My apologies but this is about to become a Greece fan blog. Oh my goodness y’all, this place is INCREDIBLE. After flying into Athens on Thursday, me and 7 friends studying in Budapest took a ferry to the island of Aegina. Aegina is the closest Greek island to Athens and was the perfect place to spend a day. After exploring a little bit we decided to rent ATV’s to explore the island further.
We got a great lunch by the water and then ended up going to the beach. The beaches on Aegina have the best water I’ve ever been able to swim in. It’s a miracle that none of us stepped on any sea urchins, as they were literally everywhere in the first place we went swimming.
After swimming and lounging in the sun at the beach, we had a few mishaps which included one of my friends accidentally flipping on an ATV (He was fine with just a few scratches and bruises, thankfully) and another ATV that wouldn’t start. After getting these fixed, we rode down to another beach and went swimming and sat as the sun began to set.
We returned our ATV’s and went off to dinner afterwards; enjoying a calm dinner at a restaurant on the island and playing card games waiting for others to get ready.
This day in Aegina was easily one of my favorites on this journey so far. There’s no other way to describe the water other than perfect, the scenery was beautiful, the friends wonderful.
On Saturday morning we woke up in Aegina and I took a walk to get breakfast by myself, exploring the small port town. We shopped around and decided to take the noon ferry back to Athens
Now the ferry was lovely but I’d like to point out here that I was under the impression that this would be like Mamma Mia and it was NOT. A beautiful view on both journeys but I still feel a bit lied to.
After dropping our things off at the place we were staying, a small group of us decided to head up to the Parthenon. As a Greek history nerd, I was very excited to see this landmark and it did not disappoint. The view from the acropolis was fantastic and all of the greek history in that place was a beautiful sight to see. Technology is also AMAZING so I facetimed my dad who told me a bit of history about the Parthenon while I was up there which was quite fun.
After the Parthenon we explored the Archaeological Museum briefly and then got ready for dinner. It was my friend Samantha’s birthday so we wanted to go somewhere fun, and we had an amazing array of Greek small plates that were delicious. We had a brief celebration at our AirBnB including the name game and charades and then went to bed to catch an early flight the next day.
Greece was practically the perfect weekend. It was equal parts historical, peaceful, and pure fun. I was worried that the hype wouldn’t match up with the real thing, but the journey was one that I wouldn’t replace.
Julia Takes Europe 