8 Days in Malta, Mykonos, and Athens

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• Quick stats about this trip:
  • ✈️: 11,124 miles
  • 💳 : 69,600 points
    • Chase: 63,600
    • United: 6,000
  • 💰: $175 per person per day (double occupancy)

Planning

Planning for this trip started a full 3 months in advance, and was originally planned to be something exotic and Asian, lasting two weeks. During the planning stages, but before anything had been booked, my humanness came to haunt me in the form of a nasty virus that laid me up in bed for a week, and cut into my limited yet very generous PTO (a full 30 days per year). With only one week of PTO left by our target travel date, we had to pivot to something closer to home, and settled on Europe. We pretty much planned a trip to every country in Europe we hadn’t been to yet (and some that we have been to), in an effort to figure out what would work best for our dates and timing. After way too many exhausting nights, we finally decided on Malta paired with Greece, owing to a combination of large brand hotels (allowing us to use various accumulated credits), some kosher food availability, and great weather.

Since we wanted to start our trip with exploring Malta, and there are only seasonal flights from NY, we were open to any pond-hopper that would get us to the Continent, and we’d take a short-haul flight from there to Malta. We spent hours researching award tickets and cc portal tickets, trying to find the best redemption option. WIth just one week left (remember we started out with three months to plan? No clue where that went…) we realized that the absolute cheapest option was via Norse, to ATH. The only downside (and for us a pretty big downside), was that Norse does not have any redemption options- they don’t sell award tickets, and they’re not available for purchase on cc travel portals. After brainstorming of a workaround, I realized that I had recently paid my $795 CSR annual fee, and with Chase pay-yourself-back redemption at 1.25 cents per point (worse than the grandfathered 1.5 redemption, but better than the downgraded 1 cent redemption)- that would require 63.6k points for a $795 statement credit. The round-trip Norse flights for myself and my husband totaled to $826 for 2 pax ($413/pp, rt), which left just $31 to be paid out of pocket. We refused all add-ons, including checked bags, as we were planning a carry-on only trip, as per our usual. Regardless of how well (or not) we did on points redemption at 1.25 cents per point, I think that 31.8k + $31 for RT fare to Europe is pretty ok.

Athens #1

With the toughest booking of the trip out of the way, the rest of the pieces fell into place nicely, and on a late Sunday night in May we found ourselves once more JFK bound (for the 8th time in the last year), with our familiar free parking spot and the ever-smelly airtrain as nostalgic friends.

Since we had refused to pay for online checkin, we arrived at the airport earlier than our usual, and headed to the Norse counter for check-in. We were traveling with carryons only, and with limited kosher availability in Malta, were a lot more weighed down than usual and were each carrying our backpacks as well as very large, definitely oversized, personal items. While our backpacks fit the size and weight limits, there was no way our ‘handbags’ fit the bill- we said a kapitel tehillim and smiled at the agent, who promptly sent us to the baggage sizer. Another kapitel was said while the bags sat atop the sizer, not even pretending to fit- the agent called us over and asked us what was in the bags- we explained that it was food for our journey. She then proceeded to wave over a supervisor (who was apparently being trained by said agent), and told him: “they have two bags but they can’t combine it because its milk and meat and it’s against their religion so it’s ok for them to take both” the supervisor nodded along like this made perfect sense, and the agent proceeded to tag our bags as meeting the personal item restrictions. Now a note if you didn’t follow what happened here: we were entitled to two bags as we were two passengers, just not oversized bags, so we’re not sure why she decided that combining them was the way to go. Additionally, at no point did we mention religion or milchig/fleishig as being an issue. I’m sure she’s seen her fair share of yeshiva bochurim spinning their stories of religion and waived handbag requirements, but for us it was the power of a kapitel tehillim with no loom needed.

