Part 1 - Greece - March 2018

We had been considering a trip to Greece for over 2 years now. But the summer and the heat had always been a deterrent. So we made up our minds to travel during the Easter holidays, hoping it will be pleasant and a bit sunny during the day. What with island hopping and a lot of walks and climbing as part of the itinerary, we were all geared up with cotton clothing, shorts etc.

On 23rd March 2018, we took a flight from Dubai to Athens. It was only when we landed that we realized it was just about 23 degrees. For us, tropical beings, Greece was freezing and there was a hint of rain. Every soul was wearing thick winter jackets, and the four of us landed in summer clothes. Brrrr.....

We had booked a self drive car with Athens Car Rentals who had brought our vehicle to the airport. We signed the papers, picked up our key and headed out to Meteora (Kalampaka) which was a 4 hour drive from the airport according to Google Maps. Since we did not have our SIM Card yet, we ended up relying on the car's GPS... only to realize it had its own mind and directed us on a route that took us almost 7 hours to reach. Whew.... Lesson learnt! But the drive was beautiful, green, vast fields, meadows with lovely flowers....Gosh, we had missed Europe.

We landed at Dellas Boutique Hotel, which was a cozy, lovely place. We retired for the night and woke up early morning, and saw our first ever sight of snow from our window. The other side opened to a view of the Orthodox Monastery which was extremely close to our place of stay.

We were going to be driving to Mt. Olympus. The kids just had to go there for the view and to set foot on the tallest mountain in Greece and the home of the Greek Gods. Something they had picked up from their obsession of Rick Riordan books. Our drive in and out of Meteora took up most of the day. But the snow capped Mt Olympus, the view from a distance, was totally worth it. The boys got to pick up and play with some ice too (or maybe snow). We decided to turn back and saw that the entire mountain range was covered with fog, we literally would have seen nothing if we had been 15-20 minutes late. Green mountains, the water stream, the trees, everything covered in fog on our way back. It was surreal.

When we reached the sleepy town below, we stopped at a lovely lovely place called Meze Meze for lunch. They had only a few items on the menu, but the place was buzzing, and the food was excellent. We then drove back to Meteora and reached well before 7pm and had enough time to watch a movie (Baby's day out) before hitting the sack.

We woke up the next morning and drove to Delphi. This was a one night stop to view the archaeological site in the afternoon, stay overnight and wake up early to head out to Nafplio which was going to be a long drive. But we realized when we reached there that it was a holiday at Delphi and entrance to the sites was closed. So we just spent a lazy afternoon having some cheap food and walked by the promenade seeing some nice views down the hill. Our dinner was at In Delphi Cafe, a  lovely restaurant that served some amazing house wine, soup and pastas. The kids gorged on some great pizzas too.

We had a light breakfast the next morning and drove out to see the Athena Pronaia, Temple of Apollo and the Museum. Some spectacular views with lots of history, mythology and archaeology dating back to the 4th Century BC.

Around afternoon, we drove out to the lovely little busy, foodie town of Nafplio. We drove through the hilly town of Nafpaktos along the seaside. We went past tiny villages, a cemetry and drove up to the top of a hill to see the view of the Ionian Sea, crossed the Rion Antiron Bridge (the world's longest multi span cable suspension bridge), passed the Gulf of Corinth and reached Nafplio early evening. We were staying at an Agrotospita Country House full of Mulberry, Orange and Olive Trees. We had some lovely Orange Pie (our first taste of this yummilicious dessert made using Filo sheets, greek yoghurt and fresh orange juice) and headed out to town to enjoy some great wine and pizza at Scuola Pizza Bar. 

After returning to the country house late night, we ran one round of washing and went to bed. Upstairs in separate rooms from the kids, oh it was a good night's sleep. We woke up next morning, sunned out our clothes, and chatted outside in the lawn, and successfully locked ourselves out thanks to a cat that was trying to get into the house. We left around mid morning towards town, had some lovely croissants for breakfast in a shop that had a huge pair of sunglass shaped mirrors with the Dubai Skyline (much to the amusement of the kids), and went up driving to the Palimidi Fort. We parked the car and spent about 2 hours walking through the Fort and enjoying some spectacular views of the Argolic Gulf and the endless blue sea and sky. We then came down, drove past the palm lined beach and headed to a little cozy family run restaurant called Kontrabasso, at the foot of the Fortress steps behind the Cine Nafplio, that cooked up some amazing lunch for us. We returned back to the country house in the afternoon, took a nap, ironed some clothes and headed out again for some dinner at Goody's burger joint in town, then viewed the lit up Fort from below against the night sky. It was indeed a relaxed day for us in this "buzzing in the weekend otherwise sleepy town". 

The next morning we had an early exit, so we grabbed a croissant each, and drove out to Athens Airport to take a flight out of the mainland and start our week of island hopping in the Aegean Sea. We were now looking forward to some blue, some white and some sunshine.