Ten days of a perfect trip ! That's how my hu...

Greece | Jun 5 - Jun 15, 2023

Ten days of a perfect trip ! That's how my husband is describing our recent trip to Greece! We are recently retired and
"gifted" ourselves with a trip to Greece. We found KimKim online, read very positive reviews and decided we liked their approach to connecting us with an agent in Greece. KimKim put us in touch with Angela from GA Trips. Angela shared a few itineraries with us and we spent time looking through the options. Everything she shared was very detailed and included beautiful pictures and descriptions of how to plan out our days. She gave us a price each time we made an adjustment to the plan. We were able to personalize everything. We were very interested in visiting actual family owned wineries and Angela adjusted our tours to accommodate our wishes. Prior to the trip, we received a very detailed trip plan showing us how to make transfers from airport to hotel, hotel to the port for the ferries, times and meeting points of tours. There was not one single glitch in the entire trip plan. I was able to reach out to Angela via email with questions during our trip and she was very responsive!
Reflecting on highlights of our trip, here is the best of a wonderful vacation!
Having never been to Greece, we chose to do traditional ancient Greece tours, starting with the Acropolis. Our guide, Michael, through Alternative Athens tours, was extremely knowledgeable and helpful in helping us navigate ancient ruins, and provided so much detail about each and every site. We spent an evening travelling to Sunio and the Temple of Poseidon at sunset,with a few scenic photo stops along the way. We added a day to travel to Corinth and loved seeing the canal and the Temple of Apollo, the archealogical museum and being able to stand where St. Paul addressed the Corinthians! Our Athens hotel, Sweet Home Boutique, was in a perfect location, a section of Athens call Plaka. Restaurants, tavernas and small shops are very closeby and within view of the Parthenon. Rooms are very small, but this is normal for this style of building. Breakfast was wonderful! Hostesses were so kind and helpful.

From Athens we travelled by ferry to Santorini, where a driver was waiting for us. Our hotel, Blue Dolphins, was again in the best of locations, as we could easily walk the path to the city of Fira, or north to Oia. The hotel delivered breakfast to our room each morning. The view from our room was breathtaking, including the white walls and blue roofs of Santorini, as well as the blue water and volcanic islands navigated by cruise ships. The highlight of Santorini for us was provided by Elaina of Santorini Luxury Tours, visiting the wineries - Estate Argyros (and met a lovely sommelier who spent time showing us production, explaining the how the vines uniquely grow in Santorini, and experienced an exquisite wine/food pairing), Gaia Winery, where we had a waterfront wine tasting and learned how they submerge some wines in the sea for five years, and Avantis Wines where we experienced a fantastic lunch with perfect wines! We also had fun on a catamaran sunset cruise!

While other people we met were going to the well known islands of Mykonos and Naxos, our last three days were spent on the island of Crete. We altered our final tour to see the Palace of Knossis, the oldest known European start of civilization, the Minoans, and our day included two more wineries Domaine Paterianakis and Lyrarakis! Our tour guide, Andreas, of Snami Travel was great - providing so much information about Cretian history and local culture, and even making a casual stop to an old aqueduct where our driver provided a roadside table of fruits, nuts and drinks! Our hotel the Happy Cretian Suites was absolutely perfect! The staff was amazing! After eight days of touring, exploring and drinking local wines, we opted to visit a small town by the sea near our hotel, our last two days, where we got waterfront lounge chairs, ate wonderful Greek food and relaxed! We will need to come back to Crete to explore the rest of the island on another visit! Thank you KimKim and Angela for putting together an absolutely perfect vacation!