vacation pics!

back from vacation. a truly incredible trip - lived up to all of its (extremely high) expectations. starting this post with the intention of sharing just a few pictures but i'm thinking it's actually going to be quite a lot. here's a trip play-by-play:

finally on the plane. economy plus is so key for international flights. unfortunately we were near screaming babies on every flight of the trip. lesson: must buy noise canceling headphones before next crossing of the atlantic

arrive in athens. sneaky surprise by a friend leads to having a personal driver in athens for the next two days! mr. friendly driver takes us straight to the temple of poseidon in time for sunset


day 2 in athens. having mr. friendly driver leads to the most efficient and convenient site-seeing experience ever. obligatory parthenon picture

one of many yummy meals. yes we actually took a picture of every meal we had on the trip... this was at a cafe in the plaka (old town) of athens

after athens, we flew to santorini. confession: visiting this island was actually the main reason i wanted to go to greece. i won't even try expressing in words how amazing this island is. hopefully the pictures will be enough to convince you to go to

we stayed in the village of oia which is somewhat less crowded than the main town of fira. this is the view of the caldera we had from our hotel terrace!


here are 3 (of the many) striking things about santorini

1) the blue and white architecture




2) the cliff-side houses




3) the sunsets


one afternoon we boated to and hiked the dorment volcano


we also saw big fish at the harbor. quite exciting. (this was actually a staged picture. there was a discovery channel crew filming a travel special and this fisherman was chopping fish for their cameras)


after santorini we took a ferry to naxos. the island's tall mountains and sprawling valleys make it quite visually different from its neighbors. it was also less touristy and full of friendly locals and traditional greek villages.

picture of naxos town


we rented a car and spent the day exploring the island, driving through many villages like filoti (pic below). i wish i had a picture of the indescript map we had - grace did some darn impressive navigating


one of the many churches we drove past. they seemed to occupy almost every mountain peak on the island


grace helps show the size of the kouros (one of two very large marble statues on the island left unfinished)


sunset, apollo's arch and naxos town as backdrops

after naxos we took another ferry to mykonos - last stop of the trip. we were pretty tired at this point so we decided bum on the beach a lot and, in general, try to do as little as possible.

another great hotel terrace - go starwood points go

our last greek sunset