Mac finally joined me in the UK on September 2nd and we’ve been on the go ever since! While I normally diligently post nightly (lest I forget details of our wondrous travels), we’ve been running around like crazy, enjoying each other’s company and have (sadly) been staying in places where internet is hard to come by. I need to properly update this soon, but here’s a quick update on the fun that’s happening in our neck of the woods:

Despite being tired (from zero sleep in 24+ hours), Mac was ready to rock by noon on Thursday and we hit up lots of hot spots (Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Borough Market and the like) before heading out to a late night dinner with Linds & her friend, A. Some serious deliciousness at Aladin’s on Brick Lane made for the perfect end to our day!

Day 2 was more sightseeing and some napping, but main highlight: WEMBLEY STADIUM for the England-Bulgaria game. Needless to say, the 5-year-old in Mac came out — pure bliss. Soccer/football mecca.

Yesterday (Day 3) we boarded a train to Scotland at 730A and arrived in Edinburgh shortly after noon. In just a few hours we had scoured the New Town and checked into our surprisingly amazing and spacious studio apartment (more on that to come — BRILLIANT location at a ridiculous amazing price!) We checked out most of the Old Town and had a super relaxed dinner before ending our night in a gloriously authentic tavern next to our flat!

Now, we’re posted up in the National Library of Scotland, all too excited to use their free internet (such a rarity!) planning for tomorrow: golfing at St. Andrew’s and dinner in Linlithgow! Mmmm!

Sorry for the lack of updates — I’ll get this all under control as soon as we have real internet!

xoxo from Edinburgh,

So, as you guys may (probably?) know, Mac is coming to London next Wednesday to hang out in the UK for 10 days! I’m definitely excited to see him after a year! Being that I’m more familiar with London than he is, and due to the fact that he’s super busy at work with the prospect of being gone for ten whole days, he left most everything up to me. I was given the responsibility of getting us a room in London and in Edinburgh and was given his credit card number to do it. I don’t know about you guys, but I get extremely uncomfortable when I’m spending someone else’s money. On top of that, I love finding a deal and I think Mac would more than appreciate that since it’s coming out of his pocket.

When it came to finding a hotel in London, I knew two things: 1) I wanted to be Central and 2) I didn’t want to spend a lot. I think being Central is super important. With London being pretty compact, you can walk most places or take the bus or tube. If you’re way out in Zone 4, you’re not getting the real London experience and it’ll take you forever to get into the city center. Definitely a waste of time in my opinion. Plus you’re spending extra cash on transportation. As for the money issue, Mac assured me that I should find something comfortable, but I tend to think that people aren’t really aware of how much ‘comfortable’ costs in Central London. A decent double near Covent Garden is probably gonna run £160 on the lower end (think Best Western-style). That’s not cheap.  I would way rather spend extra money on seeing a play or grabbing a fun dinner (perhaps I’ve been jaded after living in a shoebox for a year).

After checking out standard hotel sites (think: Expedia, hotels.com, B&B.com, etc.), it dawned on me: Student accommodations often offer double rooms for a reasonable price and they’re almost always centrally located! The University of London has rooms on the cheap (I’m staying in one now, actually!) and the prices are unbeatable considering the central location. LSE also has a slew of their own LSE-branded housing complexes available hotel-style before residents move in! I had a number of friends staying in Grosvenor House and Northumberland House during this year and I was impressed with the rooms — comfortable, decent-sized (by London standards) and incredibly well-located. After checking out their website, I decided to make a reservation with Northumberland House for a double room. With my LSE discount, we ended up paying — get this — £60 a night! That’s for a double room that sits two minutes (max) away from Trafalgar Square. Can you beat that?! Plus, the building is rather gorgeous (if memory serves, it’s the old Department of Defense).

For anyone looking for discount rooms in Central London, university accommodation is the key. You’ll save some serious cash and nab some decent rooms in the heart of the city! They’re not luxurious, but how much time are you really spending in your hotel room? A few places I can definitely recommend:

1. Northumberland House: We’re staying here & I’m kind of obsessed with the location! Down the street from Trafalgar Square, nearly everything is within walking distance. Plus the tube is close & loads of buses run through here!

