Greek Islands: Monday to Friday, 5-9 September 2022

The promise of a four-night, six-island journey around the South Aegean on a cruise liner with some of our closest friends had been keeping me awake at night with anticipation and is the perfect final phase of our European vacation.

To take up where we left off in my last post on Sunday evening… we awoke quite early on Monday in our 3^rd floor tiny apartment in Lavrio, a small coastal port southeast of Athens.  

The Lavrion hotel was one of the ones I chose when we had the long standing rule of oscillating between excellent and average hotels. As you know, I’ve since update that rule due to a very ordinary hotel experience in Vienna. This hotel wasn’t awful, but pretty small and basic nonetheless. It had the smallest bathroom of the trip so far and included instructions to turn the hot water switch on 15 minutes prior ‘if you want a hot shower’. The first task of the morning was to turn that hot water on for it to heat while we ate our simple breakfast which was delivered to our room by the lovely hotel owner, Sophia. Sophia is the only hotel owner I have learned the name of on this trip, due to many messages over the previous couple of days to organise our transfers and pre-cruise COVID testing. She was extremely helpful about everything and even bought both tea and coffee to choose from, along with hard-boiled eggs, Greek yogurt with honey, tetra juice packs and an assortment of savoury pastries. I can’t say it was the best breakfast we’ve had, but not having to go up and down the three flights of stairs to get breakfast out was definitely a bonus. We had booked the hotel through a web based agent but cancelled after her offer of free breakfast and a lift to the cruise terminal if we cancelled the online booking and paid cash.

CRUISE DAY 1: Monday (Mykonos)

By 9am we had packed up and descended the narrow three flights of stairs where Sophia was waiting to drive us to the port. ‘It is perfect timing’, she said ‘after the early arrivals but before the rush’… and she was right 🙂 When we arrived at the terminal the embarkation process was amazingly smooth, from the passport and Covid test checks to the baggage drop off and issuing of our ‘boarding cards’ which would be used as a charge card, room key and identification for the next four days.

After boarding and easily finding our deck seven cabin, we spent the next hour or so exploring the ship, it’s amenities, activities, bars and of course, restaurants. We started our lunch (grilled meat, vegetables, bread) in the aft buffet bistro which had a great view over the sea, but fairly ordinary food. We discovered that the ‘restaurant’ on a lower level actually served pretty much the same buffet food, albeit in a more upmarket setting (think cloth serviettes and table cloths). We had the second part of our lunch there (salad, and dessert). I certainly won’t be allocating much blog-space to the food on this cruise ? While nothing specifically was wrong with it, food that sits in bain-maries and is bulk produced is often not great, and this was no exception.

Up to 1200 customers fit on the ‘Celestyal Olympic’, a 37,000 tonne cruise ship which runs three- and four-day cruises continually through its nine-month cruising season of March to October. Our cabin attendant told us the ship was not quite full at around 850 passengers. Many of the guests are Greek, but there is also a large assortment of other nationalities represented. I heard quite a few American accents (they always seem to be the loudest), a lot of Spanish was being spoken (possibly from both Spain as well as other Spanish-speaking countries), French and Italian could be detected from time-to-time and quite a number of Aussie accents stood out as we meandered around the ship.

During our second lunch, we ran in to the Perrys, which became quite a habit over the four days, even with 850 on board! Before the cruise started, our good friends Shaun and Steph had been on holidays for a week, touring Athens and other parts of Greece with Shaun’s sister Donna, and his brother Russell. I was so excited to see them after so many months of planning and enthusiastic anticipation. Steph and I must have sent each other hundreds of messages leading up to the holiday as we both planned every small detail of this eagerly awaited trip. Lots of hugs, introductions to their new-found tour friends, a couple of bevvies and before long we were arriving at the first stop of the Cruise itinerary, Mykonos.  

The seas were rough and the winds very strong, which delayed our disembarkation by tender onto the island of Mykonos. The smaller ferry style tenders were loaded from the first level of the ship in groups of around 80 per boat. After the 20 minute trip across to the wharf, then a further 10 minute bus around to the main coastal town, Dave and I tagged along with the tour group that the Perry’s were with and learned a little of the island’s history. We eagerly took in all the sights, including the most beautiful sunset.

