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Report 1705: Our Family Trip to Greece

By Anastasia from Canada, Summer 2009

Trip Description: 15/06/2009 - 07/07/2009 A trip to Athens, Santorini and Naxos with husband and a five year old child

Destinations: Countries - Greece

Categories: Hotels/B&Bs; Beach; Sightseeing; Independent Travel; 3-4 people; Adults and Young Children

View of Acropolis from Attalos hotel roof top terrace

I wanted to go to Greece for a long time and finally we decided to go for our 10th wedding anniversary. So, I had to redo my research on the islands to visit. I wanted to stay a bit in Santorini and longer in Crete, in Rethymnon. However, as I was reading numerous posts on TA, I realized that Crete was not an ideal destination for beaches with small kids. In fact most island coasts facing north were exposed to the meltemi wind, which is particularly strong during summer months and therefore had bigger waves and strong winds. I also wanted to be close to a town or in a village for easy food options and late evening strolls. Another important factor was to have an easy ferry connection between Santorini and the second island. I could identify two islands with shallow and sheltered beaches: Kamari on Sifnos and Chora in Naxos. Sifnos looked very beautiful, but ferry connections with the other islands were more limited or more time consuming. Also, Naxos seemed to offer more excursions in season.

In the mean time the grand father expressed that he would like to come with us to Greece and then continue to Romania his home country. So, I had to find accommodation for four and also book airplane tickets with the companies which could accommodate all our needs. I also didn’t want the grand father to travel alone through CDG, so the other possibilities were KLM and LH/Air Canada. This time it was basically hard to save some money on airfares because of additional constraints.