This week many of my travel friends are in Athens, Greece for the TBEX conference, sadly, I was unable to attend due to work commitments. I’m a bit (very) jealous not to be sharing the adventures with them this week so I thought I’d share some of my favorite Greece photos (note these are all unedited photos, the country really is that gorgeous – no filter needed!).

My first visit to Greece was over twenty years ago as part of a group tour with visits to multiple cities and a day cruise to various islands to explore.  At the time, I was just out of college and excited to explore the storied history and see all the ancient ruins I had studied in my European History class. It was interesting to see how the world had grown around the ruins (just like in Rome, Paris and other European cities), life in the form of cars, traffic and people passed by history on a daily basis as it was just part of the landscape.

Our first stop was Athens and a small 3 star hotel in the center of town, I remember looking outside the window to see columns from a temple a short distance away, it was unreal. I had only seen the ruins in textbooks and the encyclopedia (for the young readers it was a very short version of the internet in book form).  That feeling of wow! would follow me throughout the country as I tried to imagine life in ancient times.   We climbed to the top of the Acropolis and even then it was under construction/restoration.  We knocked at a door in the middle of the row of shops with no number and were granted access into a private, hidden restaurant we had read about (we counted the number of doors hoping to knock on the right one).  We did shots of ouzo (anise flavored liquor) because we were told that was what you did in Greece.  We ate at seaside restaurants, explored the ruins of Olympia (I tried to imagine the first Olympiad) and like sponges soaked it all in.  I have the photos in a box, the big box of old photos and negatives which someday I will transfer to digital.  The first memories of Greece were ones to cherish – we were young, budget conscious and naive – we had a great time!

The second memories of Greece just three years ago are layered.  These were my first visit to the islands of Mykonos, Santorini, Rhodes and Crete. All were one day visits on the Celebrity Constellation Turkey/Greek Isles cruise that began and ended in Istanbul.  This time, I was no longer young, no longer naive, had more money and experience to take it all in.  With years of stories, photos, internet, etc., it’s hard to return to the Greece (or any place in my opinion) of yesteryear (aka life before the internet and mobile phones) so I challenged myself to get lost and find new things (bakeries, local cafes, the donut lady, etc.). This time, I saw the beauty of the Greek life, the simplicity of the towns on the islands, the sad reality of changes that mass tourism has brought (I was contributing by cruising myself) and I sought to find a quiet spot as I wandered to remember the naive traveler I once was – happy to just sit and stare at the water, happy to be away from home learning about new cultures and meeting new people. The taste of the Greek Isle life was much too short each day in port – it definitely warrants a longer visit to one or two islands.  Greece has so much to offer – cities, towns, islands, history, food, culture, ouzo and wine and the views of the water, well those are pretty fantastic too!

So flash forward to today when my travel blogger friends are visiting Athens and surrounding cities and islands for the first time, I’m having so much fun following their tweets and Instagram as I get to see the cities and sights through their eyes for the first time which is always fun to do (follow hastags #Tbex and #TbexAthens this week).   Maybe next year, I can go back to Greece to find a hidden cafe to relax in with a glass of wine and a bit of ouzo staring out at the water…smiling with appreciation for the many wonders of Greece and special memories I’ve created over the years. Or maybe, I will change the view and be on the boat (preferable a yacht – a girl can dream!) and see the country from a different vantage point, Greece gives you a plethora of options to explore so indulge in each one.