Which way do we go?: StarClipper and the Greek Islands

About us

We are a couple of Californians, recently transplanted to Bellingham, Washington. We like our new hometown but we also love to travel. We think travel is important and we choose to live frugally so that we can travel as much as possible.

We are currently on a six month trip through Turkey, Italy, and Spain. We also sometimes travel with friends on chartered ships (Thane does massage for them). Of course, it is all subject to whim, so why don't you travel along with us and see where we go?

We like to travel slow and get to know local people and customs. We typically travel on a low budget. We believe that traveling this way enhances our experiences because it tends to keep us in closer contact with local people. This also allows us to travel for longer periods.

We agree with Rick Steve's who says that travel allows us to discover that "Certain truths that we consider to be 'God-given or 'self-evident' ... are suddenly not true" and that "One of the benefits of travel is the eye-opening realization that there are logical, civil, and even better alternatives."

We like seeing how other cultures approach life, family, politics, food, music, communication and the differences between the sexes.

We previously used this space to blog about an 8 week car trip across the USA in 2008. We've left those blog entries here because we enjoy looking at them still and think that you might too.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

StarClipper and the Greek Islands

Posted by Thane

We left Athens aboard the Star Clipper, a four masted sailing ship on August 21st for Santorini. The ship had 143 passengers on this 14 day charter which included the Greek Islands, Alexandria Egypt and a few ports in Turkey.

The Star Clipper

view from my massage area

Pool and Deck area

Morning on deck

The first night at sea was a bit rough with the the ship rocking and rolling all night. The ship's staff had set the morning breakfast place settings in the dining room after dinner and we could hear the crashing of dishes as the ship would list. From this night on the seas were calmer much to Melissa's chagrin. She loved the rocking at night.

In Santorini we only had 6 hours to explore so as soon as we were anchored out and could get on a tender (small boat holding 40 people) we went in to the port. There are three ways of getting up to the top to town of Thira. The first was a cable car which had about a 45 minute wait. The second was riding a donkey up to the top. The third was hiking up the 588 steps which is what we chose. Extremely hot and fragrant (donkeys ya know) but the views were amazing and the little town cute although touristy.

Looking back down on the donkey trail we had climbed

Church at the top


View of town

View from the cable car on the way down

The next Island we went to was Rhodes where we hiked up to the clock tower for a view of the city. Lots of great photo ops in this walled city which was home to the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.