Star Award Winner's Trip to Greece (Athens & Mykonos) - May 2018

[NatsyNoo]

I wanted to share my recent trip to Greece with you all. I’ve never been to Greece before so this was my first time, and I travelled with a group of people from work, as part of our recognition programme, as back in November, I was selected as one of the top performers in the organisation, so they whisked us away for 6 nights in Athens and Mykonos. We travelled with 130 people in total, including colleagues from the UK, South Africa and the USA.

Day 1

It was a very early start today, as we were picked up from our homes at 4.30am, taken to our office and boarded an executive coach to Heathrow airport. We left the office at 5am and made it to Heathrow in good time, arriving at 6.30am.

IMG_9577 by Natalie Pope, on Flickr

Once we were all checked in, suitcases were dropped off and we were all through security, we split up to do our own thing before we departed. I knew I wanted to some duty free, so I picked up a bottle of Coco Mademoiselle and a new purse from Ted Baker. I think they were about £60 and £75 respectively. I also picked up a meal deal from WHSmith as our flight was over lunchtime and I wasn’t sure what would be on offer on board and on the other side.

After I had finished my shopping, I headed to the Aspire Lounge to meet the rest of the group. Here we enjoyed some drinks and breakfast, before catching our flight.

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We were on the 9.05am flight out of Heathrow to Athens, flying with BA. Boarding began at 9am, so of course we were slightly delayed, but we managed to make up most of this time once in the air.

I spent most of the flight reading and watching some stuff on my tablet.

We landed at 3.15pm, collected our luggage, and were all on the coach to the hotel by 4am, where our guide told us about the history of Athens, how the city is structured, and pointed out some of the sights.

We pulled up at our hotel, the Grand Bretagne, at 4.30am, where we checked in in one of the conference rooms. We were greeted by some Greek Goddesses, and offered some feta and Ouzo. We were also presented with leather travel wallets filled with the various bits and pieces we’d need throughout the trip.

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I headed up to my room and just pottered for a while, when a message came through on my phone to let me know that some of the UK group were by the pool having some drinks, so I decided to mosey over there. I ordered a Sprite which was 5 Euros and sat and chatted with the girls for a while.

I'm afraid I can't find the rest of the photos of my room - but please trust me when I say it was so gorgeous and luxurious!

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At 6pm, I headed back to my room to see if my luggage had arrived and to get ready for the evening ahead. We had to meet in the lobby at 7am ready for transfers to dinner, so we boarded the coaches which took us to a restaurant called Dionysos, which was based at the foot of the Acropolis overlooking the Parthenon. The view was absolutely breathtaking.

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I was a little nervous as I’m not particularly keen on Greek food, but I tried everything and quite enjoyed a lot of it, surprisingly including the moussaka!

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At 10.30pm, we were transferred back to the hotel, and I was in bed just after 11pm after a long travel day.

[NatsyNoo]

Day 2

Today we were to enjoy a Learning Experience and a City Tour of Athens – that’s all we knew!

I had my alarm set for 8am ready for breakfast at 8.30am but the hotel gave us all a surprise wakeup call at 7.30am. Being unexpected, it scared the life out of me!

Breakfast was served on the rooftop restaurant of our hotel, again, overlooking the Parthenon, and it was stunning. The food was also delicious!

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Our learning experience began at 9am, and was a talk by Olympic Windsurfer, Nikolas Kaklamanamalis. He won Gold in Atlanta, Silver in Athens (and was the torch bearer), and three times World Champion. He talked us through how despite the challenges, he used his ‘deeper why’, inner motives, and was spurred on by his dream to succeed to be a leader in his sport. He then went on to windsurf 300 miles around some of the Greek islands in the Aegean in 3 days to raise awareness of the Greek economic crisis. A truly inspiring individual.

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After photos with Nikolas outside of the hotel, we embarked on our city tour. We boarded coaches and drove around, with our first stop at the Panathenaic (Olympic) Stadium. After some photos, we ended up once again at the foot of the Acropolis ready to climb up to the Parthenon. The guide also pointed out the various types of architecture en route, including the various styles of columns and neoclassical buildings.

