After 20 hours of traveling, door to door, we are safely back. For some reason the travel back was much harder on me. Probably because I was drugged up on the flight out there and slept the entire 10 hours of the Athens flight. The trip back was brutal. A long metro to the airport, 10 hour flight to Philly, 2 hour flight to Charlotte, lots of begging to get us on an earlier flight, 4 movies, lots of pretzels, you get the picture. I have never been so excited to see my bed before in my life.

So the trip was GREAT! I wouldn't say it was what I expected, because I really had no idea what to expect. I can't really compare Santorini to Folegandros; we loved them both for different reasons. Santorini was beautiful, touristy and commercial. We were not too thrilled about the town of Fira there, but much preferred the more artsy town of Ia (where most of the pictures are taken when you visualize the Greek Islands) at the edge of the town. We were technically there in "off-season" it Fira was jamb-packed with tourists. It was a bit claustrophobic and I can't imagine what it would be like in July and August.

Ia was pretty magical. Quaint back alleys with low doors, flowers and a bit-run down architecture that captures a charm in a way that is indescribable. We only saw a sliver of the world famous sunsets, but it was pretty. We really enjoyed this island and had the most memorable two meals (Josh and I are split on which was our favorite) and an awe-inspiring hike here.

Folegandros is a remote island of only about 650 inhabitants (If I remember correctly). It took quite a bit of work to figure out the ferries and we only knew if we would have a ferry back, 36 hours before its departure. Completely worth the trek, though. Folegandros truly felt almost untouched by the outside world. I say "almost" untouched, because although you could feel the authenticity here, the younger men wore diesels and ipods were used at hotels to play the mood music.

Our time on Folegandros was quite relaxing. Our most difficult decisions of the day were usually which outdoor restaurant to eat at under the hanging lights in one of the five beautiful interconnected squares. We found our favorite beach on this island and had some great conversations with other travelers and locals.

I completely maxed out the space in my travel journal and I apologize in advance for how long my trip report will probably end up. I look back on my Costa Rica trip and love reading what I wrote then as it brings back memories of moments that I would otherwise have forgotten over time. Please enjoy and I hope that by reading about our travels, you will get the travel bug too.

I'm going to post them according to the actual days, so go all the way back to May 27th to start, then work your way up (to read it in order)!

THE SUNRISE

We had read about the amazing sunset from above the church, so we planned to get up early and make the climb. The alarm went off at 5:15 a.m. and it was already getting light out. We threw on some clothes and literally went running out the door. I thought I would have a heart attack by the time we got up to the church. We then realized we had to go to the top of the peak above the church. (A good ways up the side of a mountain.) We climbed some terraces and finally reached the top. Actually we went to one peak and realized we had missed the high peak and I made Josh hike even some more. 

It was quite peaceful on top of the mountain at 5:30 in the morning. The ocean looked like glass with only a few fishing boats out. It seemed as though the only other living creatures at that moment were the roosters, donkeys and goats. As we sat waiting for the show, the sky had already started to glow red and a few roosters had now woken up. A herd of goats was on the adjacent hill and we watched as two of the younger goats got adventurous and took off down the side towards the ocean. We never saw what happened to them. It took ½ hour for the sun to finally poke out from the horizon. It was a red slice as it peeked out and quickly turned to yellow ball of fire. We sat on the rocks and watched until the sun was pretty high in the sky and headed back down towards our warm bed. As we stumbled back down the hill, we found that a herd of goats was blocking the last gate to get back onto the church grounds. We kept walking towards them, thinking they would scatter once we got close. We were wrong. As we got close, the Granddaddy goat started at us. He didn’t appear to be stopping and we back up a little. When we realized he really wasn’t stopping, and getting quite close, we got a little worried and started running up the steep incline.  Rocks were falling out from under our feet and we had no other option but to climb the church wall.  The wall was made of stones and we worried that it would crumble if we climbed on it. With Granddaddy Goat hot on our tails, we tried our luck and made it over the fence successfully.