We headed through security which was surprisingly deserted, and with no lounge access for us in Terminal 7, sat at the gate waiting for our flight to start boarding. As is usual for this route, there were hordes of other yidden on the flight, as it’s a common stopover for travelers to Eretz Yisroel. Upon boarding, we handed the flight attendant a bag of kosher chocolates- enough to satisfy the entire crew- as we’ve gotten into the habit of doing, to express our appreciation. The flight took off on time, and as soon as we reached cruising altitude a stewardess came over and handed us a complimentary meal and bottled water- while the meal was not kosher and therefore went untouched, we appreciated the water as Norse does not provide any onboard amenities unless you pay for it (I’m surprised they don’t make you pay for oxygen access…).

After an uneventful flight we landed in Athens, and to our dismay, due to the newly implemented EES system across the EU, the immigration line took forever (more like 30 minutes, but that’s a long time after spending 9 hours in Economy). Once we were finally free, we headed out of the terminal and right across the road to the metro station, for the blue line that would take us straight to Monastiraki Square, near Chabad and our hotel for the night. We purchased two round-trip metro tickets, as that gave us a discount of 2EU per person (16 EU for a round-trip instead of 9EU for a one way), and we had multiple airport>city>airport rides coming up. Getting tickets and finding the right train was easy, but the cars were packed to capacity and we had to stand for the entire 50 minute train ride.

We finally made it to Monastiraki Square, and I found it incredibly cool that we got to see some ruins both inside and just outside the train station.

We walked the 5 minutes on foot to L’Avventura Athens, our hotel for the night. The hotel rate was $107 for the night, but I booked it via the United Business card portal which triggered the $50 statement credit, effectively reducing the price to $57.

The room was tastefully decorated, but we thought we noticed a slight smell- we were too hungry at that point to investigate further, so we dropped off our bags and headed out to Parakalo, Chabad’s dairy restaurant, a two minute walk from the hotel via winding alleyways. We opted to sit outdoors, at the rear of the restaurant, to take in the last of the sunlight. The service was quick, and the food incredibly fresh and tasty- I was reserving of my judgment that first night, since being jetlagged and hungry can make mediocre food seem incredible, but I figured we’d be back at some point in our trip, where I’d be able to give the food a proper review.

Upon returning to the hotel, slightly more sane this time around, we noticed that the smell had gotten unbearable. At that point we had enough energy to muster a complaint, and the front desk was kind enough to assign us a slightly less smelly room. This room was larger than the first one, and had a terrace overlooking the street (ie alley).

Since trains in Athens generally run like clockwork, we decided to take the 7:03AM blue metro line to the airport in order to catch our 9:15AM flight to Malta. (Note that not all blue line trains go all the way to the airport- only specific ones departing every 30-40 minutes complete the full journey, with the airport being the last stop on the line). We figured one hour for the train and one hour at the airport was reasonable, allowing us to get a proper night’s sleep. The only one not onboard with our plans was Monsieur Jetlag who made an appearance hours before the sun did. After tossing and turning and eventually giving up on any more sleep, we opted to catch the 6:22AM train to give us a bit more breathing room at the airport. Even at this early hour the blue line was packed, but the early train worked out well in our favor, as it gave us enough time to drop off half our bags at the Care4Bag storage in Terminal 1, and take a leisurely walk, followed by coffee, in Terminal 2.

Athens in the early hours

Ryanair tickets include just one personal item as part of the ticket price, and not wanting to pay extra for a carryon, we packed carefully, allowing us to drop off half our bags at a luggage storage, while taking just what we needed for the Malta portion of our trip with us. Interestingly enough our large backpacks were small enough to fit Ryanair’s personal item size limits, so we were able to travel comfortably with our backpacks, while our personal items, now holding items not needed til later on in the trip, stayed behind in Athens. I’m not 100% sure that our backpacks would’ve fit into Ryanair’s luggage sizer, but since we were carrying just one item each they did not bother to check. There were several people who were either carrying multiple bags or oversized bags that were made to pay to take their bags on board.

(To explain further, we had packed everything in packing cubes sorted by day, so one cube had all our clothes for Monday, one for Tuesday, and so on. We also had a bag with our weekday cooking gear such as a mini betty crocker, transformer, CY cheese, etc, and another bag with our Shabbos gear such as a mini hotplate, travel licht, etc. This made packing and repacking bags into our backpacks for each leg of our trip easy, and allowed us to leave most of our items behind in Athens and travel light, while we explored other places).

