{"id":8486,"date":"2014-08-10T13:59:17","date_gmt":"2014-08-10T17:59:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sunflowerit.ca\/travel\/auto-draft\/"},"modified":"2025-07-03T15:09:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T19:09:12","slug":"greek-island-hopping-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sunflowerit.ca\/travel\/other-trips\/trips-europe\/europe-2014\/greek-island-hopping-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Greek Island hopping \u2013 part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

2014.08.04 – Athens – Syros (Greece)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had an early wake-up at 5am as we had to commute to Pirareus for our 8am departure to Syros. We checked-out of our hotel after reluctantly paying our stay in cash. We took the 5:30am subway and quickly made our way to the Pirareus dock. We stopped at the nearby ATM for another cash withdrawal. We boarded our first large ferry boat (Naxios) as we arrived in the E7 dock area. It appeared like the ferry was fully reserved. When we boarded, we did not pay attention to the sun\u2019s direction and as result we got baked on our seat facing east. The four hours ferry sailing appeared fairly long (and warm) to us. Upon our arrival at the Syros dock, we inquired about the bus service to the small town of Galissa. We waited 30 mins for the bus scheduled for 12pm. The dock area was rather chaotic traffic as a result of the ferry passenger disembarkation. We arrived in Galissa and easily found our hotel, Hotel Maistrili, which was located very close to beach. After settling into our room, we had a quick lunch of pita souvlaki. After that, we headed to the beach which was very nice and not too crowded. We settled in the shade of a tree using our camping mattress. Jenny and I enjoyed very much the water while Victoria stayed on the beach. We had supper at a nearby restaurant. The hotel staff appeared to sympathize with our Booking.com constraint, but they insisted they could not do much to help. The staff helped us to book a taxi for a pick-up at 7am the next morning as we needed to catch once again a 8am ferry – this time to Paros. We really enjoyed our nice balcony and super comfortable chairs. Jenny also appreciated the integrated clothes line for drying our clothes wash. Late in the evening, the hotel staff dropped by our room to give us some breakfast supplies since we would be missing the hotel breakfast tomorrow morning.<\/p>\n\n\n