Sunday 16th June
Today is the first day of our Greek Island holiday!
We were up at 5am and making our way across the Athens on the metro along with all the other holiday makers to catch our ferry.
The ferry was humungous, more like a cruise ship and jam packed full of seats, we were number 205!
In typical greek fashion all the bags were just tossed on a pile at the front of the ferry!
We had a nice cruise-y 4 hour ride watching national geographic on the screens before arriving into Naxos!
We'd reached our island! It looks so pretty! Arriving into the port we could see all the classic white houses nestled into the brown hillside and the blue domes of churches. It's stunning!
We disembarked the ferry and were met by the hotel staff, one of the sisters who runs the place, and they had a sign with Sam's name on it!
The sisters that run the hotel are lovely and gave us such a warm welcome, and the hotel (Dedalos Studios) is amazing! Oh my goodness, I can't believe this is real!!
The whole complex is insane! Beautiful, classic white and blue greek buildings, with a gorgeous pool area with hammocks and sun lounges, and behind that were barren mountains with white houses on it and a field with hay barrels! It's so interesting and so beautiful!
And our room is beautiful with our own entrance and balcony as well!! (Although we still weren't allowed to throw paper down the toilet here either!)
This place is amazing, the whole complex is beautiful and even better than we expected, it feels like such luxury! There was even a postcard, a bottle water, some local jam, and a plate of fresh fruit for us when we arrived!
We unpacked everything into the cupboards as we were here for a week and made ourselves comfortable. It's so nice to actually unpack!
The rest of the afternoon was spent lounging by the pool reading our books and swimming.
We are living our dream! This is amazing! We didn't know if we'd get to do this and here we are!
A few hours later we moved ourselves back into our apartment and were so relaxed (and possibly tired from the early start) that we both fell asleep!
It was only a short nap, and once we'd woken up we made ourselves some dinner whilst looking out at our view over the pool and the mountains.
What a first day on the island!
Monday 17th June
Today was such a perfect day, an absolute dream!
We spent the majority of the day lounging, reading our books by the pool and jumping in and out of the water.
When we started to get hungry around 2pm we popped on our thongs and walked down the road to the grocery store to see what we could find for lunch.
We put together a delish lunch that consisted of crunchy bruschetta kind of bread with Salmon and dill cream cheese, topped off with cherry tomatoes and a dolop of pesto. It was a perfect light island lunch!
After lunch we walked down to the beach that’s only 5mins from the apartment! It was a sand beach!! Real sand! Not pebbles or rocks! It was a lovely looking beach filled with deck chairs and beach bars, and it was packed! We’ve been secluded away in our little villa, with the pool all to ourselves, here is where all the people are!
We walked along the beach and realised that we’d ended up in the town of Naxos, so went in to have a little look around. It is gorgeous and exactly what we had imagined. Beautiful white and blue buildings with small pedestrian streets made of stone and white painted concrete. It was amazing!
After we’d had a look around, we followed the beach back to our place and jumped in for another swim.
It was then time for crackers and feta followed by dinner.
We were doing the washing up and looked out the kitchen window and saw that tonight was a full moon and it was stunning! It was so full and bright yellow in colour. So I grabbed my camera and we headed out to the pool area to have a play with the camera and take photos of the gorgeous moon.
Tuesday 18th June
This place feels like luxury!
We spent the day alternating between lying by the pool reading and splashing around in the water! It feels like such a treat, to just completely chill and relax and just do nothing but completely enjoy the island life.
About midmorning when we were thinking of getting ourselves a little snack, one of the owners came out with a plate of home baked cookies for us!! I haven’t had a home baked chocolate chip cookie since last year! It was so sweet of them!
The other amazing thing here (which we didn’t realise) is that they service the apartment each day, which is such a treat to go back to a professionally made up room each day! Every second day (so we found out) they give you new towels, and every third they change the sheets. So when we went back into the room for lunch we found that we had new swan towels on our bed!! I do have to say though, apart from being a complete luxury having the room done everyday, I do really appreciate that the poop paper bin gets changed each day (still struggling with that!).
The rest of the day was spent relaxing, reading, and doing summersaults in the pool!
Once evening came and we started to get a bit peckish for dinner, we left our pool for the day and popped down to the grocery store to pick up a few bits for dinner.
We had decided to try our hand at making souvlaki for dinner. Well, I would dub it a success, it was so delish!!! Greece has the most amazing pita bread, nothing like at home. It’s so light and doughy! We slathered on some tzatziki, followed by lettuce, tomato, onion, and chicken kebab. By all intents and purposes, it’s essentially a greek taco, and we all know I love a good taco!
What another amazing day! After such a long winter, and so much rain in Croatia, it feels like such a treat to be on a summer island holiday!
Wednesday 19th June
We had the perfect morning by the pool again, soaking up the sun and enjoying the pool in the hot weather.
We then headed into the town for the afternoon to have a meander and an explore.