After a leisurely coffee we headed to the C Gates to board our flight, when we suddenly realized that the C Gates, while accessible via Terminal 2, are actually located in the satellite building, a good 10 minute walk within T2. Even worse, upon reaching the satellite building the security line seemed to go on forever, but it was quick moving and we were through in under 10 minutes. That gave us a few minutes to check out the Goldair Handling lounge (accessible via priority pass) and stock up on bottled water for our flight. Our only issue with flying on Ryanair during this trip was the boarding process- they had all groups enter a pen of sorts at the gate, and once the gate was closed they proceeded to load everyone onto buses and shuttle us over to the plane. While this process was ongoing, gate seats were reserved for premium ticketholders only, while all other passengers were forced to stand in a small cordoned area, jostling each other around. These Ryanair tickets were the most expensive of our short haul routes, at $83/per person (these tickets can often be had for $50 or less, but since we ended up booking all this last minute, the price jumped up).

Malta

Our flight to Malta was uneventful, and after a short two hour flight (which is just one hour on the clock due to the timezone change), we landed in the perpetually sunny archipelago in the Mediterranean. For those of you that are not familiar, Malta is located in the Mediterranean Sea, with Sicily to its north and Libya to the south. The country consists of 3 ‘large’ islands- Malta, Gozo, and Comino, of which Malta and Gozo are inhabited. Malta has 300 days and 3,000 hours of sunshine, making it one of Europe’s sunniest destinations. With weather in the high 60s and low 70s, May was the perfect time to visit.

The language in Malta is Maltese, a semitic language that supposedly sounds like Arabic/Hebrew, but is written using latin alphabets. I did not hear the resemblance of the language to Hebrew at all. They also speak English and drive on the left side of the road, as they were previously a British colony.

Malta has some of the oldest structures in Europe, most of which are temples. There are about twenty of these large, ancient, popular temples, but we decided not to visit those as we pull to nature more, and were unsure of their halachic status.

Chabad of Malta was not operational during our stay, since they’re currently building a new center, but the rabbi graciously offered us takeout shabbos meals- since we were not there over shabbos, we did not get a chance to take him up on the offer. We relied on the kosher list for some basics, but not much.

Upon landing we headed straight to the rental car center, located in a large garage-like building near the terminal- it took us a minute to find it, but once we did the process of retrieving our car at Bee Malta rentals was easy and simple. We paid $34 for a 3 day rental and some basic insurance coverage- we’d gotten an IDP at AAA for $36 prior to our trip, but this was not requested at the rental counter, and we did not utilize it at all. We rented a car as we wanted to explore the Maltese countryside, and not just the city- you could get around by bus but that would add a lot of transit time between stops, which we wanted to avoid. Our research indicated that the roads in Malta are incredibly narrow and are hard for non-locals to navigate, but we decided to give it a shot.

We headed to our first stop, St. Peter’s Pool, straight from the airport. Boy oh boy were the blogs right when they mentioned narrow roads- we realized that while the next three days would be incredibly scenic and beautiful, it would also make for some nail-biting drives with us wondering if we’d make it out with our mirrors intact. The country roads are gated in on both sides by stone walls barely wider than the tiniest sedan, and of course those are all accommodating to two way traffic- good luck backing up on a road where you were pretty sure you didn’t fully fit when in Drive, and now having to repeat the process for a quarter of a mile in reverse… That being said, we did not regret renting a car, as we had flexibility and got to see a large portion of the country (to clarify, my husband did the driving on this trip).

St. Peter’s Pool is a small bay with incredibly clear water, known for cliff jumping, snorkeling, and various caves. We hiked down the steep trail to the water, but it was more of a human soup, so we left after a few minutes.

Next, we headed to Marsaxlokk (pronounced Marsashlok), a small, traditional fishing village, and one of the highlights of the day.

