Milos, Greece - How to be a klutz and get away with it

Milos was one of the places we looked forward to the most throughout all of our planning. 

"Underrated", "up-and-coming Santorini equivalent", "fresh seafood", "turquoise blue waters", "top 10 must see in Greece" appeared throughout our Google searches so, yes, yes a hundred times over.

So here began a journey that we were hella excited for but was (almost) single handedly ruined by yours truly.

We were somehow convinced that despite having 0 ATV driving experience, we would do fine on it and be able to travel across the island. The guy who drove half an hour down to deliver it let me test it out and then told me that if I continued to drive it I would eventually kill myself on it.

Ok no thanks.

So we decided to rent a car instead. No problem obviously 'cos I've held my license for 3 years now, duh. 

Nah 'cos yo homegirl forgot about the handbrakes and effectively killed the 2 back tyres 5 minutes into driving. So........ no car, no ATV, 1.5h and 120 euros poorer later, we ended up having to walk half an hour in the sun to get to Papafragas. 

Climbing down and swimming in the cool blue water was all fun and games until we realised the next beach was an hour's walk away. But taxis in Milos are as scarce as a clothed human at a beach destination..... so an hour's walk it was. Until we met the sweetest old man who spoke 0 english and offered to give us a lift when all we wanted were directions. 

We sat in silence (language barrier) until we got off and thanked him profusely, even offering to pay him for the ride but he rejected all of that politely, gesturing that he had to keep driving on to his next destination.

For all the hard work it took to get there, Sarakiniko was well worth it. Looking everything like the moon's surface (based on my imagination) and velvety blue waters, Sarakiniko was honestly pure magic.

We bounced up and down the rocks, dipped our feet into the clear waters, watched people jump off the rocky cliffs, tried to psycho each other to jump off (he did in the end), laughed along with a couple on an engagement shoot (with a broccoli for a bouquet) and stuffed our faces with chips.

All in a foreign land, with no means of transport back to our hotel, we let ourselves loose and embraced what it meant to be on holiday.

As we started walking out, Jia (the smarter half) decided to stop a car and ask if we could hitch hike. Thankfully!!! enough, the 2 kind ladies said yes of course! and that they were going to the same town too. 

So there we go, an incredibly lousy day turned 11/10 with 2 new friends to boot. Major plus being a newfound appreciation for Jia. It's not easy putting up with a klutz, generously offering to split the repair fee and still giving in to all that I want. 

Bring on the imperfect days - for these are the ones I'm most thankful for.

Athens

Athens was a great prelude to the following 12 days of island hopping. It set the scene with ruins aplenty, delicious gyros, the blazing afternoon sun and the most incredible sunsets. 

We are now convinced Greece offers the best sunsets - while also harbouring a deeply set phobia of sunset-chasing which we did every single day of our 2 week long trip.

When we weren't stuffing our faces with gyros or searching for peaches, we were visiting ruins and hiking up mountains (my bad).

Here's the Panathenaic Stadium for a sweet 2.5 euros - thank you NTU for the student card sans an expiry date.

I'm not sure why I even included Mount Lycabettos into the itinerary. I mean, I ran 50m in the office yesterday while rushing to submit documents and nearly got a leg cramp. Must have been going through a particularly fitspo/inspirational moment while I was planning for the trip.

The hike up was very, very warm with no sign of a breeze, but a fitspo does what a fitspo must and so I kept going.

To be fair, the view was insane. I felt like I could see all of Athens from up there.

We baked for 2 hours while camping for the sunset so thankfully, it sunset was ace. If not I probably would have thrown a fit after all that walking.

So glad Sandemans is in Athens because they're pretty much the only walking tour I trust, and this too was great. To the uninitiated, Sandemans is a free walking tour company (mostly in Europe) and the guides are remunerated based on tips. This means that the guides have a larger incentive to interact more, tell more interesting stories and share more about the city. In short, they're far better than the fixed fee tours because they're far more interesting than a man reading off a script. 

The peaches were mad cheap - 99 cents euro/kg, and super juicy. I haven't found a better peach since.

Tada - the famed Acropolis which has strict rules on student passes and requires them to have an expiry date. So for the first time in a long time, I ended up with an adult ticket. 

But ok la full price for a temple that's withstood wars and nature's wrath over a course of 2400 years, I'll take it.

I'm terrible with night photos so here's a lousy one of our first ever open-air cinema experience (with the Parthenon overlooking us) at Cine Thision. I watched Victoria and Abdul (I, not we, because Jia slept through most of it) with the cool night breeze, wishing I had a nice warm gyros for company too.