2. Grosvenor House Studios: I think I speak for all of my fellow LSEers when I say that we were thoroughly jealous of everyone that nabbed Grosvenor House accommodation. They’re a bit more expensive, but they’re a lot more homey. Pretty spacious studio apartments with kitchenettes and an amazing location in Covent Garden!

3. High Holborn: This was my little hole for the year and it’s definitely okay if you’re a single person (or two young travelers) trying to find a budget accommodation. I think they do breakfast in the summer, too, which is a double-score! Well-located although not the most aesthetically appealing :)

4. International Hall: Two minutes from the Russell Square tube station and totally central for £35 a night (£25 if you’re a University of London student!) There are doubles available, too: £65 en-suite with a little kitchenette!

University of London has a number of other well-located inexpensive accommodations but I haven’t checked them out so I can’t personally recommend them.

A few other tips:

1. There are a few more LSE-run housing units that you can nab for even less! They’re not as well located as the ones I mentioned, but they’re all within Zone 1 and well connected.

2. King’s College also has accommodations in the summer for £22.50 a night (£30 en-suite).

3. The Guildhall School of Music and Drama has some rooms available, too; they’re apartments with 3 – 6 bedrooms and they run from £27 – 32.

4. UCL also has a number of residences for singles or groups — prices vary but the flats are all fairly central.

Hope that helps a bit! Now you can save cash and spend it on much more worthwhile things… like shopping on Oxford Street :)

xoxo,

After our bout of sightseeing in Dublin and our relaxing day in Connemara, S. and I had plans to head back to Galway bright and early to rent a car in Eyre Square. We hadn’t really planned it in advance, but (rather naively) assumed that we’d be able to snag a car at the centre. We hopped on a 9:15A bus from Clifden to Galway and arrived in Galway’s city centre by 11A. We headed down to the nearby Budget rental centre and waited to grab an available car. Now, you may remember me mentioning that this past weekend marked the culmination of Galway’s busiest week of the year: the Galway races. Apparently the races are a pretty big to-do because nearly everyone we talked to asked if we were heading to check out the event. Of course, if we had known that this was going on we would probably have better planned our bookings, but we had no idea. As you can probably imagine, we were quickly dismissed after we strolled up to the rental desk and asked for a vehicle. Didn’t we know? It was the busiest weekend of the year and there wouldn’t be a car available until Monday. We sat outside and phoned every other rental car in Galway to no avail. Our plan was ruined! Eeek.

Now, this wouldn’t have been an issue had we not had our lives in tow: massive 60+ lb. suitcase, laptop cases, purses… ugggh. We had a momentary freakout and then sped off to the visitors centre where an all-too-kind Galwegian helped us sort out our lives. While our fantasy car rental exploration day was a bit ruined, we had a pretty decent alternate: we got a Cliffs of Moher tour for 20 euro (15 for me with a student discount!), that was going to take us to the Cliffs by way of a number of small cities with a number of photo stops. Bonus? They had room to store our luggage on the bus! Perfect!

The ride to the cliffs was about two hours and we passed through darling towns and gorgeous countryside on the way. After leaving County Galway, we passed through the Burren in County Clare. Apparently, “Burren” comes from Boireann (Irish for ’stony district’) in reference to the limestone hills and valleys that cover the area. No joke — limestone everywhere!

After passing through the Burren and stopping for some photo snapping opportunities, we made it to the cliffs!

Stellar. Seriously awesome. I was a bit sad that the clouds got in the way of picture-taking, but there wasn’t really much I could do about that! Being that it’s Ireland and the weather is incredibly temperamental, the rain and crazy wind came to a halt shortly after we arrived and made way for semi-sunny skies and white, pillowy clouds. I still don’t understand how the weather can change so drastically in 15 minutes but after living in London for the year, I’ve stopped questioning it.

The skies ended up clearing quite a bit and you could actually see the shadows of the Aran Islands in the distance. S. and I were both a bit sad that our Aran Islands-excursion didn’t pan out as planned, but maybe next time! I tried to snag some shots of them from a distance, but to no avail; they just look like light patches of water.

