A different shade of blue

For our second anniversary weekend, Jen and I decided to travel outside of France to Greece for the weekend. It just happened that our anniversary weekend was over a 4 day French holiday (I'm not even sure what for), so we took the opportunity to plan something special. Weeks before we thought I might be able to sneak out of town a bit early on Wed (weekend started on Thursday), but as I probably could have predicted things were tense on the way to the airport. I had been up most of the previous night at work and was at it again on Wed on the way to the airport, in the terminal and on the flight. Unfotunately in the age of blackberry's, work was able to follow us to Athens that evening. The plan was to spend about 24 hours in Athens and then head to the Greek island of Santorini for the remainder of the vacation. I was starting to worry that this wasn't going to be much of a vacation though.

Our hotel and the view from our room was a step in the right direction of our vacation. Jen is a whiz with maximizing the Starpoints system for Starwood hotels (Westin, Sheraton, Meridien, others) and got us a free night at one of the best hotels in Athens. Not only that, but we managed to get upgraded to a room on the highest floor with a breathtaking view and patio that overlooked the Parthenon.

I finally dropped the Blackberry and we wandered through some bustling streets to find a restaurant our hotel recommended. We ordered some typical Greek food, plenty of feta, olive oil, kebabs and some local white wine. It was good, but I find it hard to distinguish in a town where all the menus look very similar. We strolled around the section of town that was just below the Parthenon on a perfect evening. Even at 10pm at night, the sky had this amazing shade of deep blue that was a nice contrast against the lighted Parthenon and the hilltop where it's situated.

The next morning we awoke, got a great breakfast on our rooftop restaurant and then took a taxi to the foot of the Parthenon. I'll admit that I should recall a lot more about ancient Greece than I do from school. I'll also admit that our reliable tour guide, Rick Steves, hasn't yet released a book on Greece and we were stuck with two pages on one of the most famous sites in the world from our Frommer's Greece guide. The basics are that the Parthenon is probably the most symbolic and impressive of all the ancient Greek ruins. It sits about 500 feet above the city on what is known as The Acropolis. The Parthenon was used as a temple and a treasury and only a select few could actually go up to the temple. Although there have been several different structures on site, the one that partially stands now was built around 500 BC. It had survived nearly intact until the late 1600s when invading Venetians had cornered the Turks in the temple who surrounded themselves with their gunpowder. An unfortunately well aimed shell hit the gunpowder and ruined the 2000 year old structure. Today much of it is in pieces, but the Greeks are rebuilding on a pace that 2000 years from now we might actually have something fully standing again.

We made our way up the hill and stopped first at the Theatre of Dionysus. It was the ancient theatre and is still used today for concerts (like Yanni!). We then climbed the rest of the way up to the plateau where the Temple of Nike and the Parthenon stand (or used to). You can't help but pause and take it all in once you are up top. The view is incredible, the Parthenon is really impressive and the tourists are everywhere. The exterior columns are almost all standing so you can get a sense of the scale of the building. There was scaffolding on all sides and there are bright pieces of new marble that have been cut to replace missing pieces. Progress appears to be slow in the reconstruction and we hope the 25 euro we paid for our tickets goes to help put the rest of it back together. The Greeks had only put a few basic signs up to explain what we were looking at, but otherwise we felt kind of lost. It's a shame we had to do a drive by on the whole thing as it really deserved a lot more of our attention. We spent a couple hours taking in the view of Athens below, snapping photos in between the swarms of tourists and answering work related emails on my blackberry. We came down from the hill on the back side and walked through the ancient Agora where the town meeting place and other smaller temples stood.

After another lunch of meat, olives and feta in some combination, we rushed back to the airport to catch our late afternoon flight all the way south to Santorini. Jen had done wonders again with our hotel and managed to get us into a really nice resort for half price that was located the middle of a vineyard and overlooked the ocean in the distance. We had looked at some of the iconic places that hang on the cliffs, but at those rates we could have taken another trip back to Greece. Instead, we rented a small car to get around the island and explore not only the cliffs but also some of the smaller towns and beaches.

Our first night was spent at the resort and it wasn't until the next morning when we saw this with our own eyes. Santorini is really a special place. Thousands of years ago it was an active volcano with a healthy population of Minoan living on it and the surrounding islands. About 3600 years ago, the volcano exploded in one of the biggest explosions ever. The volcanic island which was 8 miles by 4 miles almost completely disappeared and the population of Minoans in the surrounding area were lost. There are plenty of stories that came out of the eruption including that the lost city of Atlantis is actually 1300 feet under the ocean on the bottom of the caldera. What is left today are the remains of the that explosion as well as several smaller eruptions and earthquakes that have happened since. Despite the island's violent past, today Santorini is about as serene a place as you can get.

The cliffs from a crescent and surround a newly forming core in the center of the caldera. From a distance, it appears that many of the cliffs are snow packed until you look closer and see the bright white hotels and restaurants that form almost a continuous line of white along the edges. From the ocean a thousand feet below, you have to squint to make out of the lines of the buildings. The other striking feature of the caldera is the shade of blue of the ocean. It's a dark, deep blue that you normally only see miles offshore. It's mesmerizing and I felt like I could stare at it all day long while sipping a drink. The island is a mix of many different types of people: high end international tourists seeking ultimate luxury, Greeks on holiday, wild twenty-somethings seeking all night parties in one of the trendiest islands in Greece, ATV excursion/T-shirt buying tourists that pour out of the cruise ships several times daily, honeymooners looking for the perfect romantic getaway and, of course, frustrated locals. The strange thing is that it all seems to coexist and everyone can get what they want out of their trip.

For us, it was a bit of everything. We spent time in both of the main towns – Oia and Fira. We watched the sun set both nights from bars that hung out over the cliffs. We took a boat cruise of the caldera and explored the remains of the volcano. We went to the beach. We dined at a few amazing restaurants and we ate lunch at a couple of touristy ones. We spent some time lounging at our resort by the pool and we tried staying out a bit later one night to catch the early party scene.

While the weekend started off being more work than vacation, by Friday I really felt like I was on holiday. Jen and I had a great time and enjoyed the anniversary we had planned. We hated to leave and felt like we could just hang around forever but knew that starpoints can only get you so far in life.

Athens

(click for the rest of our Athens photos)

Santorini

(click for the rest of our Santorini photos)