Naxos Adventures

Today we spent a great day exploring Naxos.

First, we ate breakfast at our rental (which is included in the stay). The wonderful property manager, Stefanos, serves the breakfast and does a great job making you feel relaxed and taken care of. He brought out a beautiful bread basket with pastries, fresh fruit, Greek yogurt with honey, muesli, and Quince marmalade, plus scrambled eggs. It was all wonderful and a great start to a long day.

Breakfast views
Laundry

After breakfast, we headed out to explore the island. Our first stop was Demetres Temple. I believe it was built in 560 bc (or around that) as a temple to a God for fertile land.

Next, we stopped at a handmade pottery/ ceramics shop. They had beautiful vases, flower pots, mugs etc. We bought a few things and watched the potter make a vase. Of course, James suggested that we order him a pottery wheel from Amazon when we get back. I’m sure the results will be about the same

After that, we stopped at a town called Chalki. We stopped at a distillery that makes an alcohol called Citron out of the leaves of a fruit plant.

3 different colors of Citron: green, clear, and yellow to designate the alcohol content.

We also stopped in a shop and sampled some Greek candies and honey.

After that, we headed to lunch at Poterou. It was a strange time (around 2-2:30). The place was empty with just an older Greek gentleman in there. He said that he could make us a Greek salad with some Tzatziki. Perfect. It hit the spot. James pretty much just ate a loaf of bread, but whatever. At the end, he brought out a complimentary dessert. It was a candied fruit (like a lemon rind) in a sweet syrup. I don’t know what it was, but we all loved it.

James with his dessert.

After lunch, we visited another town called Apiranthos. This is referred to as the marble town because all the walkways are made of marble stones.

Our next stop was Kouros. Here, there is an artifact statue. According to James, he was be excited to see this.

On our way back down the mountain, we saw a marble quarry. It’s hard to see in the picture, but I can’t imagine how many counter top slabs were cut out of this mountain.

Lastly, it was time for dinner. We ate at Georgis. It is a charming restaurant where husband and wife are the chef and waitor. It was delicious and we left totally stuffed. They even made James some fresh squeezed lemonade.

Top: complimentary fava puree, grilled bread, eggplant with red sauce and cheese.
Bottom: cheeses from Naxos

James eating the eggplant starter. I’m so proud of all the different foods he is trying.
Complimentary dessert: Greek orange pie (it was delicious). After a quick Google search, it’s made with yogurt, egg, phyllo, orange, and spices.

Back to the rental where James jumped in the pool for a little while then took a bath.

I think we are going to take it a little slower tomorrow and spend the first part of the day hanging at the beach.

Travel to Naxos

We spent the rest of the time in Santorini relaxing and enjoying the beautiful views. James and I did some souvenir shopping and Justin took some long walks to take pictures. Overall, we had a wonderful time and none if us were ready to leave. My favorite part was sitting on the upper deck in the morning drinking coffee and enjoying the incredible scenery. There was also some great people watching.

James loved the little loft that he slept in. It was his special nook.

The food has been incredible. Vine leaves, tzatziki, meatballs, octopus. We are eating it all.

On the last evening, Justin took out his tripod, and we attempted to take some family pictures of the three of us. We MAYBE got a couple good ones. We spent most of the time laughing.

We took a ferry from Santorini to Naxos. It was alot like hearding cattle to get everyone on the boat, but it was mostly organized chaos and an uneventful trip. It was about an hour and a half ride. James got something to eat, which he enjoyed.

Waiting for the boat
Enjoying his pizza sandwich on the ferry

Our car rental meet us at the Port, and we drive to the Villa Paradise where we are staying in Naxos. It is absolutely beautiful. Naxos is known for its beaches and there are plenty of them.

Stefanos, the property manager checked us in and showed us to our room. The only small issue was lugging my huge suitcase up the many steps. Stefanos (who is somewhere in the 50-60 year range) threw that suitcase on his shoulder and powered up the stairs. Wow.

The villa is gorgeous with 3 bedrooms, an infinity pool, AND a washing machine (no dryer).

Sunset views from the villa

We got something to eat (over ordered as usual) and hit the supermarket for the essentials: water, wine, and coffee.

A quick visit to the beach before the sun goes down. The water is freezing.

Looking forward to exploring this island!

Greece 2022

International travel with James…… it’s been a while. But, when Justin pitched the idea of Greece, I thought it would be a great trip to bring him on. He is much older and MUCH easier than he was when we went to Spain/ France in October 2016. He carries his own suitcase and tends to his own things (mostly).

On the way there, we went from Dallas to London to Santorini. I’m sure Justin will give alot more detail on the trip/ flight planning, but I’m glad our “points fairy” could figure out a way to get us first class/ business class status. It just makes life easier and more comfortable. I know that we are very lucky.

