Hello! We’ve just had the most amazing time on two of the Greek islands. Definitely feeling nice and relaxed and ready to tackle some cities again! This was the final section of our trip with Jordan & Tristin and it was nice to be able to spend it relaxing on beaches and beside the pool! Here we go!
Crete: Day One
First stop was Crete! As mentioned last time, the taxi driver got us to the airport in record time. The flight to Crete was pretty short. It was almost like once we got up in the air we started coming back down again!
We arrived in Crete at about 8:30am and went to pick up our car. They gave us a bigger car for free which was nice. Our plan had been to pay for luggage storage for a few days while we were there so that we didn’t need a massive car for all our luggage. We saved a bit of money being able to chuck it all in the boot.
It was the first time I had ever driven on the right hand side of the road and what a crazy place to do it. I think I picked it up pretty quickly including figuring out how to actually drive in Greece. I can’t confirm that the Greeks know what they’re doing either though. First drive along the highway I realised that you should stay as far right as possible because everything is a passing lane. The speed limit is just a suggestion and I have no idea if I’m going to be slapped with any speeding tickets. I tried to stay on the cautious side, so hopefully not!
Anyway, our first destination was a tiny little beach town called Almyrida, just south of Chania which is the other big town on Crete (we landed in Heraklion).
We stopped at a couple of places along the way. The first was a little beach which was extremely busy. The beach was underneath a highway bridge. There is an off-ramp from the highway which goes directly there. It was pretty hot, but I wasn’t keen to drive with wet clothes on so I didn’t have a swim there. Miriam, Jordan & Tristin all went in for a quick dip before we continued.
The next stop was a church called Chapel of Agios Nikolaos which is a tiny little church at the end of a row of rocks in the sea. We thought that you could only reach it at low tide, but after checking the tide times we realised that the difference between high tide and low tide is about 0.4m. Apparently in the Mediterranean and seas near it the tides are extremely small. So we got there not far from high tide and were able to walk all the way out to the church.
It was interesting watching people walk across the rocks. They weren’t flat, but they were definitely an easier walk than Takapuna to Milford beach. People really struggled and walked quite slow! It made us realise that we were pretty used to that kind of terrain having grown up around beaches.
The church was pretty cool. You felt like you were way out from the shore and it felt in a way like the Church of the Good Shepherd in Tekapo. The view through the windows was awesome. Definitely a cool little place to visit.
We were then back in the car and made our way to our accommodation. We wound through a couple of little beach towns to get there and then wound all the way up the side of a hill to where we were staying. There was a pretty good view from the porch outside our rooms and we were just a short walk into town.
That evening we had a pretty early dinner because we were pretty tired! We went to a pizza & pasta restaurant which was nice and cheap but had one of the best outlooks that I’ve ever had at a restaurant! The seating area was right over the water and we felt like we were in a very expensive restaurant! We enjoyed it a lot and made the most of our good seats.
After dinner we went and sat by the beach and had an ice cream. It was a nice way to finish our first day in Crete.
Crete: Day Two
Our next day started pretty slow. We didn’t need to check out until midday and we didn’t have far to drive so we thought we would just relax. We had had some issues with our car the day before so we drove into Chania to speak to the rental place there. They didn’t have a big enough car that they could swap and the slightly smaller one that they had came with far less petrol than we had already put in our car. Weirdly it’s not a full-to-full policy with fuel. You just return it with whatever was in there (in our case nothing). It’s a terrible system. Thankfully our car had been behaving ok that day so we stuck with it and didn’t actually end up having any further issues anyway.
Our main stop for the day was going to be Elafonissi Beach. It is one of the top things to do in Crete so we thought we’d better do it! It used to be a quiet, secret beach, but it was exposed by Trip Advisor a few years ago and now it’s a massive tourist attraction. The whole beach is covered in umbrellas and beach chairs for hire and you can barely move!
The drive there is pretty crazy. You wind down narrow rows with cliff edges around every corner. There are massive tour buses taking heaps of people down to the beach as well. We were heading there fairly late in the day because we checked into our accommodation first. This meant we passed a lot of traffic going the opposite direction to us including a lot of massive buses!
The highlight of the drive was the one way tunnel through the mountain. I felt like we only just fit through it but the tour buses were significantly bigger than me! It was quite a sight watching them come through.
Another thing I learnt about driving in Greece is that you don’t sit back and wait for cars to pass before going through a narrow area. Instead you slowly edge forward and squeeze your way through. If you sit back, the line of cars will never stop and the people behind you will just get annoyed and pass you.
Anyway, the beach itself was pretty amazing and we had a nice time swimming there to cool off. The water was fairly warm! The beach (along with other beaches in Crete) is known for having pink near the shoreline. It’s more visible a certain times of the year and we did have to search for it. It’s a phenomenon that occurs due to pinkish shells breaking up in the area along with red-coloured organisms which live on those broken shells.
The drive back felt less dicey due to most of the traffic leaving the beach rather than arriving.
We got back to our accommodation and had dinner at the restaurant below mainly because we were in the middle of nowhere and there weren’t really any other options! It was nice to sit outside and enjoy some food together. It was much cooler in the evening – so much so that we were wearing jumpers for the first time in ages!
Crete: Day Three
Our final day in Crete was also to be our biggest driving day as we needed to go all the way back to Heraklion. Crete doesn’t have a loop road around it so you’ve got to go back the same way you came.