We found parking easily on a side street, and headed to the waterfront. Along the entire length of the waterfront there’s a fun harbor market with cheap souvenirs, restaurants, and beautiful linen tablecloths (here’s where I really regretted not traveling with a full size suitcase- that thing would’ve been stuffed to the gills with some beautiful table linens). We loved the charming, picturesque, slow-paced vibe of the town.

There are some boat tours you can do from Marsaxlokk, but nothing that pulled us. We then headed to the Blue Grotto- this is not visible from the shore, and requires a short boat ride- we were unsure if we wanted to do this, as it’s often described as overrated and a tourist trap. It took us several tries to find parking, and we then hiked down a steep hill to the boat docks where a large sign indicated that due to high winds boat tours were temporarily suspended. That decision having been made for us, we spent a few minutes on a rocky cliff enjoying the water.

Our last stop of the day was to Dingli Cliffs, the highest point in Malta. We tried several of the overlooks indicated on Google Maps, but were unable to find a good lookout of the classic white cliffs. We enjoyed the views nonetheless, and while it was still pretty early in the day, we were shot from the jetlag and flights, and headed to St Julian’s, to the InterContinental Malta by IHG.

We’d pretty much covered all the spots we wanted to see on the west side of the island. The east side of the island, where the cities of St Julian’s, Sliema, and Valletta are located, is densely populated and a lot less scenic than the west side. Our drive from the Dingli Cliffs to St Julian’s took a good hour- double the GPS estimate, due to the narrow roads and traffic.

We booked the InterContinental Malta by IHG for two nights for a total of $600- this was reduced by $500 by stacking the Chase $250 Edit credit and the $250 Chase 2026 hotel credit. For the remaining $120 we used ~6k Chase UR points at 2X points boost- I was hoping for a price match to credit back the $250 hotel credit, but my CSR is not yet eligible for price matching.

Our room was ready for checkin at 3PM, and while we were expecting to pay for parking as street parking is nonexistent in these parts, we were told that parking is free as one of our perks- I asked if this was an Edit perk or IHG Platinum Elite perk, but they weren’t sure (I don’t think it’s officially a perk under either program, but it was definitely appreciated). We also received a $100 F&B credit and a room upgrade. We did not get complimentary access to the 19th floor pool, but did get access to all other pools and the beach club. I’m not sure what the upgrade was, but the room was spacious and clean.

After dropping off our belongings and parking the car in the garage, we headed to the nearby Welbee’s Supermarket, armed with the Malta kosher list. The supermarket was new and modern, but while large, had almost no imported hechshered products.

We got some crackers, chips, fruits, veggies, soy milk, eggs, frozen french fries, and tomato sauce, and put together pizzas in the betty crocker utilizing wraps and cheese from home. We ordered some beers and fresh juices from room service to make use of the $100 F&B credit, and turned in for the night.

The next morning, after a hearty breakfast of egg wraps and veggie salad, we headed north to the Cirkewwa Passenger Terminal to catch a ferry to Gozo. There’s a ferry from Valletta to Gozo as well, but that takes a bit longer and is passenger only, while the ferry from Cirkewwa ferries cars as well. Our drive to Cirkewwa took longer than expected since there was a large fire burning on Malta island creating very hazy conditions, and there were several road closures not indicated on Google Maps which required us to default to smaller village roads. The ferry runs every 30-45 minutes during the day, so we weren’t worried about missing it- thankfully we pulled into the car lineup just before a ferry was departing, and managed to get a spot. The process is simple since payment is only collected on the return ferry from Gozo to Malta- on the outbound no fare is collected. Once our car was parked in the hold, we headed upstairs to the deck to enjoy the views.

After 25 minutes, we docked in Gozo- while the landscape in Gozo is in many ways similar to that of Malta, the towns and villages have a more intimate feel.

Our first destination in Gozo was Mixta Caves- the access road to the caves was blocked off, so we parked and walked 15 minutes to the caves.

Next we drove to the Xwejni Salt Pans, where salt is collected and sold by traditional families. We stopped by the shop above the cliffs, and enjoyed the views. The salt pans are usually active from mid-May to September, but it was pretty empty when we were there, and there were no active tours.

