaeological Museum, the Greek Parliament and National Library.

Both of us were tired because of the long travel after taking a small nap we set out to explore nearby places by foot. After exploring the neighbourhood and finally when the hunger pangs arrived, we treated ourselves at an open cafe with the traditional Greek Salad and Gyros. On the way back to the hotel, both of us got lost though it was fun exploring.

Night tour was just like a hop on hop off on a sight-seeing bus which takes a trip around Athens. We covered the Syntagma square, Panathenaic Stadium, Parliament , Temple of Olympian Zeus, President Palace and Acropolis. A dinner was organized by local travel agency at Plaka a perfect place that express authentic Greek culture. This place is well known for its unique scenery with many shops, boutiques and cafes. We walked through nice small marble laden path to the restaurant where our dinner was arranged.

It was a beautiful café , they amused us with traditional Greek dances and music . We were asked to join them, after much denying I had to dance with the belly dancer and the video still makes us laugh.

As expected, the Greek cuisine being continental was bland which most of us Indians would not enjoy. It was definitely one of the unforgettable days of our trip.

We started the day after our breakfast. The first stop was at the most praised monument of the World, The Acropolis. Over there first we visited the Acropolis Museum, which is the house of all the ruins that were discovered from the Ancient Athenian time such as; the coins, urns, statues etc. The unique aspect of the Museum was the it stood on the ruins of a village. The pictures below gives an insight on the great civilization of ancient Greece. From the museum there is a clear view of Parthenon temple which was our next stop. It took around 30 mins walk to reach Parthenon which is on the Acropolis, from where one has a panoramic view of Athens.

It was exhilarating to see the Parthenon after studying and hearing much about it. It is indeed a great example of ancient Greek architecture. On the Northern side there is Erechtheion a temple dedicated for Goddess Athena. Though the Parthenon was attacked many times, one could see even after all that the magnificence of the architecture of ancient times were almost intact. The next stop was the Panathenaic Stadium which hosted the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. We also covered Theatre of Dionysus an open theater, Odeon of Herodes Atticus, Temple of Olympian Zeus a temple dedicated to Zeus at the center of Athens city and the final stop was the Syntagma Square. This is where the Greece Parliament is situated and we reached at the right time to see the change of guards.

The much awaited day finally came when we had to travel to Santorini on the ferry. When we reached the Piraeus port, we were enthralled by the size of the ferry and also the facilities that was available in the ferry. Most of the time we were just enjoying the blue sea and facilities provided. Never had time to sit in our seat. There were two stops Naxos and paros before reaching the final destination Santorini. All these places has their beauty , its evident from the buildings that we saw around the ports, reached Santorini by 11AM and was taken to Fanari Villas Oia. It was a drive around 45 minutes. Remaining day was on our leisure . Fanari villas is build on a cliff with views of Caldera, Thirasia island and the sunset. It was cloudy so we were not able to see the famous sunset

Tour operator picked us from the hotel . Went first to the holy orthodox monastery of prophet elias , from the top point we can have a full view of city, then we went to a typical village called Megalahori. All houses were in white and blue paint, almost all of them have only two floors. The street were very narrow which was build like that during early days to protect from pirates invasion. Blue doomed churches with bells with the blue sky in background is incredibly beautiful and unique. After the round through village our next stop was Akrotiri archaeological site, went round with a tour guide who was very knowledgeable and interesting. Walking through those ruins will make you think of how brilliant were those who belonged there. It took around 2 hour to complete the site and then we traveled to Red beach , beautiful beach at Santorini which is few distance away from Akrotiri. Next it is time to taste some wines, we visited Santo wines which is situated Pyrgos . You have the spectacular view of Mediterranean sea and Caldera from top of it. We were back at oia by 4pm and the next spot is our villa itself to watch the much awaited sunset. It was really awesome to see the sun sets to the background of two mountains far away. Pictures will explain more

It's 11 May , our first anniversary . Gave a surprise to my wife at midnight with a nice chocolate cake arranged by Fanari Villas. It's our day at leisure, after breakfast we took the local bus to Fira. Enjoyed local food and sightseeing. Streets were really beautiful and we bought some souvenirs, Both sides of streets are with small boutiques and open restaurants. There are many things that tend us to buy but they are not that cheap. Like the houses almost all shops were painted white and blue, with blue sky at the background it's a fresh feeling to see these at a distance. By evening we rush back to villa to have the view of beautiful sunset , but due to the clouds we missed it on that day.

It's time to leave the romantic city, we walked through a street nearby the hotel, it was pretty to see small shops in white and blue. Also went a book store . It was not the type of book stores that we find everywhere, lot of uniqueness you can find at this book cave. We can see lot of quotations on the wall and a reading area at the top. The staff there was really helpful. After taking some clicks over the street went back to Fanari . By 12PM left the villa to Thira airport to catch our flight to Athens. Reached Athens by evening , took a taxi to Melia hotel. Walked around plaka in the night and had dinner at the open restaurant at the top of Melia with a view of acropolis

It's time to bid farewell . We reached Athens airport by 11AM for our flight back to home.