Greece

Greece was definitely the trip of a lifetime.  It was actually more than I expected.  As my school year was winding down I would often need a little boost during the day so I would look at pictures of Greece online.  All of the pictures were so beautiful that somehow I thought it wouldn't or couldn't actually be like that in person but it was.  After spending most of my twenties so far backpacking through Europe during the summers; carrying my belongings. sweating profusely, and staying in shitty hostels this trip was a breeze.  We used a travel agent so we had someone to help us choose islands and hotels in our price range and she handled all transfers, ferries, and island hopping planes.  The transfers were the best part for Tony and me because rather than our usual get off an airplane-find a train, bus, whatever-walk to the hostel-pain in the ass we had people standing at the airport with a sign that had out names on it and they would kindly take our bags and drive us to our next location; they even had AC!!

Our fist stop was an island called Paros.  It is a small, non touristy island.  We stayed there for 2 days and spent one of those at the beach.  The best part about Paros was how nice the people were.  All Greeks learn English from the second grade so there are really no language barriers and they were so friendly we felt like everyone on Paros was our best friend.

Next we were off the Santorini.  We stayed in a town called Oia (pronounced Ee-ah).  This was as gorgeous as all of the books and websites said it would be.  We were so impressed with Paros and how beautiful it was but it could not hold a candle to Santorini.  For that reason we were glad to have gone to Paros first because in reverse order Paros would have been somewhat disappointing.  In Santorini we had a relaxing beach day and a not so relaxing boat cruise.  The beaches on both islands were so cool to us because they were not the typical white sand beaches.  They had rocky sand and the one we went to on Santorini actually had black volcanic rock.  It was very hot but also more unique.  The beaches were also surrounded by stunning rock formations.

We were then off to Athens.  The Acropolis was cool at night and the to go gyros were amazing but other than that I could have stayed in Santorini for 2 more days.  It was hard to choose pictures because we took over 700 of them but I hope you enjoy these.

I would also like to add that Tony and I celebrated our one year anniversary yesterday and it was awesome.  We went out to dinner on Saturday night to Blackstone which was the site of our rehearsal dinner exactly one year earlier and spent yesterday out on the lake and eating our year old wedding cake which was delicious btw. 

This is the view of the Acropolis lit up at night from the roof top bar at out hotel in Athens.

These 2 are a gorgeous sunset in Oia.
Oia
Below is Kamari beach in Santorini.

The 2 below are views from our hotel in Oia.

Below is Kolimbithres beach in Paros.
Below is the sunrise from the patio of our room in Paros followed by our hotel in Paros.