There’s something about returning to a place that makes you think about who you were the last time you were there. I don’t love repeat travel, because to me there always seems to be somewhere new that I want to go, and I can’t justify visiting somewhere again. But this month, I went back to Greece, a place that mesmerized me the first time I was there for an all too brief four days.
Unlike the last time I was there, this time I was not on a perfectly planned out student tour, which meant that our travel itinerary was less than ideal. We left on a Thursday afternoon for Madrid, where we had to wait for about 6 hours for our flight to Sofia, Bulgaria. There we had a 11 hour layover, and we planned to just sleep in the airport. However, when we landed we had a very “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore moment.” It felt like I had stepped into 1970s East Germany. There were very few markers of Western capitalism, which I’m not saying is a bad thing, just unexpected. It became pretty clear that we were, in fact, not going to be able to stay overnight. The airport closed at 2am, and if that weren’t reason enough, there were only a couple benches and a single coffee stand. It was smaller than the Billings, Montana airport, which is one of the smallest ones I’ve been to in the U.S.
Thank God that my data worked, because we were able to look up a nearby Ibis hotel and walk there. There is something about a Bulgarian Ibis hotel that is a sanctuary of familiarity, kind of like finding a Best Western on the side of a highway in the middle of Nebraska. You at least know what you’re going to get.
By the next afternoon, we were in Greece, and it was surreal. Athens was just as I remembered it, but I wasn’t. Last time I was there my dad was still alive. I was still praying for my first kiss to come soon. I still wanted to be an OBGYN. I was still painfully shy. I was terribly anxious and depressed, not having been to a therapist yet.
In some ways, I am undeniably in a better place. I have my mental health under control (as much as you can ever have that under control), and I have in fact now had my first kiss. But my dad is gone, and I’m out of college without a next step. One thing is for sure, I at least look a lot better. No more frizzy bob, blue eyeshadow, and Old Navy t-shirts for me (no hate to Old Navy though!). We only had one day in Athens, but I was able to see most of the highlights again—the Parthenon, National Gardens, Agora, Old Town, etc. I also indulged in the best coffee I’ve ever had—the café freddo, a cup of espresso topped off with about 2 cups of heavy whipped cream all over ice.
The last time that I was there I lamented not being able to go to any of the islands, so luckily this time, we spent most of the time on the islands. Our first destination was Paros.
Paros
Paros is the least touristy of the islands that we went to. This also means that there are less distinct “must see sights.” Instead, it’s the perfect island to just drive around, hike, and laze around on the beach, which is exactly what we did. One of the days we drove around the island, and the views were incredible. The other days we just hung out on the beach and walked around the small fishing towns.
By far though my highlight of the Greek islands was the abundance of stray cats. Every corner you turned down had about 15 cats waiting to be pet. Some were a bit shy, but most wanted to be pet. When I was at a bar, one even jumped into my lap, much to my friends’ horror and my delight.
We were there during the very beginning of the tourist season, which I highly recommend, because it felt like we had the whole town to ourselves.
Santorini
This was the part of Greece that was most excited to see, mainly because it was the island from Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, a book I have read dozens of times. It was where Lena met Kostos, and I secretly harbored a fantasy of meeting my own Kostos, but alas I left Greece foreign-lover free.
Santorini is unique because its towns are built up on a cliff, which incidentally is not a cliff so much as the edge of a volcano! The whole island is part of the caldera, or rim of a giant underwater volcano. The beaches are all filled with volcanic rock instead of sand, hence the existence of the “Red Beach” and the “Black Beach.”
Santorini was much more touristy than Paros, but this also meant there were more things to see. Too many, in fact, for our limited time there. Our first day we took a bus to Oia, which is the picturesque village on Santorini with the whitewashed walls and bright blue doors and rooftops that you seen on postcards. It felt like a fairytale with the winding streets and the absolutely insane views of the ocean. It was the perfect place to see the sunset, and we ordered cocktails and watched the sun set over the caldera. I’m not going to lie, I may have cried a bit. It was just one of those moments that felt so perfect yet also sad in its perfectness, knowing that you’ll never truly be able to replicate it.
Our other full day in Santorini was spent on a boat tour that took us to the center of the caldera. We got about an hour to hike around the caldera, which had more stunning views of the islands, and then they took us to the “hot springs.” I use quotes, because they were quite cold and smelled like pennies (super metallic). It is one of those classic types of tours that everyone does, and because everyone does it regardless of quality and price, none of the companies really seem to care that their tours kind of suck. It is less a tour and more a mode of transportation to the places you want to see.
While Santorini was amazing, it is the sort of place that I feel like you almost need to have a decent amount of money to fully experience. It is most certainly the Maui of vacation spots rather than the Daytona Beach, which is why I fully intend to persuade my future husband to come here on our honeymoon.
Mykonos
This was the last island we saw, and it was most certainly the liveliest. It had been advertised to me as the “Ibiza of Greece.” Being someone who is not a partier, this was not the most encouraging of information. However, being there before tourist season started helped a lot.
Mykonos was nice, because we didn’t really have an agenda. We just shopped, walked around, and ate most of the time. At night we did go out to one of the clubs, where I bought a light-up Minion from a street peddler and proceed to dance with it. I, in fact, was not drunk when this happened, and I still don’t regret the four euros I spent on it.
Mykonos was a very upscale island, and we walked into a few stores where the shirts were 700 euros! But we still found a way to enjoy ourselves on a budget. By the end of our time on Mykonos, we were all pretty exhausted from all the travel and were content to just walk around and sit in various cafes and bars for hours at a time. I ended up coming down with another cold the week after we got back, which I can trace back to the nights in Mykonos when we stayed up until 4am.
I would like to say that that was the end of the trip and that everything went smoothly, but the trip home from Greece was pure hell. We had two connections, including another overnight in Bulgaria at Hotel Ibis. And because of the delays due to the air traffic controller strikes in France, we were delayed for more than 2 hours on the tarmac in Milan and ended up travelling for 39 hours straight. I have never been in a worse mood than the last 4 hour bus ride back to Logroño after we flew back to Madrid.
Maybe someday I will be looking back at this time in Greece thinking of how different I am from how I was then. Maybe I will be with my husband or children. Maybe I will still have anxiety and depression. Maybe I will have changed careers several times. But one thing I hope is that I am richer, so that I at least can take a direct flight next time.
