Our Honeymoon to Greece

For my wedding present to Jake, I paid and planned for our honeymoon in full, saving half of my paychecks and researching for a year and a half and boy, was it worth it. Maybe (in part) that's why I haven't stopped talking about it... I'm kinda proud it turned out? But then again it was the most beautiful and amazing place I've ever seen and I just married the man of my dreams so I think I was going to be giddy either way. Neither one of us had been out of the country before so I tried to squeeze as much as I could into our two week vacation.
​Ultimately deciding on: Santorini, Milos, Mykonos, Samos and Athens
For my visual learners out there, scroll down to the bottom to watch my GoPro Vlog of the trip! 

While I wanted to explore and see a lot of things, that didn't mean I wanted to be running all over the place to the point where we didn't have any romance... it was our honeymoon after all. So I made sure that the first four nights of our honeymoon in Santorini would give us just that. We stayed at the Day Dream Suite in Fira, which I found and booked on TripAdvisor (click here for listing), and it lived up to it's name as it was quite literally what I dreamed a honeymoon would be. It was essentially our own Villa with our room at the base, which included an indoor pool/hot tub, exiting to the patio where fresh breakfast was cooked for us every morning. It carried on three floors higher, each floor containing a private infinity pool. Heaven on Earth. We spent the four days exploring the island, renting a car the first day to see the Red and Black sand beaches before catching the sunset in Oia. The island of Santorini was small enough that you could see it in it's entirety in a single day, but that's not to say that we didn't have plenty to do in the first four days of our honeymoon. We admired the beautiful white buildings and stone step-ways, while drooling over the food. While I plan to do Travel Diaries for each island to give you all details on what specifically to check out, I can't help, but mention Laokasti Restaurant; their chef Konstantinos is a culinary genius and is also one of the nicest people I've ever met.

Next stop was Milos, an island I found when researching the various beautiful islands of Greece. I ultimately chose this one because, while Santorini was pretty much the picture-perfect magazine ad for what you imagine Greece looking like, it lacked the tradition and culture, feeling more like a New York City where tourists are packed like sardines all pushing to see the sights (and talk about paying $20 for a drink with a view) it was beautiful, but I was ready to feel the heritage. Milos, while less touristy, has over 70 unique beaches to explore on the island and that's the part that had me sold and was ultimately the reason for it being our favorite island from the honeymoon. Again I was able to book our suite through TripAdvisor and I couldn't have been happier with this resort (click here for listing). Santa Maria Village is the ultimate getaway, I don't think I could say enough good things about this place. We chose a pool view suite, which was super cute and convenient as our room quite literally had doors that opened to your own private little garden patio and from there walked out to the pool (super convenient when we had a couple drinks at the pool and my bladder was being tested). Our room was adorable and everything we needed and the breakfast spread included in the morning was beyond compare. Did I mention the price?! This is the best part, our four nights here in total costed us less than one night spent in Santorini, with rooms costing under $100/night!! The travel diary on Milos is going to be about six hundred pages because this place was amazing, so amazing in fact we already booked a trip to go back with over 20 of our friends in September. Now I mentioned Santorini was able to be seen entirely in one day, we were here for the same amount of time and were able to see less than half of the island. Every beach of the seventy they have is a dream and no two look alike, but our favorite had to be the city of Firopotamos, a little fishing town with maybe ten boat houses where the locals wake up and take their boat out to catch their meal for the day. Talk about a simple life we were so humbled. While we didn't want to leave Milos it was on to the second half of our trip, where we would be meeting up with some of my (Big Fat Greek) family who happened to be vacationing the same time!

We arrived in Mykonos, where we were picked up by my Aunt and Uncle, who had rented a house on the island and were nice enough to invite us to stay with them! The place was called Sophia's Bungalows and yet again we were blessed with another stunning rental (click here for listing). While only here for two nights, this high energy party island will have your body thanking you that you kept it short and sweet. The beaches are lavish as hell with champagne bottles lining the walkways and cabana rentals as far as the eye can see; did I mention the hundreds of yachts docked in the bay? One literally was the size of my house and had a waterslide coming off of it. We have a term, πολλά λεφτά, that us Greek people use for fancy or "too much money" as it translates and this my friends was the definition! It was fun as heck though and we definitely had ourselves a beach day. Can I make a side note and say any man who will willingly spend time with your family on your honeymoon... I'm just very blessed I'll leave it at that (it helps my family is also fun AF).

Now this last island that we ventured to was special to me, Samos. My Yiayia (Greek for Grandma) was born there and came to America when she was merely a teenager. We stayed in one of the local's houses, in the village where she was from, that was the size of a two car garage. Yet, so were a majority of the houses in this little Greek mountain village, called Platanos. I wouldn't have wanted to stay anywhere else because it made me able to imagine and relate to the lifestyle she lived. My Aunt showed us where my Yiayia's house used to be with her parents and nine siblings (it had since been torn down), as well as her school and church. It was truly humbling and touching walking through there. It made me appreciate her so much more, seeing where she came from and the struggle, only to be able to see where she is now and the family she has built since. What better timing to see this than at the start of our marriage, my grandparents were the epitome of "couple goals". We spent two days in the village, which wasn't nearly enough time, but over 40 of my family members were there and it was the honeymoon celebration of a lifetime. We spent the day at this beach bar drinking, dancing and playing beach volleyball and spent the night in the center of town surrounded by good company, eating and sipping on iced Ouzo. They truly made it "My Big Fat Greek Honeymoon" 

Last stop, Athens, where the history all lies. I really think a day or two in Athens was enough to see everything. We stayed at Athens Center Square Hotel (click here for listing), shockingly none of this is sponsored by TripAdvisor, I just think they are a great and safe way to book when traveling abroad. The staff were lovely, upgrading our room when they found out it was our honeymoon, giving us a view of the Acropolis. This place was perfect because it was in the center of town, making everything walkable! They too had an amazing breakfast spread in the morning so we hit that before exploring for the day. We started off by heading to the Plaka which is essentially their flea market and we loved the hustle environment, in addition to all of the cool stuff of course. Afterwards, we walked up to the Acropolis and Mars Hill, which had the most amazing view of Athens. On our way back down the mountain we hit the real shopping (aka Nike) before walking back to our hotel. The last day of our trip, I'm not going to lie to you, we were scavenging for some American food. The food was amazing and fresh in Greece... I was just all Gyro-ed out after two weeks. So our last two meals were this burger spot (the hamburgers were lamb, delicious, but I was dying for that greasy beef) and Domino's pizza, which just seemed like a heaven sent. We spent the evening sipping drinks on the rooftop bar of our hotel, overlooking the views before having to say goodbye come morning. 

Check out my gopro vlog of the trip for a more first hand look:
(And make sure you click on the little tool in the bottom right to change it to 1080p for best viewing quality)