After hitting up the cliffs, we stopped for lunch at a cute little pub/restaurant in nearby Doolin and grabbed a bowl of seafood chowder (!!) before heading back up to Galway. From there, we had to grab tickets down to Cork to find a place near the airport for our early morning flight. Want to see how the night panned out and check out our five-star hotel? Click here to read about it!

All in all (I’ve said this already), I was impressed by Ireland. Weather and shit storm aside, I thought the country was beautiful and the culture was unique. I’m surprised to say this, but I would definitely go back in the future, with more time dedicated to each region. This trip to Ireland marked my last real ‘leisure trip’ of the year. Traveling this month officially depleted my bank account and it’s now time to refocus on life and dissertation-writing. I will, of course, be heading to Scotland next month with Mac, but that’s been planned for a bit! While traveling in Western Europe is far from cheap, it is definitely doable on a budget (as most twenty-something broke ass college kids can attest to)!

Check back soon as I recount my journeys and highlight my favorite destinations from this past year!

Love from happy (cloudy) London,

After our time exploring Dublin, S. and I decided to head to Galway. Unfortunately, the Galway races were taking place the weekend we decided to head over causing hotel prices to shoot through the roof and availability to go down the toilet. For a single night, hotel prices in Galway were running at around €175 – 250 per night for an average room — way over our budget.  Instead, we decided to check out the nearby-ish area of Connemara, a bit west of Galway. In actuality, it’s more than a bit west, but we weren’t aware of that at the time. We ended up booking a room at Gannon’s B&B in Clifden, the capital of Connemara.

The train from Dublin to Galway wasn’t cheap (€48) but I was able to snag a deal online that helped ease the pain a bit — €25 if you purchase in advance online. Considering it gets you (literally) across the country, I guess that’s not so awful! We were in Galway for but a short bit of time before we jumped on a Bus Eireann coach to Clifden (€10). I had thought the ride to Clifden was going to be about 45 minutes based on the map I had browsed. I clearly didn’t take into consideration a) the fact that we were taking a bus vs. a train; b) the fact that the roads were much more rural in the far west and c) the fact that buses do make stops every so often. The journey ended up taking us about an hour and a half in total before we arrived in the picturesque village of Clifden. Though it was a rather long ride, I must admit that the scenery was stunning: hill after hill of rolling green, streams, ponds, horses, sheep… the works. After that ride, I can most definitely understand why it’s referred to as the Emerald Isle!

We checked into Gannon’s and fell in love immediately. Despite the fact that it was a trek to get out there, the couple that hosted us was amazing — beyond friendly and so incredibly helpful. The rooms were huge and the bathrooms were stellar. Plus, our breakfast the next day was amazing — by far the best breakfast we had during our trip (think homemade bread, homemade scones, fruit, coffee, mmmmm….). We spent an hour or so decompressing before heading out to explore the town.

Mind you, ‘exploring Clifden’ takes about an hour. The town is small, but despite (or perhaps because of?) it’s petite size, it was incredibly charming. Little Celtic stores, mom and pop jewelers and teensy grocers sat between a million B&Bs and loads of Irish restaurants and pubs. After checking out the town, we ended up stopping for lunch/dinner at a little pub where we grabbed (no surprise here) seafood chowder and toasties. Definitely a perfect combination to warm us up in the Irish rain.

We headed back shortly after and dealt with some emotional business before planning for our next day in Ireland. On the agenda: Cliffs of Moher, Blarney Castle, car rentals and more. Stay tuned to find out more about our Irish trip gone awry!

Gotta get back to dissertation-writing!

Lots of love,

PS. As you know, S. and I are back in London and she just got a room for the next week! Exciting part? It’s right next door to me! Bliss!

Well, S. and I are officially back in London (in my glorious new palace — updates to come!), but I have to take a moment to revisit our time in Ireland. While the trip didn’t turn out exactly as we had expected (there were more than a few obstacles), I have to admit that I am thoroughly impressed with Ireland on the whole. Everything was working against it: I had a mishap at the airport, the weather was super sh*t, emotions were all over the place, it was the busiest weekend in Galway (unbeknownst to us the Galway Races were on!) and thus prices were through the roof and availability for everything was low. Despite that, however, the place was gorgeous! I really, really liked it. It’s incredibly regionally diverse, which definitely adds to its charm and I would definitely recommend it to other visitors. I plan on going back in the future with more money in my pocket and more time on my hands to appopriately explore the the West Coast and the Southwest.

