Introduction

After a week exploring the gorgeous island of Sicily, my boyfriend Fernando and I got on a plane headed to Athens, the capital of Greece. I had visited the ancient city more than 10 years ago, but this time we had a special reason to be there: we were invited to join the “Classical Greece” itinerary with Variety Cruises, a Greek owned family company that has been organizing cruises all over the Greek islands since 1949.

Greeks say it’s impossible to visit every single island in Greece, and due to sheer number of islands (more than 6,000 in total – 227 of them inhabited–) I can see why. Choosing which islands to visit may seem like a challenging task, but we were in luck, as the cruise we were to embark on, “Classical Greece” was the perfect combination of the islands everybody wants to visit: Santorini, Mykonos and Crete, plus the less well known small beautiful islands with crystal blue waters of Kythira and Kea, and protected archeological sites like Delos and historical wonders such as Monemvassia and Nafplion, in the Peloponnese.