Trip to Greece

Greece | Dec 23 - Dec 31, 2018

First and foremost, we LOVED kimkim. My boyfriend and I were so skeptical at first, but our local specialist, Tasos created a plan and a trip to Greece that was truly amazing.

In the beginning stages of communication, I shared with him that we were very into food and wine, and love "off the beaten track" type sites. Tasos put together a few different itineraries for us, and we were able to pick and choose what looked most interesting to us. We were able to completely customize our trip to our liking.

Tasos worked incredibly hard until the last minute providing us up-to-date changes (we traveled during the holidays, so some forms of transportation were hard to book), but he assured us that everything would be in place for us at an affordable cost!

When we first arrived in Athens, we were greeted by a driver at the airport. He drove us to our first hotel and within an hour, Tasos came to greet us! He walked us around a little and gave us tips. From that point on, he gave us flight and ferry confirmations, and we easily were able to send email messages if we had any questions. He was super quick to respond, and we never at any point in time felt helpless or unsure about what to expect.

Tasos arranged lunches, dinners, tours and transportation for us to every place we went. It was so comforting to know that there was always going to be someone waiting for us when planned.

This service and Tasos made our trip to Greece unforgettable. I would have never been able to plan this on my own, and I felt like we were treated like royalty everywhere we went. Every detail was taken care of, and we were able to fully enjoy every aspect without any worry. I highly recommend working with Tasos for your trip to Greece!! He was incredible.

More details about the tours/accommodations/meals:
In Athens, we stayed at the Pi Athens Suites. The room was big and clean and our concierge was incredibly helpful, and even called a restaurant for us to make a reservation one night. We were greeted with a complementary bottle of wine, and were able to watch the sunset on the roof deck with a spectacular view of the Acropolis!! It was located in a very convenient area, walking distance from everything.

360 Restaurant: Amazing first meal in Athens with another amazing view of the Acropolis. The service was wonderful and the food was too.

Alternative Athens Tour (Acropolis and Ancient Athens through a Mythology ): This was a great tour to see all the historical sites of Ancient times. Our tour guide Alexandra was so knowledgeable, and made learning about the history very entertaining and fun. I loved seeing the sites and stopping at a local cafe. It was just long enough, and I learned so much.

Santorini-
We knew that it was going to be the off-season here, but were really interested in seeing the scenery and true nature of the island. There were not a lot of stores or restaurants open in Oia, the village we stayed in, but still was a great experience.
Our tour was guided by Gabriel - it was a Santorini Highlights & Wine Tasting tour. He arrived promptly and drove us around the entire island, telling us stories and teaching us about what life is like for a resident of Santorini. Again, we learned so much! He was hilarious and real, we truly enjoyed our time with him. We had a wine tasting at Santo Winery and again felt like we were treated very special.

Naxos-
We flew from Santorini to Naxos and arrived in the evening. We stayed at the Xenia Hotel. Again, very clean room and the concierge was amazingly helpful, and also close to everything. We were shortly after greeted by our tour guide, Katerina. She was fun and bubbly, and super knowledgeable of all things Naxos, as she has lived there in a small village for her whole life. She brought us to a cheese shop and taught us about local Naxos cheese and wines, and told us stories about what life is like living there. We went to restaurant 1929, on the waterfront and had an enormous meal. Everything was delicious and service was amazing. We walked around after and she gave us a tip on where to get an after dinner cocktail. We went there and ended our night amazed and happy.

Katerina met us the next day in the morning to show us around the villages of the island. We saw the Temple of Demeter, watched a local spin pottery, and again learned so much. We sampled the islands famous liquor, Citroen, and felt like we had known her forever! Katerina made us feel so welcome and we enjoyed being with her so much. We plan to keep in contact with her as well, and we feel like we met a friend! The only complaint we had was that we did not get to spend more time on this island!! This was by far the best part of our trip. But, we sadly then had to leave Naxos and took a ferry to Crete.

Crete:
We arrived later in the evening and were brought to the Consolato Boutique Hotel. The street looked like a scene out of a movie! The room was by far the best of all the places we stayed and the gentleman in charge was helpful and hilarious, and gave us some great tips on where to go for dinner.
We took a tour of Crete with our tour guide Dimitrios. He drove us around the villages, got to see great views of the mountains, and we visited Dourakis Winery. We loved the winery tour and tasting (I did wish it was later in the day because we were tasting wine before lunch). Regardless, it was enjoyable and amazing still. We visited a local cheese factory where we got to see all the steps to make the local cheeses, visited a bakery, and then were treated to a home cooked meal by some locals at a small tavern. Overall the tour again, was fantastic.

We visited the Botanical Gardens of Crete. Although it is winter, we still enjoyed seeing all the plant life and tropical trees, as well as the animals (there were about 15-20 peacocks there!!) and enjoyed one of the best meals of the trip at the cafe at the gardens.

I literally cannot say enough good things about our trip and Tasos, as well as all the tour guides, restaurants and hotels. We could not have asked for a better trip. It is so hard to even find anything to complain about, or anything we would have changed. We highly recommend using him for your trip to Greece, you will not regret it!