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Once at the Parthenon, the guide made us aware of some of the quirks of the building, including it being non-symmetrical, they used optical illusions, and was constructed of 17,000 pieces. To rebuild it for the second time (to correct the mistakes of the first rebuild), it will take 40 years. At the moment, there’s not too much building work going on, as the architects, archaeologists and historians are locked in a room debating how the pieces of the puzzle go together. We also learned that many of the original monuments were stolen by Lord Elgin and can be found at the British Museum (so I must now go there). It was truly awe-inspiring, particularly as someone who is fascinated by history.

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After this, it was lunchtime, so we were taken to the Old Tavern of Psarras in Plaka for another Greek feast, where we stayed until 3.30pm.

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We then had some free time, and being on my own (Matt wasn’t able to join me on the trip as he didn’t have enough annual leave left), I decided to head back to the Olympic Stadium, as I always find them fascinating. It was 5 Euros to explore inside (which we hadn’t had the chance to do earlier on), so I took some time to wander around there. Inside the area where I assume the athletes used to wait, there were torches and posted from many of the past games. It was a great way to spend an hour!

I saw a number of ruins en route

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At the Olympic Stadium…

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I decided to walk back through the Gardens, past the Zapeion (almost like a big town hall I think, where a lot of the crisis talks were held), had a walk around the shops, treated myself to a sundae from McDonalds (2.05 Euros), went to see the parliament building and guards at Syntagma Square, and went back to my room to get ready for the evening ahead.

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[NatsyNoo]

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This evening was the favourite of many of the group, as we were taken to a private villa on the Athenian Riviera for a dinner overlooking the sea, with a bar and DJ. It was truly spectacular! We were served mushroom saffron risotto salmon with wild rice and pavlova, and after some dancing and fireworks, were taken back to the hotel at about 11.30pm, for our final night in Athens before transferring to Mykonos the next day.

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When we got back, a large print of the group photo with Nikolas was on our beds, which was a lovely touch.

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After packing, I hit the hay at 1.15am…exhausted!

[NatsyNoo]

Day 3

The alarm this morning went off at 6am…way too early after that late night! I got up, finished packing, and headed up to breakfast after putting my case outside of the door ready for collection.

I went back to the room after breakfast to collect my hand luggage, and then went down to the lobby ready to board the coach back to the airport.

We didn’t have too much time to wait at the airport, as our flight departed at 11am, so I grabbed a bottle of water (50c), and went to wait by the gate where I read for a while.

We boarded our flight at around 10.30am, and took off on time, and we landed at about 11.45am, so it was a very quick journey! Once we landed, we collected our bags and were on our way to our home for the next 4 nights, the Royal Mykonian (or in my case, the Imperial Mykonian, one of the sister hotels).

Upon arrival we were greeted with a buffet lunch which was again delicious, given my room key and escorted to my room (my case not far behind), where I very quickly discovered my PRIVATE POOL!

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The hotel was stunning. There were some quirks about my room that I wasn’t so keen on but overall, I really loved the resort.

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My room…

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The rest of the day was ours (until dinner, at least) so I popped on my swimsuit, and went to sit by the pool for the rest of the day, just reading and relaxing, and I loved it!

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The day quickly passed by before I had to get ready for dinner, so I went back to the room ready to meet the rest of the group at 7.30pm, when we were taken to Scorpios, a very excusive beach night club on the south coast of the island. That sort of place is not usually my scene but it was a stunning location and some of the group were in their element.
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We enjoyed garlic flatbreads with various dips and spreads, chicken and steak with potatoes and corn for our main, and a chocolate melt in the middle pudding for dessert. The food was all excellent and the service was fantastic.

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I caught the transfer back home at about 12am and it won’t surprise you when I say I was fast asleep before long!

[NatsyNoo]

Day 4

My alarm went off this morning at 8.30am (a lie in!) and after breakfast, we were taken to Mykonos Town at 10am.

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We were given a tour of the town, including an overview of its history. We saw the only Catholic Church on the island, learned that there are over 500 churches in total on the island, saw a well where the local girls would drink if they wanted to find a boyfriend, and the famous windmills. I bought my Nan an evil eye (she loves stuff like that – 6 Euros) and I bought a magnet of the same (E3) and a bottle of water (50c).