Mykonos is a hugely popular spot for tourists, but even with the large crowds we got to explore quite a bit and get a good feel for this party-centric town. By 9pm lunch seemed a long time ago and we found a cute little waterfront taverna to taste some local food. Of course, being an island, seafood dominated the menu, and I choose to have some mussels which were cooked in a really flavoursome and delicious white wine broth. I also ordered a dip platter which we shared among five of us. The overflowing plate included the obligatory (for me) taramasalata, some olive tapenade, a great version of Greeks famous tzatziki as well as some Melitzanosalata, which is a roughly mashed eggplant, garlic and lemon puree. They were all fabulous on top the warm pita bread but the taramasalata was my favourite! Dave stuck with a simple bowl of chips, Steph enjoyed her Gyros plate, and Donna some crispy fried calamari, which Dave also sampled.

The rough seas and high winds continued long after we got back to the ship and went to bed, rocking us gently off to sleep.

CRUISE DAY 2: Tuesday (Kusadasi and Patmos)

Tuesday was full-on from the moment we read about it in the daily program which arrived in our cabin each day. In the morning the ship visited Kusadasi in Turkey on the eastern edge of the Aegean sea. There, Dave and I skipped the ‘included tour’ and set off on foot for a few hours exploring the port city. The ship had pulled alongside a wharf here, so disembarkation was simple. We visited a supermarket and a baker before settling into a small café in the town square for a cappuccino freddo (me) and fresh orange juice (Dave) and some intense people watching. Obviously being so close to Greece and Greek islands there are a lot of similarities but the difference in cultures across Greece and Turkey was visible through its language, currency, dress and food.

In the afternoon the ship visited the island of Patmos. Again, we disembarked via tender. The short trip across to the less touristy village and capital of Patmos, Chora, was very scenic, with turquoise waters, sheer cliffs and rugged hills rising directly from the coastline. I feel like we got a closer look at the real side of life on a Greek island here, even though 850 people descended at once on the town from our ship! Dave and I again found a little café on the main cobblestoned square and enjoyed a drink or two, and ice-cream for Dave, sitting in the shade of umbrellas and watching people go by.

Dinner back on the ship (duck soup, then Chicken Kiev) before we again ‘ran into’ the Perrys, spending quite a number of hours singing along with a talented Filipino duo who were the entertainment in what turned out to be our favourite ship’s bar the ‘Argo’ bar. There may, or may not have, been some karaoke-style singing by the end of the night ?

CRUISE DAY 3: Wednesday (Rhodes)

Two islands in one day was hectic and I was pleased that Rhodes would be the only island visited on Wednesday. Regardless, it was still an early start with our tour meeting time at 7am! The tour was included in the Cruise and took us to both Lindos and to the town of Rhodes itself. Lindos, about 50km from the port where we arrived is well known for its clifftop Acropolis. I was thankful for the early start for two reasons. One is because we climbed the 300 stairs to the top of the Lindos Acropolis while it was still reasonably cool mid-morning, but secondly because by the time we left Lindos the place was heaving with tourists!

The Acropolis stands dominantly on a high cliff at 116 m height, and appeared like a large platform overlooking the sea, framed by massive castle walls. I was determined to make the walk to the top and was very proud of myself when I reached the highest point. The amazing view made the effort worthwhile, but the variety of ruins including the Temple of Lindian Athena was also very interesting to see and hear about. The remains of the temples from the 4th century BC, as well as the Propylaea, the huge Hellenistic Stoa, and the Byzantine church of Saint John, are located on the top of the Acropolis.

Theologians, historians and scientists concur that the apostle Paul visited here on a missionary journey not long before he was imprisoned and executed. The beautiful U shaped bay, named ‘St Paul’s Bay’ in his honour made a stunning picture from the top.

After an easier walk back down the cobblestone stairs and an icy cold, but expensive (5 euros) watered down lemon juice Shaun and I found Dave, Steph and Russell at a cafe for my now daily ritual of an iced coffee, this time a ‘frappé’ which doesn’t have the thick creamy froth of a cappuccino freddo. I actually preferred this, though I am doing my very best to not get addicted again and will be giving up coffee as soon as I leave Greece.