There was a Harry Potter store in the London airport, so, obviously, we had to visit that.

Harry Potter store, Heathrow

It was an uneventful trip to Santorini. James and I probably slept a solid 3 hours of the 9 hour flight. It’s about 4 hours from London to Santorini, and James slept most of them, so not much to report there.

I would have to be put in traction if I slept in some of the positions that he sleeps in.

Justin arranged with the vacation rental for a driver to pick us up from the airport. We got to the rental without any trouble

We are very centrally located in the Oia area of Santorini. Directly outside our vacation rental seems to be a hot spot for selfies. Lots of good people watching.

Random woman taking a selfie right outside our rental…..not me 🤣🤣

We forced ourselves to stay awake with some walking around and an early dinner in order to avoid major jet lag issues. And, mostly, we were successful. James slept until 11 am the next day.

The following day, we were excited to get up and start exploring. We headed to the Ammoubi area which included a very steep downhill walk to the coast. Each view was more beautiful than the next.

📷 by James Ittmann

After walking around a bit by the coast, we got lunch at a restaurant by the water. We probably over ordered, but there is so much to try! We got Taramasala (fish roe dip), grilled feta, octopus, mussels, and Greek salad (along with some other things). Everything was so delicious and so fresh.

James trying mussels
Grilling up the fresh seafood
It doesn’t get fresher than this. Right off the boat to the restaurant.

So, after lunch we decided to take a taxi to Thira and attempt to walk back to Oia. Justin presented this as a 1.5-2 hour walk. Supposedly, this is a great thing to do with kids in Greece. Well, not my kid.

After about an hour of walking (largely uphill), Justin checked and we had only made it about a quarter of the way. That’s when the group started to fall apart. The idea of taking the bus back was presented, and after alot of internal struggle and a few tears, we decided to go to the bus station. Long story short, the bus didn’t work out, but we got a cab and made it back.

We hung out for a little while then it was off to dinner. We ate at Elinikon. We didn’t have reservations, but they squeezed us in early and said we had to be out by 7:20. No problem. We had some delicious hummus, stuffed grape leaves, calamari, and other things. Everything was delicious. I’m so proud of James for trying lots of new foods today. We were done in plenty of time and they even sent us off with a taste of sweet Greek wine.

We passed on dessert at the restaurant in favor of gelato at a nearby shop.

After that, James had his heart set on going to a souvenir shop to buy something that caught his eye yesterday.

I guess you can never have too many knives 🤷‍♀️

Overall, a very successful first full day!

I’m not sure how much I’m going to blog. Probably not every day, but maybe every other day. Looking forward to exploring this beautiful country.

Roatan 2021

I’ll do a quick recap of our family trip to Roatan – mostly with pictures.  I do not have a ton to report on the day to day.  It was mostly diving, snorkeling, eating, drinking, and relaxing.

My parents wanted to do our first family vacation since 2005.  They preferred a Caribbean destination with a pool, beach front, snorkeling, A/C…and preferably not obscenely expensive.  My brother and I actually ended up independently finding the house we’d end up renting.

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The House

The house…it’s been alluded to on here numerous times.  If you know us, you’ve likely at least heard about it.  If you us well, you’ve likely been several times during/after the project. 

From March 2017 when we started looking into the possibility of buying the house to March 2019 when we moved in, it consumed most of our free time.  I had to organize the financing, plans, permits, acted as contractor, and physically did a ton of the work too.  Alyce had to double up on everything at home since I was always busy; she also helped do some work too when available.

In this post, I’ll try to go over purchasing the house and making plans, the things we did, before/after, and thoughts after living in it for nearly two years.

Buying the house

We liked our old house, but we knew we would prefer a little more space.  I also had always wanted to design and build a house.  Additionally, we did not want to leave our neighborhood.  The last two items did not line up with each other as lot prices (really tear-downs) were high and going higher.

With that in mind, we started to expand our search to houses that would need renovation.  I don’t know we had in mind the full scope of renovations we’d eventually do, but we were looking for potential.

There was a house or two we looked at, but saw people working on the house at the end of the block for the first time in a while as I was walking James.  This was notable for several reasons…

This particular house was vacant since Katrina (12 years).  This was very odd, as the lot alone was worth a whole lot as it was an oversized corner lot and faced the lakefront and the Canal boulevard neutral ground.  The house had the potential for good curb appeal.  And while not a major factor, it did have some history to it in that New Orleans musician Al Hirt lived in it for a long time.

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2021 Planned Travel

I write this half-way through January with high hopes for the year.  But I also know that things could be all over the place.

Alyce has already been vaccinated.  I’d expect that makes it easier for her to travel as things open back up.  I have not, and I’m likely several months out (at a minimum) from being eligible.