There was only one place that we wanted to stop on the way back and that was Balos Beach. We probably should have done a little more research before going, but all we knew was that it looked amazing and was about a 20 minute walk from the car park.
When we were about 30 minutes away, we came to a toll booth. We were entering a national park so there was a €1 fee per person. That’s not bad so we were happy to pay that! We asked how far to the beach and the lady said “8km plus a 20-40 minute walk”. Google maps still said there was 30 minutes left and what we had just found out was that it was a dirt road for the next 8km. It’s not even a gravel road – it’s just rock and dirt.
It definitely took us 30 minutes to do that 8km and we were soon greeted by a long line of cars parked on the side of the road. We were there at about 11:30am and we had very little food and not much water. We parked on the side of the road (the side which wasn’t a sheer cliff) and started the walk to the beach which we naïvely thought would take us 20 minutes. After about 10 minutes of walking we got to the carpark. We then realised that’s why the lady said “20-40 minutes”.
We walked through the carpark and along a track before getting to where we could see the beach. It looked absolutely stunning, but we were very high up and we could see the staircase going down! It definitely took us 30-40 minutes to get there and at the bottom we were hot and exhausted. I ate the banana that was in my bag and finished the water that I had. Thankfully there was a canteen selling food and drink!
We went for a swim before deciding it was time to go and buy food. We bought pizza and cold water and it set us up perfectly to be able to spend the afternoon there!
We spent loads of time in the water before deciding we needed to walk all the way back to the car. It was an extremely long, hot walk. It was 100% worth it though. The beach was one of the best I’ve ever been to.
All of us were pretty tired after that so we went straight to Heraklion. We returned the car and walked the 30 minutes back to our accommodation. None of us could be bothered figuring out what to have for dinner that night so we went to Maccas. Sometimes familiarity is best when you’re tired!
We were happy with our time in Crete and went to bed looking forward to our next adventure to Santorini!
Santorini: Day One
We had a pretty uneventful ferry ride over the Santorini which I’m pleased about because I’ve heard that it can be dicey! Once we arrived, we found a bus that was going to Thira and we jumped on. The bus is crazy. The roads are steep and winding. The buses are way too big for the roads but they do it anyway! It’s quite an experience.
Thankfully we made it to the central bus stop without hitting any other cars or going off the road. Our hotel was just a short walk from the bus station which was good because it was already pretty hot!
We arrived at the hotel and dropped our bags. We then went into town and found some gyros for lunch. The hotel allowed us to use the facilities until we were able to check in so we grabbed our togs and spent the afternoon by the pool.
The rest of the day was spent relaxing and walking around the main town to see what was around. The main street is pretty crazy with cars going down it constantly and no footpath. You get pretty good at dodging everything coming from every direction!
We walked along the walkway by the cliff tops to see the amazing view of all the houses and we watched sunset which was pretty cool. The sunsets are really hazy in Greece so it doesn’t matter that the skies are completely clear. The sunset always looks good!
Santorini: Day Two
On our second day, we had another very relaxing day which mainly involves sitting by the pool, going out to eat food, and walking to see views! It was so nice to stop and relax.
In the evening we had dinner at a restaurant with a view of the sunset. We got there early and then took as long as possible to order and eat so that we could stay there the whole time! It was an amazing experience to be eating dinner on a cliff top with such an amazing view. We enjoyed this as a way to top off our relaxing day.
Santorini: Day Three
On our final day in Santorini we got up for sunrise! The roof of our hotel looked straight out to where the sun was rising and it was pretty cool to watch! It was already very warm at sunrise. We went back to bed after!
Once we got up again, we took a bus up to Oia which is at the northern part of the island. It was another dicey bus ride in a bus that seemed way too big for the roads!
Oia is known for the blue dome churches and it’s the place on Santorini that everyone goes to take photos.
We got there and walked along the cliff top walkway to get those photos. We checked out an Orthodox Church and made our way all the way to the castle of Oia at the top of the island. We then began our ascent down the hill to Ammoudi Bay. Around the corner from there is a bay called Arminian Beach. We went there for a swim to cool off. It was a pretty stunning place.
We walked back to Ammoudi Bay and sat with Jordan & Tristin for an ice cream. We needed to be cool before our huge climb back up the steps to the bus stop!
The steps back up have donkeys at various points and you can pay to get a donkey up the steps. It seems pretty horrible for the donkeys as it is extremely hot! There is donkey poo everywhere and we didn’t see a single person purchase a ride. We went with the walking option.
Once back at the top we took the bus back to Thira and went straight for the pool to cool down again!
That night we had some Chinese food for dinner and Miriam and I got all packed up for an early morning flight!
We sat on the roof of our hotel with Jordan & Tristin in the evening. It was nice to hang out with them for one last time. We have been travelling with them for 5 weeks and they’ve been great travel buddies! Sadly we leave them at this point as they head off to Turkey (and then the US) and we head to Italy! We said goodbye before bed as we had to get up at 2:30 to get to the airport!
We stood on the side of the road waiting for our airport shuttle at 2:40am and at 2:55an we decided it wasn’t coming so we started walking to the taxi area! A taxi drove past and saw us so we jumped in and got to the airport with plenty of time. Not sure what happened to our airport transfer! Luckily we hadn’t paid for it!
That brought us to the end of our time in Greece! It was an incredible country where we saw such a variety of things! Looking forward to Italy!
Bye for now! 👋🏻