A LAZY AFTERNOON & LUNCH AT POUNTA

Before heading back to the studio, we went to the bakery as soon as it opened at 7. We got some delicious croissants (one stuffed with spinach and the other ham and cheese) and headed back to the hotel. After doing some wash, we accidentally fell back to sleep and didn’t’ wake up until 11.  We were still exhausted when we woke up and decided to go relax at the pool and read for a few hours.  Josh was quite burned from our hike yesterday, so he found some shade while I lay in the sun. After a few hours, we got hungry and decided to try Pounta while it was still open.  I think I overheard the Owner saying that he closes each day at 4. The back patio at Pounta is really peaceful.  A few other couples were there and we were allowed to order off of either the breakfast or lunch menu. I was craving something different and hadn’t tried the Greek yogurt, yet. I ordered the yogurt with fresh fruit and honey. It was delicious and hit the spot. I now understand people’s love for Greek yogurt. It was light and whipped.  Josh had the “special potato salad” which was a warm salad with potatoes, zucchini, carrots, olives, capers, salt, pepper, olive oil & onions. He wasn’t crazy about it.

ANO MERIA

We had checked the bus times before lunch and headed out to the square to catch the first afternoon bus to Ano Meria, the other town on the island. We didn’t really know where to go or what to do in Ano Meria, but the bus driver told us to get off at the very last stop. He explained that the Folk Museum was back down the main street. We decided just to walk through the town, making our way back towards the museum. There really wasn’t much for us to look at in Ano Meria. We were able to see some of the terrain that we hiked yesterday and we realized we were glad we hadn’t continued on to hike to the last beach and then to Ano Meria after our lunch at the Terrace restaurant.  We knew that the next bus wouldn’t leave for two hours and we figured we could easily waste two hours just wondering around. The highlight of the walk through Ano Meria was the two old mills. The rest of the sites were mainly farm land and a couple restaurants. Only one looked as if it had opened for the season. We found the Folk Museum , but a local man across the street motioned that it was closed. It was only 4 and our guidebook said it didn’t open until 5. We weren’t sure if it would open or not, so we took the next bus back. We climbed up to the museum to rest in the shade while we waited for the bus.

DINNER AT PIZZA PAZZA(?), CHORA RESORT & FINDING EL GRECO!

Back at the hotel, we grabbed our books and some wine and headed down to the terrace again. There was a good breeze and the hotel turns on lounge music in the evenings. It was so peaceful with the ocean below us. Before we even realized it, it was already 8.  By nine, we had showered and were heading back out for dinner. 

On the bus ride we saw the back portion of Chora that we had never explored before. It was past all the squares. As soon as we saw the Chora Resort and a few other restaurants we said “ah-hah!” This must be where El Greco is. I’m not sure why we were so obsessed with finding this bar. I am determined no to be defeated and I wasn’t going to let one little bar get the best of me.  We didn’t go inside Chora Resort but peeked in through the gates. The pool, bar, grounds, etc. were beautiful. I haven’t checked the rates, but if the Cliffside location isn’t necessary, this place was gorgeous. Just off of our impression, this seemed more like a resort while Anemomilos was a family run group of villas. They would be hard to compare as they are so different. Next to the hotel was a cool looking bar that I think was called The UnderRoom. It wasn’t open, though, so I couldn’t check it out. Next to that was Sweet Chora. This was a really cool dessert shop. It was a gorgeous and modern all white shop. Very elegant. It looked brand new. We weren’t in the mood for sweets, so we can’t vouch for the food, but it looked delicious. Nearby was the closed Laomi.

We were in the mood to try the pizza place, so we headed over to El Greco, as it was located upstairs. This was the first place we went that was playing all American music. Rap, hip-hop, Elton John. It was a very eclectic mix of American music. Strangely, we were the only tourists there. The dinner was quite cheap. We got a full size pizza, half Greek - half 4 cheeses, and a Greek salad. After all the work to find El Greco, we weren’t in the mood to go to the bar that night. It looked like a neat place to hang out. It definitely had a bit of a funky vibe to it. On the way back to the hotel, we passed Eva’s Garden which is right past the last square. There was only one table of people inside, but it looked like a nice atmosphere with a lot of lit lanterns.

FINALLY GOT FERRY TICKETS

Before dinner, we headed back to El Diablos to check on the ferry ticket situation again. The girl behind the counter smiled and said that they in fact had gotten the schedule for Sunday. The boat we were expecting was on the schedule. Good thing since it was now Friday night. That was a little nerve-wracking. The Ios stop did get cancelled from our boat, so thankfully that wasn’t our ultimate destination.

