Excited to share some photos from our recent trip to Europe! First, I want to share about the first half of our trip to Greece! We were super excited about this part of the trip because 1) we were going with our good friends Luke and Renee who recently moved to Paris and 2) the majority of the trip would be on our own private sailboat visiting different Greek islands. ? SO DREAMY!
We took a red-eye from SF to Athens, with a layover in Munich. The long flight was fairly painless, especially since 1) they had good movie options and 2) we booked a row of two seats together instead of having a third person next to us. Way easier to sleep that way, in my opinion! We then took an Uber to our Airbnb in Athens (more about Athens at bottom of the post) where we stayed for the weekend before our sailing trip started on Sunday afternoon.
But, since the majority of our trip was spent on the water, that’s what the majority of this post is about, plus what I have photos to share of! Here’s more info about the sailing adventures.
We booked our trip via Incrediblue, which is like Airbnb for boats. I had no idea this was even a thing, but Eric and Luke did a ton of research (thanks guys ??) and booked our sailboat. This is the boat we stayed on and it was just the four of us, plus our captain, a 60ish-year-old quirky guy named Dimitris (who spent a lot of time in his speedo working on evening out his summer tan ?).
We went to three different cities on two different islands during our trip – all listed below and I have a breakdown of photos from each city below too.
Night 1: Lavrion (about an hour drive from Athens) – this is where all the Incrediblue trips begin and you spend your first night here getting acclimated to the boat, especially sleeping on the boat and seasickness.
Night 2: the town of Loutra on the Kythnos island – more below
Night 3: the town of Merichas on the Kythnos island – more below
Nights 4 and 5: Vourkari on the Kea island (our favorite!) – more below
Our typical day started with expresso (thanks, Dimitris!) and an easy breakfast like yogurt and granola on the boat. We would take off around 9-10am for our next destination, stopping at different coves to swim, lay out, nap, and just spend a few hours on the boat. We would do lunch on the boat, which was usually cheese, bread, tons of fresh fruit, olives, nuts, etc. – my type of eating!
We would arrive to the next town around 4-5pm to dock and explore the town, grab dinner and then hang out on the boat before bed. In town, we would grab provisions for the boat, like food and water for the next day.
The trip was slow and relaxing and amazing. I think I finished eight books during the trip and we played cards, water colored, journaled, and took leisurely afternoon naps every day. I’m really grateful that I felt great overall (was 20 weeks pregnant at the time) and didn’t feel sick throughout the trip, especially with the boat constantly rocking back and forth. ??
Renee said it perfectly – that the trip was a good reminder that slowing down is good for our souls and how important it is to carry over some of the relaxation from the trip into our regular life.
Greece was GORGEOUS and we really lucked out with amazing weather the entire trip. I really liked that we were able to explore smaller, less touristy islands and that we had an “insider’s look” of sorts at the Greek islands, thanks to Dimitris’ never-ending recommendations and “fun facts.” ?
A majority of these photos (the pretty non-iPhone ones) were all snapped by Renee and E snapped a few cool GoPro ones, so I can’t really take credit for any photos other than the subpar phone photos ?). Here’s the three different places we visited on our sailing trip!
LOUTRA (KYTHNOS): this was such a pretty town! And, the beach had hot springs so that was really cool and relaxing. We went to dinner at a super local place a little outside of the main town strip that our captain recommended to us. It had a great view of the water, right at sunset.
MERICHAS (KYTHNOS): this was our least favorite of the three cities, but it was still charming and quaint. We grabbed dinner at an Italian place (trying to take a break from our daily meal of mussels and Greek salads) and ended up getting like two types of pizzas, pastas, etc. SO FULL. Also, random, but there are cats everywhere on the islands. That was really weird and surprising to me!
VOURKARI (KEA): this was our favorite town by far, and we were super pumped we could stay for two nights. On the second day, we took the boat out and explored coves like usual, but then came back to this town to dock for the night since we liked it so much. There’s a few cute boutiques and we found cafe with good smooothies (and wifi!) and some good dinner and happy hour spots here.
As I mentioned, we only spent about 24 hours in Athens, but here’s a few photos from our quick time there. Our favorite neighborhood was Kerameikos, where we grabbed dinner and drinks at a few different spots. It’s a little grittier than other areas but super good vibes and much less tourist-y than areas like Plaka and Monastiraki. Both of those areas were cool to walk through and explore, but would recommend limited time because they are just really crammed and crowded.
ATHENS:
Thanks so much for reading! xx