We had to cancel Japan and Napa in 2020.  I’m looking to load up 2021 to make up for the lack of 2020 travel, combined with the fact that we were already behind on travel for the last several years with all the house related stuff.

Roatan (March) – This is a family trip with my parents and brother/his fiancé.  It will be the first trip we’ve taken like this in a long time (2005 was our last family trip – to Grand Cayman and without significant others).  I feel confident this one will happen.  Roatan has remained open since the fall and will likely do what they can to accept tourist.  We are currently experiencing a post-holiday uptick in Covid, but I’m hopeful that will settle down as we move away from the holidays and more people are vaccinated.

Hawaii (May) – We plan on spending 10 days in Hawaii with James: 5 in Maui and 5 in Kauai.  I looked into Hawaii a good bit for our fall 2020 trip, but it didn’t work out.  I wanted to get it in this year.  We will stay at a couple Hyatts, taking advantage of my status.  James should enjoy himself.  It’s technically a domestic trip, so I think it is more likely to happen.  It also fits in well with our longer term travel plans, which will have us more likely focusing on one longer trip a year.

Fort Morgan, AL (June) – This is an extended family beach trip.  We drive and were able to do it in 2020.  I’d rate it at likely to happen.

Japan (September/October) – Got this one scheduled for two weeks.  We currently have business class booked in both directions.  I may upgrade to First class if it becomes available on Japan Airlines.  We have stays booked on points at a number of nice Hyatts.  I’ll likely start working on restaurant reservations in a couple months. 

I’m also not that confident this one will happen.  With the vaccine, I give it a much better shot than I did a couple months back, but I’d think it’s still 50/50.  Good news is we’ve got 9+ months to go and things could be very different by then.  Bad news is Japan has been very restrictive on international travel with no plans to relax the restrictions.  We’ll see, as we really would like to go to Japan.

If not, the next place I’d look would be Europe (likely France) if open for international travel.  Should that fail, we’d look back at the national parks in the US.

Other – We have paid for a good portion of a Napa VRBO for the wedding we were supposed to attend in 2020.  I know our group would like to try to make that work at some point.

I currently have a promotional Southwest Companion Pass – not sure why.  It seems like it would be a waste to not use that.

That’s the plan.  As is the case with everything these days, it’s all up in the air as to what actually happens.

Cancun – November 2019

This trip came about because I had expiring frequent flyer miles (Singapore Airlines if I remember correctly) that I just noticed the night they were set to expire – I get an email notice…when it’s working.  Not wanting to let that happen, I searched for something in North America to book with the miles that was appropriate for November.  Mexico was one of the few options with availability for 3.  Also, there is a really nice all-inclusive Hyatt there.  Mexican all-inclusives are not usually our style, but this one sounded good.   Worst case, it is way better than nothing.

For this wrap up, I’m going to give a general overview.  Not much use in doing the day to day.  If interested, I can sum it up in a sentence: get up, eat, James goes to the kids club, we hang out and drink margaritas by the beach, get James for a little bit, snorkel, maybe pool, sometimes James went to dinner at the kids club, sometimes he’d eat with us….and if he was at the club, we’d make our way to the tequila bar.  Mix in some evening shows and multiple stops at the café, and you have it.  We did not leave the property, and that was fine.

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South America 2017

Well…I write this 3+ years after we took the trip.  The memories are not as fresh as they once were.  But, I have notes and pictures.  That should be enough to give a general idea of the trip.

As you may (or may not) recall, our 2017 trips were supposed to be Portugal/Spain in the spring, Charleston in the summer, and TBD for the remainder.  Buying our house changed that.  Portugal/Spain became a long weekend in New York.  Charleston stayed the same.  Nothing else was planned, but I wanted to fit something in.  In the fall, we found award availability in early December and made the call to spend a week between Chile and Argentina.

Why these destinations?  I had been wanting to make it to South America for quite some time.  Also, it is a relatively easy trip compared to Asia, Australia, etc.  And our last 3 international trips had been Euro-focused, so changing it up was not a bad idea.

We found business flights in both directions for the two of us (James would be staying home with his grandparents for this one).  There were a couple hotel options in Santiago, Chile – but we ended up in the Crowne Plaza. Points redemption was reasonable there, and the location was good as well. 

In Buenos Aires, the options began and end at the Park Hyatt.  We booked it with points through a friend who is a Globalist (formerly Diamond) member and received guest of honor benefits. 

For some customary intro stuff before I get into the day-to-day…Argentina and Chile are long countries (top to bottom) separated by the Andes mountains.  They are both Spanish speaking countries, and each had a more European feel than you might expect where we were – especially Buenos Aires.  Size wise, the United States has about 3.5 times the area of Argentina and 13 times the are of Chile.  Population – The US is about 7.5 times the size of Argentina and 13 times the size of Chile.

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