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This post has been a long time in the making!!

It’s been finished for a little while but I decided to publish it now as a lot of you will have a bit more time during the festive break to look at holidays for next year, so this may make a nice easy bit of reading.

Greece has definitely become ‘my place’and somewhere I enjoy and feel most comfortable going on holiday in recent years. I’ve been to a few more Greek islands and the mainland but I was pretty young and only have hazy memories to be honest! So this should probably be called ‘Ranking the Greek Islands I’ve visited as an adult’.

Islands are ranked from least to most favourite, although I will point out that enjoyed my time visiting every one of them!

I stayed in Agia Marina on the Northwest, which is the opposite side to the overly developed tourist areas. This trip was what I’d describe as an ‘mature girly holiday’ so our main priorities were to sunbathe and have some nice food and drink in the evenings, which we definitely did. The absolute highlight of the week was our visit to the old capital Chania, which is just gorgeous and vibrant. It was in Chania I ate at what I still regard as one of the prettiest restaurants I’ve ever been in, Ella Taverna (it doesn’t have a website or I’d link it).

I’ve talked about my travels to Myknonos quite extensively at the time. What I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned in any of my blog posts is this – we accidentally turned up for our flight 24hrs early so had to pay for another night in the airport hotel / parking. I also realised I’d forgotten to pack any bras so used the extra day to hotfoot it to Manchester and rectify the problem! Even though I saw exactly the same sights as those plastered across social media there were a few things that surprised me, including just how rough the sea was and how busy the tiny little streets were! Our hotel was called Paola’s Town, and lovely as it was it was in a kind of bad location – technically 900m to the centre of Mykonos Town but that was down a very steep road that had not pathway and no lights, which made the journey a bit stressful. That said, we enjoyed some amazing food and drink and a visit to Mykonos Vioma vineyard. Given that the main action and aesthetic is in Mykonos Town which we explored extensively, coupled with the fact that it’s hella expensive for food and drink, I probably won’t be making a repeat visit.

This is the most recent island I’ve travelled to on this list, which we picked because we’d been to Zakynthos the year before so thought we’d try out it’s neighbour. We stayed at White Rocks Hotel in Lassi which was a nice but set out in the most bizarre way. We had a room overlooking the sea and public beach which was lovely but inexplicably the room also had a massive window that looked through from the toilet to the bedroom that was not pleasant! There also weren’t any footpaths or lighting from the hotel to the resort which made going out after sunset a bit dicey (a la Mykonos). I’m not sure if it was because of COVID or whether it’s simply how Lassi is, but things felt a LOT quieter than I would’ve expected for August. We spent a couple of nights in the capital of Argostoli, and lemme tell you things were bouncing over there! I was surprised to find Kefalonia was quite extra and boujee – think flower arches, living walls/ceilings and pristine white interiors. It looked amazing! We made sure we got out and saw a bit of the island too, and everywhere we visited was just as pretty. Greek food is hands down my favourite, but we also had the chance to sample some traditional Kefalonian food too which was a nice change. And we got to see some turtles up close which was a highlight!

Kos has gained its ranking for purely sentimental reasons – it was mine and the Mr’s first proper holiday together when we were newly engaged. We stayed at the Cleopatra Superior in Kardamena which was fine, just your average kinda ‘this is our base’ hotel, although we did have a great view of the mountains, sea and pool from our room. We didn’t leave the resort once or even do much during the week we visited (we went on a boat trip where I got really sunburnt, rented a pedalo and did an afternoon of mini golf, which I lost at) so didn’t see any of the island or try any new foods etc (basically, all of the things we love to do now). We were just a couple of 20-somethings in love and that was all the entertainment we needed! I would be put off returning again splely because of flight times and the sizeof the airport – we had to queue outside to get in and then were basically in a constant queue all the way through check in and departures until we boarded in the early hours of the morning!

Zakynthos was very much a last minute decision – I’d been made redundant after a few months on Furlough andwe’d had another couple of holidays cancelled. We had time, money and Boris said we could so thought why not! It was hands down the most pleasant airport experience I’ve ever had in August – not a lot of people, socially distanced and everything running on time. I think because it was last minute and we just wanted to chill our expectations were low, but we were pleasantly surprised. We stayed in Tsilivi which was pretty buzzing with lots of places to eat and drink (although at the time there was a midnight curfew). We stayed at the Contessina Hotel which I had mixed feelings about – the aesthetic and staff were lovely but some of the rooms were badly laid out/inaccessible and they didn’t provide adequate sizing of things like robes (the Mr and I are distinctly average sized but even the XL didn’t come close to fitting either of us). We took a couple of trips to explore the island, spent the day at a beach club and enjoyed some of the best Greek food I’ve ever tasted. I remember feeling insanely relaxed about life and what was coming next with finding a new job etc, so I think this break put me in the right headspace that led me to where I am right now, so I’ll always have find memories of this trip. I’d be more than happy to go back again.

Santorini was absolutely, 100% everything I wanted and more, I’d love to go back! I wrote about it quite a lot at the time – a guide to the island hotspots, best things to do and a guide to Greek food so feel free to click any of these links if you’d like to know more. Literally everything you look at is beautiful and it’s dead easy to get everywhere. I was told before going that it was pretty expensive, but I didn’t find that at all – everywhere was reasonably priced for food, drink and activities. We stayed in Kamari and could literally see the resort from the airport, if I was going back I’d stay there again as its a nice place in its own right and super easy to travel to other places from.

If you’re interested in seeing more of some of these holidays, head to my Instagram and check out the highlights section or scroll back through the grid to take a look at some more pictures. Unfortunately Kos and Crete were pre-IG so there’s nothing about either of them, but feel free to get in touch with any questions and I can answer or do another post as desired.

Thanks for reading,

J xx