It is so incredibly beautiful, the classic stone greek pedestrian streets, the white buildings and blue domed roofs, it’s like something out of Mumma Mia! We absolutely love it!
We meandered our way through the town and down to the port where there are restaurants lining the wide street at the waters edge.
We continued along the waterfront and up the islet of Palatia, a small hill just beyond the port. On this hill lies the Portara, which is a massive marble doorway. It is really beautiful, especially with the sun shining through it.
The views up here looking back at the town are just stunning! It is such a beautiful place!
While we were up there we also took the opportunity to make a photography guide:
'How To Take Holiday Photos' - please enjoy!
It was so incredibly hot and we were both sweating like anything, so after we’d climbed around and taken in the stunning views we headed back down to the town and stopped in at a cafe/bar that Phoebe had told us about that has 5 euro cocktails!
After seeing people drinking aperol spritz back when we were in Italy, I really wanted to try one, and what better place to try a an aperol spritz but on a greek island! Sam went for a Pink Elephant, which was really nice. I’m on the fence about the aperol spritz, I really want to like it, but I think it was bit orangey for my likes, a bit bitter, but the nuttiness was interesting.
We didn’t realise, but like in Spain they serve tapas with drinks! Bonus! We had a delish selection of nuts to nibble on while we sat back and enjoyed our cocktails on our greek island!
After a lovely little drink we weaved our way back through the Greek streets, out of the town and back to our place where jumped in the pool to cool off and then made souvlaki for dinner again.
Thursday 20th June
It was another day in paradise.
The day was spent soaking up the sun, reading by the pool, moving between the hammocks and lounge chairs.
Then, when we were too warm, we would jump in the pool and have a splash around. Most of the day we were the only ones out there so took advantage and had fun, jumping in the pool, doing summersaults and just having fun!
We only left the pool side for our scrumptious lunch before returning to the pool again.
Today when we went in for lunch our sheets had been changed and fresh towels were in the shape of bows!
It always gets busier by the pool in the evening, so after one last swim for the day, we headed in for another dinner of souvlakis, yummm!
After dinner we went for a little walk around to see the mountains around us basked in the beautiful evening light.
Friday 21st June
You didn’t really think we’d leave our pool did you? Today was another beautiful day spent by the pool, warming up in the hammocks, going for a dip and then reading in the shade on the lounge chairs, followed by more swimming and repeating!
They’re so amazing with their attention to the property, one of the staff are out every half an hour scooping any fallen leaves out of the pool and sweeping up the patio! I can’t get over how amazing this place is!
And thennnn, when we were reading in the shade at one point, the owner came out with a plate of cookies again! How lucky are we?!
We had an early dinner tonight and then headed into town an hour or so before sun set and wandered through the streets of the town and out to the Portara to watch the sun set through it!
It was a spectacular sunset! It was so vivid in it’s colour going from yellow to orange, to the most incredible deep red, and eventually into a deep blue-purple, and it set perfectly and magically through the Portara!
Saturday 22nd June
We’ve developed a bit of a routine in the end. This morning was no different to the others, we got up had our showers and brekkie, slapped on some sunscreen and then headed to the pool area where we sat in the hammock or our lounger in the sun for 10-15mins until we were hot enough and then we would jump in the pool which feels amazing to cool off in. We then spend at least a good hour splashing around, doing summersaults and handstands, and just floating, before hopping out and reading in the shade until we’re too hot again so hop back in the pool.
Later on in the afternoon we headed into town in search of a Cat statue Phoebe had told us about. We found it just out of the town, down along the water. It was so strange, it was kind of a cat, kind of a person and had wings? Really weird.
We then meandered our way along the water front into the town and found a super lovely cafe/ bar to have 6euro cocktails!
It was such a lovely fun evening chilling out in the town sipping on our cocktails. It was so incredibly hot today that I decided to try the frozen margarita which was so delicious and refreshing, while Sam went for a Mai Tai. We were spoilt with tapas with it too and were given a bowl of popcorn and a bowl of some sort of greek chips which were soo good! It was such a treat! It was so relaxing chilling out that we decided to follow this up with a Pina Colada each, and they brought out more snacks with it!
It was honestly one of the most fun, relaxing evenings! Such an amazing evening, and the best way to spend our last night on the island!
We then eventually walked through the town and back out to our apartment for an evening swim!
After splashing around and cooling off we made our now famous souvlaki for dinner and sadly packed ourselves up.
This has been such a perfect week in Paradise, one of the best weeks ever!
Sunday 23rd June
We got up early for our last morning on the Island and spent the morning making the most of our pool by swimming and splashing about until check out.
Our ferry wasn’t for another couple of hours so we left our bags at reception and enjoyed lounging by the pool until we were kindly dropped at the port.
It has been such an amazing week here, an absolute dream and so relaxing!
Great account of your time here. As a result it has gone up the ladder on our bucket list.
good reporting and phot