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Musings at the end of my Greece trip - winter travel, food allergies, monasteries and more.

We’re done here in Greece. I’ve, as usual, covered the trip extensively in my blog. The name of my blog site is in my bio here on the RS site. If you can’t find it, PM me and I’ll send it to you.

But as to the questions I commonly see on here:
1) Is Naxos worth visiting in off-season? Yes! It’s pretty empty and many stores in the main town are closed, but walk over to the non-tourist area and it’s business as usual. There’s about 30% of the hotels operating and plenty of restaurants.
2) Santorini in March? A great time to come. About half the stores open, plenty of restaurants and it’s not crowded at all. (This is only for Fira). And it’s truly beautiful.
3) How many nights in Meteora and how many monasteries to see? Two nights works well if you’re coming in from Delphi. We saw all the monasteries but you could make do with Grand Meteroa and Varlaam. Go to Meteora - it’s totally worth the trip.
4)Gluten issues or food allergies? No problem here. Athens had gluten free options. Even in Delphi, there was a restaurant we ate at that marked its menu with the gluten free items. On Santorini last night, the waiter came to our table and asked us for any food allergies. At our hotel on Naxos, the owner has a gluten free niece, and every day at breakfast, she brought me my own gluten free quiche-type dish. This has been one of my easiest food allergy trips ever.
5) Ferry or plane to the islands? Seasickness? We traveled on the Blue Star ferries as they’re the best for avoiding seasickness. We were fine on them. Yesterday, on the route from Naxos to Santorini, all the other ferries were cancelled due to wind. But the Blue Star sailed the route and we were absolutely fine. I did not see anyone sick on the boat at all. The ferry ride is long from Athens though so we’re flying back.

Posted by
3561 posts

Hi Valerie,
This is said in the nicest way possible, but I have looked at your blog before and it seems a bit difficult to navigate. The first page seems to be about your latest trip, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to search older blogs or navigate the site.
I am travel blog obsessed ( over 75 bookmarked) and yours is the only ine I have had trouble with.
Am I just missing something?

Posted by
2679 posts

Hi! I haven’t ever had anyone report a problem. Once you go to the blog site, you will see my most recent post first. Then you can just keep scrolling down and it will go back in time through Central Europe, Egypt and China - all the way back through 2016. There’s no pages to click on - it just scrolls backwards through time. I guess it’s therefore hard to search - you’re stuck reading through it, for better or worse. But to give you an idea of what’s in it:
Oxford, Krakow, Budapest and Taormina from summer 2018, Costa Rica from January 2018, Egypt from January 2017, China from September 2016. I think that’s it.

Posted by
2252 posts

Oh, Valerie! I have loved revisiting Greece with you and your husband. What an amazing trip. Thank you for posting and "taking me with you" to one of my favorite European countries. Where are you going next????

Posted by
2679 posts

Hi Andi! Thanks:) I always love your comments. I’m having a big travel year! Japan is up in June/July and then Israel and Jordan in November!!

Posted by
4656 posts

Thanks for the short version. I'llgoback to the blog over lunch. Also having food sensitivies, it's good to know what a country's response is. I expect being off season also allowed the cook to be inventive and cater to individuals easier than busy season. Don't you just relish those 'made just for you' meals?
Also appreciate knowing islands don't disappear when the weather gets cooler 😉 thus life still worth seeing and experiencing.
I visited your blog, and it is quite streamlined. My view had a tab at the top. If one pushes it up, the icon with lines on the right side is the Search box. I search for China and some posts came up. I haven't tried it, but perhaps searching by year might result in a shorter but relevant list.