There’s no way I can capture everything in a single post, so I’ll start with Dublin for today. After that crazy airport debacle and a four-hour delay, we arrived in Dublin at around 430P. A short bus ride (€7) took us to the city centre where we jumped off and took a quick stroll to our Temple Bar hotel, Farrington’s. We were thoroughly confused when we approached Farrington’s — it’s a pub and we were certain we booked a hotel to sleep at and not a pub (although I questioned whether they were one and the same for Irish folk). After entering, we met the oh-so-nice manager and got keys to our B&B which was right around the corner (not in the pub). The room was extraordinarily nice — big room, huge bathroom (with a jacuzzi tub!), internet that mostly worked and, above all, a perfect location. While we may have gotten it a bit cheaper if we booked in advance, we were pretty happy with the price for the location (€118 for two nights).

After getting settled, we headed out to The Purty Kitchen for dinner (a gastropub of sorts). I was super impressed with their menu (I was expecting typical greasy pub food) and their prices (€5 for deliciously wonderful crostini and salad) — definitely a bargain! We planned out our excursions for day two and headed back to our gloriously comfortable beds for the night.

Day two was our Dublin sightseeing day. We had a few things on our agenda and had everything mapped out. Stop number one: St. Patrick’s Cathedral. A church was built on the site in 1191 and they recently (broadly speaking) celebrated 800 years of worship. 800. We didn’t to go in, but we were definitely impressed with the architecture… always makes me wonder how people built these amazing structures without technology and machinery!

The next stop was definitely on the top of my list: Christ Church Cathedral. One awesome thing about Dublin? It’s such a great walking city! Everything that tourists typically want to see in Dublin is within walking distance. The Guinness Storehouse is the furthest point and it’s maybe a mile from everything else. Christ Church, for example, was about five minutes walking from St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Early manuscripts apparently date Christ Church back to around 1030 AD. Pretty astounding. There was no way I was going to visit and not go inside. For a mere €3, S. and I got in (thank you, student discount) and got to check out the inside:

Check out my photos for more.

Next stop? Dublin Castle! Oh, how I wish I could say I was impressed with the castle, but no. Perhaps hitting up Edinburgh Castle jaded me? Not sure, but it’s definitely not what I expected. On the bright side, you can explore the majority of the castle grounds for free, so it’s certainly not a waste of money!

The picture above is actually the only ‘castle-y’ part of the castle. The rest of the castle grounds look more Victorian and are definitely not what you envision when you think of fairy tale castles. The gardens, though, are quite nice. Definitely worth a stroll around, even if just for a few pictures.

After Dublin Castle, we grabbed lunch (seafood chowder was our food of choice for the entire trip!) and headed down to the Guinness Storehouse, S.’s number one must-see for the Dublin leg of our adventure! Every living human being knows Guinness and the factory is certainly a testament to its legacy. The place is massive and the marketing is absolutely amazing. It’s not cheap to get in (€11 for students, €13 or €15 for adults) but the ticket includes a free pint at the end of the tour plus pretty incredible views of the city from the Gravity Bar on the top floor.

All in all, we had an amazing day. We had only allocated that day and a half to exploring Dublin and though we could have easily enjoyed a few more days there, I think we had enough time to see the things we really wanted to check out. The city is great, the people are friendly and the Temple Bar area is so charming, albeit a bit touristy. As vegetarians it was a bit difficult to feast on real Irish fare (lots of meatiness), but we managed. On the bright side (?), it was a bit cold outside so seafood chowder and potato & leek soup definitely fit the bill!

Check back tomorrow to see our trip to Clifden, Connemara by way of Galway! Lots of traveling and lots of gorgeous Irish countryside.

Love from England,

PS. Dad, mom and professors who may (or may not) be reading this: I took a break from dissertation-writing to write this post. I’m being ever so diligent in getting to work on my dissertation now that I’m back. Cue motivation!