Formations near the salt pans

We then drove to Wied Il Gasri, a beautiful blue gorge. We hiked on the cliffs above the gorge, and then down a bunch of steps to the gorge.

There were some interesting glass-looking stones on the hike here.

We were hoping to visit Dwerja Bay next, but conditions on this side of the island were incredibly hazy, and the road was closed with a ‘no entry’ sign, so we didn’t attempt. Did I mention that the roads here are incredibly narrow? Oh my was this fun. The towns we passed on the way were beautiful though.

At our next stop we bumped into a similar issue- we attempted to head to Sanap Cliffs, and after navigating the narrowest roads, with increasing haze, we realized that the point on the map we were heading to was completely inaccessible. We did get a glimpse of the cliffs from afar.

Our last foray was to the capital city of Victoria, also named Rabat. Its main attraction is the Citadel, a fortified city/fortress atop a hill in Rabat, which has been around for thousands of years. We found street parking not far away, and walked over. The citadel has museums, overlooks, and historic fortifications, so there’s lots to do. Unfortunately most of these close at 5PM and we arrived just after, so we spent time walking the fortified walls and taking in the views. It was very hazy here as well, and somewhat windy.

We then left the citadel and walked down to the city of Rabat to Independence Square, where we explored some of the nearby shops.

My husband was especially impressed with this curbside ‘gas station’.

We made one more attempt at sightseeing by heading to Ta Cenc Cliffs, but again the Google Maps point was completely off the mark, and we couldn’t locate any lookouts or cliffs. Even though our time in Gozo resulted in a lot of haze and navigation issues, we loved the feel of the place- just check out this guy rocking his horse and chariot:

We then headed to the ferry terminal for our return, but missed the 7PM ferry by a minute, so we spent 30 minutes relaxing while waiting for the 7:30PM departure. We paid €15.70 for the car + 1 pax, and €4.65 for the additional passenger- this was the only fee we paid for the ferry. On our return drive from the ferry at Cirkewwa to the city, we realized that Google Maps has this tendency to give roundabout routes through narrow villages when the route on the main highway is predicted to be two minutes longer but in reality is a lot faster since it’s wide and almost well lit.

Since it was our last night in Malta, and despite our exhaustion we wanted to check out the capital city of Valletta at night, we headed there instead of back to our hotel. We parked outside the historic city since you incur CVA fees by driving into the city, plus the streets are more like alleyways and are generally impassable. I believe we parked on Triq San Publiju but I’m not sure. Boy were we happy that we mustered our non-existent energy to check out Valletta at night! It was fun and definitely made for a trip highlight, and is very different than during the day, with all the historic buildings lit up.

After strolling around for an hour we headed back to St Julian’s (very different vibe than Valletta- loud club music everywhere), and after supper and some more beer and juice, we called it a day.

The next morning we checked out of the hotel (they charged us for tips on the F&B charges, which we were so generous with since we were trying to spend $100…), and headed back to Valletta for our tour. The day was either very cloudy or very hazy, which definitely impacted the charm of the city somewhat, but made for more comfortable walks. We parked on the same street we’d parked the night before, and headed into the ancient city bypassing Tritons’ Fountain and the large city gates.

We booked a free tip-based walking tour via GuruWalk with AuthenticMalta, and our guide, Daniella. As far as free walking tours are concerned, this was a solid 9/10- Daniella was knowledgeable and fun. Unfortunately we only tipped her €10 since that’s all the cash we had, and she didn’t have a card reader. We toured the Upper Barrakka Gardens,

with great view of Valletta,

viewed the ‘three cities’ across the harbor, each with their own harbor,

Saluting Battery

learnt about Malta’s history (the most bombed place during WW2), and explored its streets and alleys. Valletta was built in the 1500s as a planned city, with some magnificent buildings, and these iconic enclosed wooden balconies

Our tour was over at 1PM, and we headed back to our car for a light lunch. While we had parked in a legal spot and had not exceeded the time-limit, we had not known that we’re required to set the time token on the windshield to our start time, and therefore received an $85 parking ticket- we’ve appealed the fine, so we’ll see where that goes…

Since we had hours of time to kill before we needed to head to the airport for our 9:35PM flight back to Athens, we decided to walk around the city some more. While passing Timeless Treasures- the first jewelry store at the entrance to the old city- a guy came out and greeted us with a hearty shalom- turns out he’s Jewish and lives in Malta.