The bus took around an hour to return to the city of Rhodes where we were given a tour through the old town. The city is quite large and has three dry moats surrounding it, all in good order. Dave and I had researched the various Commonwealth War Graves situated across Greece and found that 11 Australian’s were buried among around 150 commonwealth graves in the Rhodes Military Cemetery. The Cemetery was on the southern outskirts of the city, and we easily found a taxi who took us the 3-4kms there.

The heat of the sun, now in the middle of the day, slowed me down a bit, but as always it was fascinating to read the headstones in the immaculately presented cemetery. We signed the visitors book, then decided to set off on foot back towards the harbour. I had spotted some food markets on the taxi ride there, so was keen to visit them!

After a short wander around the market, we continued to walk towards the port, thinking that at any point we would grab a taxi, but eventually deciding since we had walked so far we might as well continue! My ‘walk lots, eat lots’ rule was sitting in the back of my mind to keep me motivated on what turned out to be a 1 hour (4km) walk! We arrived back at the ship just in time for a late lunch, then spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and napping, which was lovely. We met the Perrys for dinner, a formal affair on the third evening. Dinner, though especially set up and somewhat hyped, was in fact like the rest of the cruise food, quite ordinary! The company was great however, and after walking out on a dodgy live show, we again joined our now favourite Filipino duo who proceeded to move through all the sing-along songs the Morleys and Perrys could think of to request!

CRUISE DAY 4: Thursday (Crete and Santorini)

Regardless of the late-ish night, we still arose quite early and met Shaun and Steph for breakfast. We had berthed earlier in the morning alongside a large wharf in Heraklion, the largest port on the island of Crete and after breakfast left the ship on foot to look at the hillside town. We had a recommendation to visit a particular bakery and to try Bougasta a traditional Greek filled pastry that can be prepared either savoury or sweet. We tried both (of course!) and both were fantastic. The savoury with a salty cheese filling and the sweet version filled with a type of thick custard. Yum, yum. Lots of calories required more walking, so we wandered around the streets of Heraklion, bought a few souvenirs then were back at the ship just in time for it’s 11.30am departure to Santorini. 

Santorini is probably the most well known of all the Greek Islands and has received the award for the ‘best island in the world’ a number of times. Of course popularity has created a massive tourism boom that has both advantages and disadvantages. As a volcanic island which was separated after volcano eruptions, Santorini has many unique characteristics. It’s high rocky cliff faces, white painted buildings, cave houses, splashes of blue and then amazing sunsets all contribute to its uniqueness and beauty. We took the cable car from the port area up to to the capital of Santorini, Fira. It was only a short trip, but oh wow the views were amazing and at 6 euros each way was well worth it! (and avoiding 600 steps!). We wandered all over the city, and while crowded, wasn’t as bad as it might have been a few weeks ago at the height of the summer holiday season. We stopped at a café and enjoyed yet another cappuccino freddo (me) and a Banana split for Dave. I also ordered some Taramasalata, but barely ate any of it. I guess touristy cafes don’t really need to worry too much about food quality! Strangely it was served with a bread roll – which I did eat 🙂

More exploring and walking in Fira and then just before sunset we joined the queue for the return trip back down the cliff in the cable car. The view was even more beautiful on the way down and when we alighted we took a stroll along the waterfront to admire the sunset. We also found a lovely little waterside taverna, where we ordered some fried calamari, some chips (of course), fresh bread and a great creamy version of tzatziki. What an amazing place to watch the sun go down with delicious food!

A 15 minute tender trip back to the ship before we packed out bags in preparation for our early Friday morning disembarkation. We met the Perrys and others for one last cruise drink, then it was time for bed. Very sadly we heard the news of the passing of her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. Given our children are named Victoria Elizabeth and William Alexander, you may have guessed that we are stanch supporters of the Monarchy. Dave is the most loyal subject she could have hoped for, and his life wont be the same without her. May she rest in peace after a life of dedicated service.

We are now back in Athens and about to have a short rest then explore a little more on foot with Shaun and Steph. The next blog post will probably be the last of this trip, given I fly out on Sunday. I am going to squeeze every last bit out of this holiday…. but for now its time to nap after writing this mega-length post!

(Apologies for the length of the post – you got all four days in one hit, due to the speed and cost of internet on board the ship 🙂 )