We slept way later than expected – almost 11. We were woken up by house cleaning, knocking to see if we were still there. I had woken up at 6:30 when the sunrise shone in the curtains. It was nice not having a schedule for today. We grabbed some printouts of the hikes, the guidebook and got ready for the day. We had heard that Kartego was a good beach, but not included in any of my planned hikes. Cornelia said we needed a motorbike and we told her that we liked to hike. She said we could take the port bus, hike to Livadi and then take a path down to the beach. The bus sign said the next bus wasn’t until 2:30, but the bus driver said there would be one at 1. After getting some cherries, nectarines, salami & water, it was only 12. We went for Plan B and I pulled out my hike from Chora to Angali Beach .

What a cool hike this was. You take some gorgeous old stone staircases out of Chora, down the hillside and cross the main road. The hike detail is good but you really have to place close attention. There was a part where we had to go over a wire fence and head down the hillside after climbing over some almost impassable bushes. We saw another couple confused at the spot for the wire fence. We found our way over the fence and the followed after us. Our directions told us to head towards the log cabin. Well, we hadn’t seen any wood construction on the island. We made our own way through the hillside and finally got down to the first beach – Fira (or Fyra).  The cabin we were aiming for was actually a masonry building.

FIRA BEACH

Fira Beach was completely deserted and very peaceful. It was a tiny stone beach with beautiful crystal clear waters. We took the beach for ourselves and spread our lunch out on the rocks. We ate and watched the waves crash on the rocks.  A few minutes later we continued to the other side of the small beach where the path to Angali continued. 

ANGALI BEACH

After a short climb from Fira, we found ourselves on a small beach that wasn’t named on our printed hike. It was very clear that whoever owned that land did not want us to camp or take our clothes off their, though.

After some more hiking, we got to Angali. In the busy season this beach is supposed to be packed because it is the easiest to reach by bus. Obviously, most people don’t take the route through goat pastures and over fences, like we did. We stopped for a few minutes here and decided to keep going towards Agios Nikolas Beach. This was a quite steep climb up and down here. The path was blocked at one point, but we climbed over as we had seen quite a few people head this way and no one had come back. We came across our Swiss friend here, again, and pointed him towards the good beach areas. From the top of this peak, their were gorgeous views down to all the bays. When we had almost reached Agios Nikolas, we found the Terrace restaurant. 

I don’t know what the actual name of it was, but that is what we called it. It was perched on the side of the hill overlooking the beach. I don’t think it gets more peaceful than this. We got some water, a coke and fried calamari. (Josh kept craving this all trip.) We spent over an hour here sitting, enjoying, writing, reading and listening to the waves crash below us in the breeze. Rejuvenated, we made our way back to Angali, not feeling like we needed to descend down to the last beach. Agios Nikolas looked like a lovely beach though. It had many trees that provided shade and it wasn’t overly packed.

The directions going back got us quite confused. We were supposed to look for a staircase and we missed it.  We actually had to hop another fence that must have been added since the hike directions were written. We got back on course though and started our straight up climb to get over the mountain.  We made it back to the hotel around 5:30 and felt completely gross. The ocean had been quite cold so we hadn’t gone in. Instead we dropped our packs off and got in the pool. Well, we got up to our knees. We then went and were excited to have our first hot showers of the trip.

DINNER AT CHIC RESTAURANT

At 7:30 we headed out for dinner. We walked around for a while and took pictures. (Can you tell this is our favorite time of day to do it?) We were running low on cash and went to the travel agency to cash traveler’s checks. We think it is kind of weird that they are only open at night. Still no word on the ferry for Sunday, yet. We wandered through the Castro area (there is a lot of history there, but I couldn’t tell you without looking it up). It is very quaint with the old homes, archways, tunnels and alleys. This is what I pictured when I thought of Greece before going.  

Our theory each night was to find the busiest restaurants and go there. Tonight it was Chic. I had my heart set on the Spinach Pie, which I had heard was good, but they were out of it. Instead I got the Penne with Roquefort Sauce (I love that this country loves cheese) and Josh got the Pork with herb and mustard sauce and fries. The fries were awesome. They were thin, crispy and drizzled with olive oil. We started with an olive dip – one side was kalamata and the other a green olive.  The meal was very good (especially the olive dip and Josh’s pork dinner) and the restaurant was packed every night we were in town.

After dinner, we checked to see if Baraki was open – nope. We tried to find El Greco, but we couldn’t. We even asked for directions, but that didn’t seem to help. I couldn’t figure out how we couldn’t find a place in such a small town.  Instead, we picked up some fruit for tomorrow’s lunch and checked on the times for the bakery in the morning.