We walked all the way across the old city Fort St Elmo taking frequent bench stops in the various parks overlooking the city.

At some point we discovered that there’s a Jewish cemetery in the town of Marsa, but it was 3:30PM by then, and the cemetery closes at 4PM, so we didn’t have much hope of making it on time. We toyed with the idea of taking a Gondola ride across the harbor to view the nearby cities, but it was too windy. In the end we settled for the last viewing of the Malta Experience- it was just €16/pp to purchase tickets on the spot- cheaper than the online price. The film is 45 minutes and is basically a history of Malta- I found the parts of the Turks’ stint in Malta as well as the details of their importance during WW2 most interesting (also after walking around for hours it was great to just sit and do nothing).

We then walked around some more, heading into various antique shops to check out their wares, before heading back to our car.

Malta’s gas prices are subsidized by the government, and are €1.34/litre at all times (for now), regardless of the market price- this means Malta has the cheapest gas prices in the EU. We filled up our tank for a few bucks, and then headed to the airport for our flight to Athens. Magically our rental car had incurred no scratches, and all mirrors were intact! We had hoped to have an earlier flight out so that we could still catch dinner in Athens, but the earlier flights were all significantly more than the $45/pp for the 9:35PM flight, so we opted for that. Security took seconds and we settled down at the LaValette priority pass lounge.

Some of the things that came up in my research that we did not do:

• In Valletta:
  • National War Museum (located at Fort St Elmo)
  • Grand Master’s Palace
  • Casa Rocca Piccola
  • The Lascaris War Rooms
  • Safe Haven Gardens for view of Valletta from “The 3 Cities”
• Other:
  • Mdina- historical city
  • Comino’s Blue Lagoon
• You can buy attraction passes from Heritage Malta and MaltaPass that might save you some $ depending on what you’re planning to visit (includes Gozo as well)

Athens #2

Upon landing at Athens airport we had to navigate our way from the distant satellite terminal all the way back to the main terminal. We picked up our stored luggage in Terminal 1, paying €18 for the two bags for three days of storage- baggage fees would definitely have cost us more, not to mention the lessened schlep, so this was definitely a win. We then spent an hour trying to figure out Uber/Bolt/Freenow coupons in an effort to take a cab to our accommodations for the night, since the metro does not operate 24 hours, and it was well after midnight. At last we realized that the bus, at €5.50/pp, would be the cheapest and best option, and indeed the ride took just 40 minutes and skipped most stops (during the day this would obviously take a lot longer). You can pay by tapping your cc- no bus ticket needed- I highly recommend this option once the metro is closed for the night and if you’re traveling lightly.

We had a bit of a walk from the bus stop to our Airbnb, but the area was well lit and clearly upscale. As we turned into the final alley, things took a turn and looked slightly run-down, but the actual apartment turned out to be exactly as pictured, with no surprises. Since the one goal of our lodgings for the night was a place to rest our heads for a few hours we picked the cheapest well-rated option, which after taxes and fees was just $77.

We had a 1:30PM flight from Athens to Mykonos on Friday morning, so we didn’t get to sleep in as we were looking forward to breakfast at Parakalo. Our first order of the day was dropping off our rearranged bags at a nearby storage location we found on Bounce– we opted for this location rather than the airport since we’d be back here on Sunday, plus we’d save ourselves some of the schlep on the metro.

We weren’t that hungry this time around, and were able to properly ascertain that their food is indeed delicious and fresh, regardless of hunger levels. We also loaded up on baked goodies for Shabbos.

