Greece: Athens, Naxos & Santorini

We went to Greece in mid-September, when the sea is at its warmest and the summer crowds start to thin. We stood in front of the Acropolis gates at 8am, when they opened, and walked up before the heat and the cruise groups arrived. An hour later the line went down the hill.

The island most people skip, Naxos, ended up being the group favorite. It's big, green and has real villages in the mountains where people live year-round. We had lunch in a village taverna where the owner brought out plates we hadn't ordered and wouldn't let us pay for the wine. We swam at a beach that was almost empty. In the evening, we watched the sunset from the giant marble doorway of the Portara, a temple gate from the 6th century BC that was never finished.

Then came the ferry. The meltemi is a strong summer wind in the Aegean, and on the day we sailed to Santorini it was really blowing. The boat rolled for the whole trip. Three people were seasick and the rest held on. A retired Navy man from Corpus Christi said it was "a nice little ride."

Santorini is as dramatic as you'd expect. The villages are stacked along the edge of a huge volcanic caldera, with the sea far below. Everyone goes to Oia for sunset, and the crowds are so heavy that it's hard to enjoy. We watched from Imerovigli instead, with a glass of wine on a terrace. It was quieter, the view was just as good, and we were done with dinner before the crowds in Oia had even made it back to their buses.