S. and I are sleeping in the airport.

After trying to find a hotel/B&B/whatever for tonight (at short notice), we are posted up in a restaurant booth getting ready to crash for the night. Thank God our flight is early…

On the bright side, they have wi-fi!

Can’t wait to be back in London!

xoxo from Cork,

Alright, kiddos. I’ve clearly been slacking on updates, but in my defense our internet has been awful at the last few spots we’ve stayed at! While S. and I are in Ireland right now, I’m gonna try to catch up on the Spanish-soaked days of our adventures. Barcelona was great and Andorra was even better, so I’ll have to rewind and start from the beginning. Let’s go back – waaaaay back – to Barcelona.

S. and I arrived in Barcelona the evening of the 23rd, checked in at our hotel, and had time to grab dinner at a nearby eatery before heading to bed. While I’ve been to Spain before, Barcelona was unique in the sense that the citizens speak Catalan (and Spanish). The flag of Catalunya graces many a balcony and Catalunyan patches sit at most tourist shops. We ended up staying in E’ixample at Hotel del Comte and saved tons of money! While we looked at places in the Las Ramblas area, our place was about a 15 minute walk from there and we grabbed a killer room for about $100 a night. Only downside: the internet was super in-and-out.

In any case, with limited time in Catalunya’s capital, we opted for some Hop On/Hop Off bus action to make the most of our time. Barcelona is a city loaded with sites and one that I felt couldn’t be seen on foot in the time we had. For anyone that is also hitting up this city with limited time, I would totally recommend the Hop On/Hop Off buses. There are a number of them that run throughout the area and hit up all the main sites within a short period of time. When we woke up the morning of the 24^th, we headed down to Catalunya Square and jumped on one of three bus lines to begin our sightseeing adventure. Here’s a bit of a photo tour of our trip… so many sights!

Catalunya Square

Some views of the city.

The Columbus Monument!

FC Barcelona’s stadium — holds 100′000 people!

And, of course, loads of Gaudi’s masterpieces strewn across the city:

La Sagrada Familia (pictured above) was one of the top must-sees on my Barcelona list. I have always questioned it’s ‘beauty’ as such (I think it looks like a melting candle), but the fact that construction is still underway after having been started by Antoni Gaudi in 1882 is incredible to me. There’s certainly something awe-inspiring about it!

After our hop on/hop off tour, we headed back, got ready and headed out for paella and sangria to experience true Spanish cuisine (we were informed that true Catalonian cuisine wasn’t anything too special).

In true S-squared fashion, day two in Barcelona was time for us to hang out on the beach! We spent most of the day soaking up sunshine and relaxing before heading out semi-early. I have to say that thus far, Barcelona’s beaches are some of the best we’ve seen! They were a bit crowded with it being a summer Sunday, but the beaches were big and sandy! To top it off, we were able to rent chairs and an umbrella for 17 euro for the entire day. Bliss.

All in all, I liked Barcelona, but I wouldn’t go much further than that. Many of my friends who have visited are obsessed but I’ve enjoyed a number of our other trips more. The beaches were great and it was so much fun practicing Spanish for a few days but our time in Andorra was so incredibly amazing that it kind of blurs my memories of Catalunya. Stay tuned, though — more on that tomorrow!

Happy travels,

S. and I are in Barcelona right now sightseeing and soaking up sunshine (more on that soon), but I realized I never gave Carcassonne it’s fair due! We were only there for one full day and stayed for two nights to break up our otherwise ten-hour journey from Nice to Barcelona. With Carcassonne acting as a midpoint of sorts, we made a quick stopover to checkout the medieval town. Note to Eurail users, we paid €3 to head from Nice to Carcassonne (the required reservation fee) while at the train station. Out of curiosity (I’ve been dying to know how much I’m actually saving with my Eurail pass), I asked how much a ticket would cost without my pass in hand. The verdict? €65 for that leg! I’m not sure how much the other trips would have been, but I can positively say that my €210 Eurail pass was worth every euro cent!