With happy bellies we once again headed for the blue line metro to the airport. When planning this leg we’d been hoping to take a ferry rather than a flight, since we were worried that the constant flying would add too much exhaustion, but the fast ferry via the ferry terminal close to downtown Athens did not have any well-timed ferries for a Friday, plus it was more expensive than flying. Flights on Friday from Athens to Mykonos were originally very expensive, so we decided to book on Aegean for 6k United miles + $35. I was only able to book one ticket, and when I tried booking a seat for my husband there was no availability via United on that flight. I waited 24 hours to see if anything opened up, but no dice. Somewhere amidst my panic I ran another search for that flight and realized that the cash price had dropped to a reasonable $78, so I booked that for my husband, while I retained the points ticket. Since my ticket was not basic economy and allowed for free seat selection my husband checked in first and was randomly assigned a seat, and I checked in after him and chose a seat next to my husband. Thankfully this time we were flying from the B Gates in Terminal 2, rather than the satellite terminal, so no long walks were in order. We spent time at the Skyserv priority pass lounge until our (slightly delayed) flight was called. The flight is advertised as 40 minutes, but actually took just 20 minutes.

Mykonos

We landed to a surprisingly cloudy and gray Mykonos, but within minutes the clouds parted and the sun made its appearance. We’d booked a three day rental with Selecta Car Rental for $36, and they were waiting for us when we landed to drive us to their location about two minutes from the airport (the actual Google Maps location shows them as BLUTR Car Rental). Pickup was easy, and once again the IDP was not requested.

We had pre-ordered Shabbos takeout food from Chabad Mykonos, but he’d informed us ahead of time that everything would be packed in plastic containers, which would definitely melt on our mini-hotplate.

Views at Chabad Mykonos

He was kind enough to recommend AB Supermarket, not far from Chabad, where we were able to find foil pans, along with some other basics (eggs, water, and some items off the Greece list). We then headed to Wine Room Mykonos which my research indicated had a selection of Israeli wines, and indeed they had several Israeli and other kosher imported options available. It was interesting to note that whenever we were indoors, our phones lost all connection- possibly due to the heavy stone used in construction throughout the island.

We then headed to Semeli Coast Mykonos, a Hilton property on a secluded side of the island, where we had reserved a Junior Suite with a spa bath. The room was about $500/night, and we booked one night using a Hilton FNC, and the second night on our Hilton Aspire card, which since the property is a resort, would trigger the $200 resort credit- lowering the total to just $300 for two nights. Since I’m Hilton Diamond they upgraded us to a Panoramic suite, but since that didn’t have a full kitchen which we’d surely appreciate over Shabbos, we decided to tour some of the other options. The rooms are housed in small villas, and we were immediately enamored with the 2 bedroom suite. It had 3 bathrooms, 2 bedrooms, a large kitchen, a large jacuzzi, an outdoor patio space, and a private pool overlooking the sea.

They offered it to us for €250/night, which seeing that this retails at about $1,200/night, was a pretty sweet deal. It took them a while to get the room ready for us, and with it being Friday we were none too happy, but their service throughout was what you’d expect of a top notch high end resort.

As far as we could see we were the only ones there- we took walks and explored the private beach, all without meeting a soul- coupled with the delicious food from Chabad this was a truly memorable experience (although it did put us well overbudget…). On Sunday we were granted late checkout at 2PM, which gave us time to enjoy the pool and get a proper Mediterranean sunburn.

At 2PM we said our goodbyes and headed to Chora, also known as Mykonos Old Town- we parked at the huge free ferry terminal lot, and walked from there (there’s also free parking near the windmills, but not as many spaces).

We spent time exploring ‘little venice’,

the windmills (nothing to see here…),

and Matoyianni Street. A highlight for us was to just get lost in the various alleyways, especially those that were away from the crowds.

Our flight back was at 5:45PM, giving us ample time to explore. Dropping off the car was easy, and while our return flight was not the cheapest possible, at $73/pp, it allowed us to make the most of our day while still getting back to Athens in time for dinner. We spent a few minutes at the Mykonian priority pass lounge, before heading to the gate for our flight back to Athens.

