Hey, it’s been on while. After lazying off again ZZzzZZZz finally decided to write and make a short video of my recent trip to Greece. So currently I’m on a mandatory break from work till next year so thought might as well write a small summary. Well, it’s not really a mandatory holiday but I have few holidays remaining which had to be used up by this December so decided to take it.
There were altogether three of us on this trip. I’ve known them since primary school back in Nepal. So we decided to go on a small trip and thought it would be a good reunion too :). The holiday time frame was 12/11/2017 – 19/11/2017 and I think we decided to on the destination and booked holidays literally around 3 weeks before. At first we were kinda brainstorming which country to visit we changed our opinions from Switzerland -> Iceland -> Czech ->Singapore -> finally Greece. Well one of the main deciding factor was obviously my Nepalese passport. I had to make sure if I could get the visa on time.
Visa application process:
I had to apply for Schengen visa since Greece is part of Schengen area. Schengen visa allows you to travel to most of the European countries. Also there is no guarantee on the validity of the visa. Some people tend to get very lucky and get Visa which is valid for a year. In my case I only got for a month 😥 Sad times. Which means I would have to apply for another Schengen visa if I plan to make another trip to Europe. All the details for the application are provided here. I had no idea that we had to present invoice of the flight and hotels booked. So we had to call up Expedia and ask for an invoice which took 2 days to be e-mailed. So make sure you get an invoice once you book your flights and hotels. After the submission, my passport was ready for collection after 3 days. Not too bad ehh?
Trip:
Since all of us just wanted a quick trip to relax and chill from normal work routine we were of course excited about the holiday and FOODSSSS(Trust me we were dissapointed hehe). Our first stop was LONDON -> ATHENS!!! oh yeaaaaa. We stayed in Athens for 3 days. We managed to explore most of the attractions that Athens had to offer such as Plaka flea market, Acropolis Museum, Acropolis temple and Monastiraki flea market. The vibe around the flea markets are very nice. All the people were friendly and kind. Also shout out to the app FourSquare which helped us find these markets and places for GOOD FOOD. The good rated restaurant we went didn’t disappoint at all. I feel glad I had this app installed (Thumbsup! yeaa).
After few days in Athens we flew to Santorini and the place where we stayed was village Oia. Thira or Fira and Oia are the best places you would want to stay in Santorini. But among these two even the local people would say that Oia is the best one. And well well the village didn’t disappoint. Unique village with magnificent white colour authentic houses were a sight to see. Apart form the smell of donkey’s poop laying around the alleyways haha. But I guess that’s one of the encounters you would have to make while travelling LOL. Since the cars are not accessible to the houses local’s use donkey as the main means of transport. There were quite lot of tourists even during the off season. So we asked ourselves how it would the village look like during peak season? umm the main attractions would be rammed and I guess we would had to queue up for restaurants so we were kind of glad to have been there off season. Also you could notice many newly weds or couples on their photo shoots around the village. The village Oia is very pretty overall, has good foods to offer with nice hospitality and if you are a cat lover you would definitely love this place. Also the sunset from an old castle is unmissable. It’s been voted as one of the best spot to witness the sunset so do definitely check it out if you ever go there.
On our stay in Santorini we also managed to go to volcano of Santorini. The volcano is still active and if you enjoy hiking then you might like it.
That’s about it really umm got nothing much to add. Finally a small short video from a newbie video editor i.e me haha enjoyyy. And also have a good Christmas and early new year everyone! hope you guys enjoy your time with family and close people. (Fireworks emoji!)
Sanjeep 