You’ve never heard of Carcassonne? Yeah, either had I until I perused my Let’s Go! Europe book and read about it. It’s pretty close to Toulouse and not too far from Marseille with a population of 50,000 or so. Random, yes, but it’s also home to a medieval city with an old-school fairytale castle that we thought would be a perfect sight to check out for a day. As fate would have it, Carcassonne was actually infinitely cooler (temperature-wise) than any of the other places we had seen. We had grown accustomed to 95+ degree, sweltering weather and Carcassonne’s breeze and 70 degree weather were actually a nice break before returning to the heat in Barcelona!

Surprisingly, Carcassonne is actually a rather expensive city in which to stay. When we looked at hotels within the city, we were looking at paying around €120 per night on the lower end. We like to think we’re high rollers and that that’s okay, but in reality (we both were brought back to reality after looking at our twenty-something bank accounts) we wanted something cheaper. Far cheaper. Instead, we booked a room in the outskirts of the city at a place called Balladins. I think I speak for S. when I say that we were both pleasantly surprised! Comfortable rooms at literally half the cost (we paid around €60 a night… much better)!

We got up, had breakfast at our hotel and jumped on a bus to the city center. After a few wrong turns and a stop off at the Visitor’s Centre, we made it to the medieval part of Carcassonne. All I could think when I stepped in was that I wished my dad could be there! My dad loves all things medieval (I’m embarrassed to admit this, but we used to go to Renaissance Fairs when I was younger… eek!) and would have loved the charm of this medieval city despite its inherent tourist factor. S. and I were immediately content with our decision to visit the city — it was charming and completely different from the beachy cities to which we had become accustomed.

We hit up the castle almost immediately. While we debated (momentarily) whether or not we wanted to pay the €8 entrance fee, we quickly discovered that we both got youth discounts (there are benefits to being under 25!) and snagged tickets for €5 each… for some reason that seemed infinitely better to me. The castle and the views were incredible — definitely a must-see for anyone who happens to be in Carcassonne. In hindsight, the thought of going to the city and not going to the castle? Kind of ridiculous!

The castle aside, however, the medieval city is charming on its own! The streets are rather narrow and cobblestoned and wind around little gift shops, restaurants and creperies that dot every free inch. The pint-sized visitors (there were loads of excited kiddos there) were all too excited to buy their own knights and princess costumes and the vendors were prepared with bows and arrows, swords, chain mail and the like! I musn’t lie — I secretly wanted to buy the bow & arrow kit but there was no way I could fit it in my luggage!

After exploring the entire city (a whopping five hours maybe), we headed back to our hotel to hang out and grab dinner before packing up to head to Barcelona. Although most people may not consider Carcassonne as a stop-off point between the south of France and Barcelona, it is definitely a cute place to stop if you have a day to break up your travels! Doesn’t everyone need a little more medieval in their life?

xoxo from Spain,

It’s nighttime now and the sun has gone down in Agerola, where S. and I are staying for our three days in the Amalfi area. While we’re not far from the town of Amalfi, the drive takes nearly an hour due to the twisty, windy roads that lead down to the waterfront. The roads are intense. We arrived in Napoli at around 2:45P and (somehow) managed to get down to Agerola after a number of bus changes and miserable attempts at speaking Italian.

I had heard that Naples was a questionable area and all of the tales rang very true during our hour waiting for the SITA bus. The roads were dirty, the people (that we interacted with) were borderline creepy and for one of the first times since my move to Europe, I felt uncomfortable being a girl in a city. Soon, however, we met K., another English-speaking traveler from Australia, and joined forces in to make our way to the town of Agerola (she was staying there, too, though in a different B&B).

After jumping on the SITA bus to Amalfi via Agerola, we arrived an hour later at San Lazarro in the quaint (‘tranquilo’ is how our new friend Sebastiano described it) town of our B&B, Nido degli Dei. The roads weaved in and out, higher and higher while the views of the Amalfi Coast grew below us. The drive is not for the faint-hearted; the roads are narrow and the bus drivers are quite skilled at horn-honking to ensure that cars coming the opposite direction are aware of their presence. The views were exactly as I had imagined them, though I’m not sure that there’s a word that sufficiently describes it. Beautiful. Gorgeous. Dramatic. Breathtaking. Perfection.