Athens #3

We landed back in Athens and took the now-familiar route on the blue line to Monastiraki Square, for dinner at Chabad’s meat restaurant, Gostijo. Portions were plentiful and delicious, but for me Parakalo was the clear winner.

One of the treif restaurants near Chabad had set up a dazzling display of lights. We enjoyed the site before heading to the location that was storing our bags- the total for three days was €15.

We downloaded the Bolt app, and as first-time customers received several promotions, so we used that rather than the metro to head to our hotel for the night, the Grand Hyatt. I wasn’t too fond of the location since we’d need to shuttle back to the Monastiraki area for breakfast and our tour the next morning, but with an expiring Hyatt Cat 1-4 certificate, a free hotel seemed palatable rather than letting it go to waste.

Monday morning, the final day of our trip, we ordered a Bolt back to the Chabad area, and dropped off our bags before heading to Parakalo for a quick snack.

Our tour was once again via GuruWalk and this time our guide, Stavros, was a solid 11/10. His English was perfect (schooling in the US), but he had all the energy of a real Greek. He was humorous and entertaining, keeping us solidly entertained for a full three hours- definitely our top GuruWalk guide to date. We enjoyed it so much that we headed to the nearest ATM and withdrew €80 in cash as a tip.

The tour took us to the Athenian Agora (marketplace/forum- archeological finds point to a shul here dating back to the times of the Maccabees), the Roman Agora, Plaka (neighborhood) and more. We had views of the Parthenon but did not enter, which we appreciated as that can pose halachic issues.

After an amazing tour we headed back to Parakalo for a final goodbye lunch and to get some to-go sandwiches for our trip home. With time to spare until our 6:40PM flight, we leisurely strolled around the alleyways of Plaka for a good hour, exploring various stores and souvenir shops.

We then retrieved our bags from the Bounce location, and headed to the metro for our final ride to the airport. We leisurely checked in for our flight home with Norse (our bags weren’t inspected again since they still had the telltale blue tags from our inbound journey), and then proceeded to immigration/security, all the while debating whether we would have access to the kosher food at the SkyServ lounge or if they would reserve that for the El Al passengers only. It was a little after 5PM- why would we need to feel rushed if our flight was only departing at 6:40PM? As soon as we hit the immigration/security line, we realized that there’s no way we’d given ourselves enough time. The line was spilling out of the designated area, and barely moving at that. Due to the new EES system, it was taking several minutes for each passenger to be screened (I have still not figured out why they needed our photos and fingerprints again, as we’d already entered under the EES system a week prior)- every few minutes someone would come around and pull out passengers on flights that were departing imminently, further slowing down the processing for all other passengers. At about 5:50PM they finally announced that all passengers on Norse could now head to the front of the line- this had come after El Al and Arkia flight passengers had just been called as well, and I overheard an American behind me say “look at how all the Jews are getting preferential treatment”- I agree it didn’t look good, but the guy was literally on the same Norse flight as us, and just hadn’t bothered paying attention to the announcements (as an aside, we did not experience a single case of anti-semitism in Greece or Malta, even though we are visibly Jewish). After rushing through immigration and then security (where of course they decided to unpack all our bags just as the final boarding call was announced), and me somehow misplacing my boarding pass and having to hold up the plane a bit while they printed a new one, we finally made it onto the flight home. Obviously the flight was packed with frum Yidden- the same group of bochurim that were on flight to Athens were now on their way home- and the row next to us was occupied by two real Yerushalmis that kept offering us whatever they could throughout- do we want their fresh tuna sandwich? Why not? It was just bought this morning at the best sandwich shop in Yerushalaim! Do we want bamba? If my husband doesn’t want bamba maybe he wants to offer some to his wife? Do I like cookies? How can you not like Israeli cookies? And on it went. Thankfully the 10 hours were up before any sardines made an appearance…

Here’s to hoping our next trip starts soon!

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globetrottinggeek

Visited 45/50 US States Visited 30/63 US National Parks