Athens & the Greek Islands
General chatter about the idea of the trip etc
Athens
Kids and cities can be hit and miss, but we wanted to make sure we saw some of Athens when we were travelling through. It was definitely the right decision - Athens is pretty breathtaking and the kids were well entertained exploring the historic hotspots.
We stayed in a two bed apartment right in the middle of town near the Acropolis underground stop, making the trip in for the airport really easy. The location was an ideal base, right beside the acropolis and we could walk to all the sites we were keen to see. Listing on booking.com is here if you want to check it out.
As much as we enjoyed Athens, we were excited to move on to see the Greek islands. Again, the metro made life easy, getting us straight to the port of Piraeus to catch our ferry.
Naxos
On the point of the ferries, we ended up using FerryHopper to book all of our trips. It always feels like a bit of a leap of faith when you use a new service, but I was really impressed with FerryHopper and the Greek ferries in general. It is all really modern, with the ferries offering live tracking, so even if it is late you can see exactly where it is and when it will arrive.
After lots of deliberation, we decided to base ourselves in Agia Anna, a bit south of the port town of Naxos where the ferries arrive. We stayed in an apartment in Antonina Hotel which helpfully arranged transport from our ferry when we arrived.