Athens:
We flew into Athens and arrived late in the evening. Our hotel, AVA Hotel & Suites in the Plaka district had ordered a taxi for us, so there was a driver waiting in the airport to pick us up. I cannot recommend this hotel highly enough. They had excellent customer service, a delicious breakfast, courteous staff, and great dining recommendations. When we arrived, there was a travel crib set up for Amelia and two small bottles of wine waiting for us. The room also had a small kitchenette with stoneware, flatware, and some cookware for your use. Definitely, if you plan to stay in Athens, check this place out.
We booked two tours for Athens—a photographer and a food tour, both booked through AirBnB. The photography session was about two hours long and we walked around the acropolis and the Plaka district to find some lovely places to shoot. The reviews made it sound like the photographer gives you a bit of a tour, but he mostly walks you different places and does the photography. If you’re looking for a history tour, this isn’t it. If you’re looking for some local advice on where to visit, what to eat, and some totally gallery worthy photos, Oltjon is your man.
Our other tour was an excellent food tour! Our hostess, also named Rachel, took us on a tour of the spice, meat, fish, and fruit markets and gave us lots of history and insight into Greek food culture. She is a Greek national, but was raised in London and has a lovely English accent paired with all the Greek food knowledge you could imagine. We enjoyed tastings at every stop and two sit down meals: a mezze meal (lunch of small plates) and a platter of gyros with a lovely house made red wine. Rachel knew the vendors at every stop and she was friendly and outgoing. She taught us some basic Greek, all about how the locals shop at the markets, and provided us with delicious nibbles the whole way. Another stellar recommendation!
We finished out our day with a dinner at Electra Roof Garden. The food was very good and the views of the Acropolis were excellent. It would be a lovely place to eat dinner as the sun sets.
The next morning, we headed out to the Acropolis to get in some sightseeing before the crowds and heat of the day arrived. The Acropolis tours were somewhere around €150, so we skipped the tour and just paid €20 for our tickets instead. I was happy we made that decision, since we were quite hot by the time we had walked around each of the buildings and were ready to head for lunch and the shade. So Ben picked up sandwiches and ice cream and I headed back to the hotel room to nap with Amelia before our ferry to Hydra.
Hydra
Next we headed to Hydra, a Greek island so named because the shape of the island resembles a saucepan. The island doesn’t allow cars, so once you arrive, you can hire a donkey or mule to haul your luggage, or you can hoof it yourself. As you spend time on the island, you’ll see the mules carrying grocery loads and luggage all over, as well as men lugging wheelbarrows full of supplies. We stayed close to Port Hydra, but there are stops all over the island with caves and beaches to explore. There is a daytrip service that runs €30 per person and allows you stop at something like 6 of the sights on the island.
We had a lovely dinner at the famed Douskos Taverna which Leonard Cohen wrote about in his poems about Hydra. I can see why! The dinner space was a lovely pergola covered in flowering vines and they featured fresh fish from the daily catch. They had an ice bed where you could walk up and choose your fish, if you wished, and they would cook it, filet it at your table, and remove the bones. The island also has lots of stray cats, and they will come to check out your dinner. Amelia was quite enamored with them, and spent lots of time throwing her bits of food on the floor to see if the cats liked it. Ben liked them a little less.
The next day we spent the morning trying to get Amelia to nap, but I encouraged Ben to go explore a little on his own. He found a beautiful pebble beach that we would end up visiting together before the end of our trip. Some of the locals had suggested that we visit Miramare, the only sand beach on the island and the home of Mandraki Resort. We took a quick water taxi ride to the resort and got ready for a couple of hours on the beach. The resort charges you a rental fee for each beach chair used. The front row runs €15 per chair, while rows in the back run €10 per chair. The rental includes a bottle of water and a towel for each chair. We selected a couple of chairs in the back, since I would be breastfeeding and Amelia would likely need to take a quick nap. Servers will gladly take your drink or food orders, but tend to focus on the front row customers. Drinks run about €10 each and the service for drinks is extremely slow. The beach itself is nice and shallow for a long way, which was great for the baby.
Our hotel on Hydra was the Hydroussa, whose wifi password is thebesthotelinhydra, but should be thehardestbedsyouveeverslepton. The hotel itself is a quaint old building, so the rooms have extremely tall ceilings and antique furniture. The downside of all that antique furniture is that EVERYTHING CREAKS. Not great for a teensy baby. They also put us in a room that required us to go up 1 1/2 flights of marble stairs and had no elevator. The bathroom was finished entirely in modern style marble, but had a shower stall that felt like it belonged in an airplane bathroom. The positive of the hotel was the lovely courtyard and delicious breakfast. There was a buffet style breakfast with lots of locally sourced Greek foods and made to order Greek coffee. This place would be great for a history buff, but was perhaps not the best place for kids. I think we were the only people there with a baby.
Vouliagmeni
Our final stop on the Greek vacation was a spot in the Athenian Riviera. Driving to Vouliagmeni from the port of Athens was a little concerning because it takes you past lots of shuttered resorts, broken down buildings, and generally run down areas. The effects of the 2011 financial crisis are still evident in lots of the city outside of the main tourist areas.
We were pleased to find that our hotel was lovely and close to the beach, though right on the edge of the resort area. Beach chairs in this area run somewhere around €30 per day, but there are also lots of public beaches with thatched umbrellas and no chairs. Since we were spending just one evening and one morning in Vouliagmeni, we stuck to the public beaches. The beaches here are filled with lots of Greek tourists, whereas in Hydra there were lots of Americans and Germans.
Vouliagmeni also offers several great seaside restaurants. The Panorama was suggested for dinner, but we went to Lasithi instead. The food there was excellent, and we were able to enjoy dinner with a seaside evening view. The hostess was extremely kind, fawned over the baby, and checked on us regularly to make sure all the service was up to her standards. As we ate, the restaurant was preparing for a wedding party and thought we left at 7:00 pm, the party still hadn’t arrived. Our early dinner time is definitely not the European way, and having the baby means we eat even earlier. It has gotten us reservations in lots of busy places!
Our main attraction in Vouliagmeni was allowing Amelia to walk in the surf. She loved it, though the beaches here have lots of seaweed and she sometimes seemed mildly concerned that there was seaweed on her feet.
Greece was a beautiful place to stay and we really enjoyed ourselves. I would happily return to Greece, and especially to tour the islands. I have received suggestions to return to Rhodes, Crete, and Elafonisi Beach. I would definitely suggest Greece as a great location for a laidback vibe, family vacations, and inexpensive food and attractions!
Whatever Comes Next 