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This is the narrowest street in Greece!

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After our tour, we were taken to Roca Restaurant for lunch, where we enjoyed chicken stuffed with sundried tomatoes with rice and Greek yoghurt with what we think was a prune drizzle (no photos I'm afraid).

The rest of the day (and evening!) was our own, so I caught the 2.30pm transfer back to the hotel and enjoyed a few hours around the pool again, including some non-alcoholic cocktails with our drinks tokens….lovely!

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At about 5.30pm, I met some of the other girls in the group at another of the pools and we all headed up to one of their rooms as they had a hot tub on their balcony, so after affectionately naming ourselves the ‘Hot Tub Massive’, we enjoyed some drinks and chats in the hot tub. I had had some bad news from home on this day so this was just the perfect medicine.

At 8pm, we were sufficiently wrinkled, so decided to freshen up in our respective rooms and head to the main building for some drinks and dinner. A lot of the rest of our group had had the same idea so it became a really lovely gathering.

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I had been craving a Club Sandwich for days, so I was thrilled that they had one on the menu. I used a drink token for my drinks, so the sandwich cost E16.50 (for which we had a cash meal allowance anyway).

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So much for my intended early night…I hit the hay at midnight!

[NatsyNoo]

Day 5

Today was a surprise excursion for us all but it hadn’t taken a rocket scientist to work out that we were heading on a boat trip.

My alarm went off at 8.15am, I got dressed, and headed down to the beach to catch the boat at 9.30am.

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The boat took us around the south coast of the island, stopping for some snorkelling at one of the beaches, before heading to Parega beach for some food in one of the beach restaurants. This was more Greek fare but lots of squid and lamb so I was happy!

They took care of the smallest details on this trip, look at the flag even!

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We left Parega beach via coaches at 3pm and I headed straight to the pool. I wasn’t wasting any of that sunshine! We had another free evening today so I stated here until 6.30pm and after getting changed, met the girls from the previous night for dinner at one of the restaurants on Elia beach (where our hotel was located).

I ordered a carbonara, which was yummy, and with a drink that came to E12.50. Again, we had a meal allowance to cover this.

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Finally, my much needed early night came to fruition – I was in bed by 10.30pm.

[NatsyNoo]

Day 6

I couldn’t believe that our final day of the trip was here! Today we had the whole day to ourselves before a Gala Farewell dinner in the evening. The group did lots of different things, from excursions to the holy island of Delos (the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis), some went back to Mykonos Town, lots of other excursions were offered, but I (and most of the rest of the UK group) opted to enjoy the hotel facilities and consume our final rays of sun. It was such a lovely, relaxing day, but not many pictures to share, I’m afraid! I had a pizza by the pool for lunch, again using my meal allowance to do so.

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At 5pm, the wind had picked up and the sun had gone in, so I called it a day to go in and get ready and of course to pack.

At 7pm, we met back at the main hotel poolside for a drinks reception before our Gala dinner, which was more Greek food. I wasn’t so keen this evening but had eaten plenty on the trip to keep me going!

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After dinner, we were (finally!) treated to some Greek dancing, plate smashing, and danced to Dancing Queen. I was in my element! I joked with the organiser that she was cruel to make me wait so long! It was a fantastic evening!

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I think I called it a night at 12am. The late nights and early mornings of the trip had caught up on me and I was conscious that we had a long travel day the next day (which I won’t write about because it was very boring and non-eventful!).

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So that’s it, our 5* once in a lifetime trip over and done with. For us UK peeps, it was a very lovely version of a typical sun holiday that many of us have experienced before with some special experiences of course, but for the South Africans, it was a dream come true in every way. I feel so lucky and privileged to have met some wonderful people and to make some new contacts from my company. The highlights for me definitely were the people, the hotels, the villa night at the Athenian Riviera and the Gala Night, but the whole trip was just fabulous!

[Col&Ali]

Great trip report Natalie 😀 Congratulations on your win 👍💃💃

[NatsyNoo]

Originally Posted by Col&Ali

Great trip report Natalie 😀 Congratulations on your win 👍💃💃

See more...

Thank you!

[Sparksy72]

What a wonderful trip, your photos are lovely and all your dresses are so pretty. Congratulations!