It’s places like this that reignite my desire to travel and reinvigorate my soul. I know that seems rather dramatic (I realize this even while typing it), but it’s the truth. We have yet to head into Amalfi and the neighboring towns of Positano and Ravello but even the area that we’re in now is glorious. The views are spectacular, the area is relaxing and the weather is perfect. S. and I had dinner at a tiny, hole-in-the-wall restaurant in town where the food was incredibly inexpensive but 100% delicious (€5 for an entire veg pizza)! It was a perfect place to re-energize after a long day off travel.

Tomorrow we’re heading to Amalfi to explore and check out the town and the next day we’re doing the walk of the gods. I’ve been here for about five hours and am already obsessed! This is definitely my kind of place – pure, unadulterated beauty in an otherwise chaotic world. I can’t wait to see what the next three days hold!

Love from Agerola,

See all of the pictures of the Amalfi Coast here.

S. and I are currently packing our stuff up and waiting for our laundry to be done so we can make our way to the Metro and the Athens Airport to head to the Amalfi Coast! We spent the last two days exploring the Cyclades: Mykonos and Paros, specifically. Though S. wanted to hit up Santorini, the eight hour ferry ride to the southern part of the islands was definitely a deterrent.

We grabbed a 7:45A ferry to Mykonos on Saturday morning and I tried desperately to spend the four hours working on my dissertation, reading, etc. Sadly, my attempts were only mildly successful. We arrived in Mykonos at around 12P, bags in hand with no reservations. We had decided the night before that we would see what was to be had when we arrived at the port. We were immediately bombarded with a thousand hotel marketers trying to peddle their goods. We ended up choosing Paraga Beach to relax and a hostel therein to stay the night.

If we could go back in time, we would have completely rethought this choice. We ended up waiting for literally two and a half hours for the bus to leave the port and head to Paraga. Tired, hot, sweaty and a little pissed, we arrived at the beach at around 3P and grabbed a tent for the night. The hostel reminded me a bit of Yosemite’s Curry Village: a bunch of glorified tents dotted throughout a massive campground plus room for people who came equipped with their own tents.

After we got settled, we headed out to the hostel’s deck to grab lunch and soak up some famous Grecian sun. The area was actually really pretty; very idyllic and very much the image that comes to mind when you think of Greece.

After laying out for a few hours, we went back to our mansion of a tent and took a nap for a few hours before heading out to explore Mykonos Town. We ended up heading to town around 930P and hung out for a few hours to check out the cute shops and hangouts. With it being a Saturday night, there were definitely a lot of people hanging out in town, tourists and Greeks alike.

After exploring the town and debating on whether or not to patronize Mykonos Tattoo (we decided against it), we headed back to Paraga Bay to get some sleep.

We woke up Sunday morning bright and early and headed out of the beach area and into town by 930A. We grabbed ferry tickets to Paros (and from Paros to Athens) so we could see another island before coming back to Pireaus. We spent our next few hours on Mykonos enjoying beachfront breakfast at Galera, exploring the shops, picking up some postcards and trinkets and laying out on the sunny beaches by the port.

We headed to Paros at around 3P, arrived at 4P and left at 5P. To say it was a whirlwind tour of the island would be an understatement. We stopped long enough to snap a few shots, grab lunch and then re-board the ferry to Athens.

In hindsight, I may have picked another island to visit (rather than Mykonos, that is). Mykonos, while beautiful, is highly touristed and a bit intense. I think Paros or Naxos may have been a better choice for my lifestyle. Either way, though, the Cyclades were definitely a good choice for us for a few days and a great way to get out of Athens and get some sun.

Greece, in general, has been a bit different than I thought it would be. I’m happy that I visited, mind you, but I find myself leaving Athens a bit disappointed. I think that Greece, as a whole, has done an incredible job of marketing. The streets of the capital city were dirty, the people (on the whole) were rather rude and  I found the city a bit unwelcoming. While the islands were beautiful (I found Hydra especially charming), I thought that the beaches of Malta and of Marbella were more noteworthy. In any case, I’m glad that I had an opportunity to visit and even happier that we’re departing in less than an hour!

Now, we’re packing up and heading off to the Amalfi Coast — can’t wait to see the dramatic coastline and gorgeous views. Catch up with you later!

xoxo,