Greece

I am really behind in my blog updates.  The next few days I will attempt to catch you up on all our summer travels - starting with Greece.

Nath and I had a day exploring Athens which we jammed packed with all the big tourist sites - Acropolis, temple of Zeus, Hadrians arch, and my favourite the Panathenaic stadium (home of the first modern Olympic games).

We enjoyed our Sail Croatia experience so much last summer we signed up with the same company to do Sail Greece.  We spent 6 nights sailing around the Saronic Islands. There were so many highlights from this trip that I will try to narrow it down to one highlight per Island we visited. 
Perdika - first night on the boat and big night out to start the trip.  Anna found a tambourine and wouldn't stop shaking it.
Ermioni - a rough days sailing for those that went a little too big the night before.  We had a welcome cocktail party thrown by medsailors. Nath got a nasty eye infection that warranted a trip to the doctors.
Spetses - when hired quad bikes to circumnavigate the 23km Island, stopping at beach bars on the way around.

Hydra - having a delicious gyros for dinner and watching the amazing sunset while drinking strawberry daiquiri at the sunset bar.
Poros - spending the afternoon on the water sports pontoon getting free beers  I went parasailing and really enjoyed the serenity of the experience. 

Aegina - spending the afternoon at a pool bar, getting my nails done and swimming in fresh water.  The Greek dinner and dancing finished the trip off nicely.

We arrived back in Athens with heavy hearts as our yacht trip was over.  Luckily Nath, Laura, Scott, Anna-Marie and myself were off to Santorini.  Nath and I stayed on our own and spent Saturday afternoon exploring Oia and Fira.  We walked down the 500 odd steps to the Old Port of Fira avoiding all the donkey poo as we went.  The donkeys smelt so bad the we decided to take the cable car back up rather than ride on a donkey.  On Sunday we rented a little red rocket car and picked the others up to explore the rest of Santorini,  We started with the prehistoric town of Akrotiri, before swimming at red beach.  We then found went to Pyrgos before finishing the day off at Santo Winery. 

For Nathan and I this was the end of our Greek Odyssey as we flew home the next day. Greece was my number 1 destination I wanted to visit before we left NZ so I am glad we got there.  It was amazing and I would love to go back.  I miss swimming in crystal clear waters, eating gyros and tzatziki, and the friendliness of locals is so welcoming.