Advertisement
Published: November 17th 2011
Piraeus Port
View of another ferry from our ferryWe were up at 4:45am to get our transfer at 5:30am to the ferry at Piraeus port. Our ferry was Highspeed 6 and was at 7am. It’s always a huge pain in the ass to get on the ferry with a bunch of luggage, but we had no other choice but to bring it all with us to the islands. I think if I did it again I would pack much, much less stuff. We left our large bags down in the auto garage luggage storage area and headed up to our assigned seats. Poor Rachael got stuck next to an annoying guy who hogged more than his share of space.
The ferry took about three and a half hours to get to Ios arriving about 10:30ish. Our transfer/agent was waiting for us when we arrived. We went to the Ios Palace Hotel which was only a few minutes from the port. The hotel was totally amazing and beautiful! There was a welcome drink in the lobby and we met the Beverage Manager George there as well. Our room wasn’t ready when we got there but we changed into our bathing suits and hit the lower hotel pool while we
Piraeus Port
View of another ferry from our ferry waited and we also grabbed some lunch at the restaurant by the pool. After a few hours our room (#121) was ready.
When the desk clerk went to bring us up to our room the lower elevator was not working, so we walked up several staircases and ramps to the top level of the hotel. There were 2 elevators with a ramp in between to reach our room from the lobby or lower pool area. Luckily they drove our luggage up and around behind the hotel so we didn’t have to lug everything up all those stairs. We had a triple room with a king size bed and a twin bed. The bathroom was a good size too. We were able to put things away here so that we didn’t have to trip over our luggage when we walked around the room.
Our room had a large private patio area overlooking the lower parts of the hotel and Mylopotas beach. Just about 30ft from our room was the juice bar and upper pool area. The upper pool was a bit smaller that the lower one but was very nice also. Both pools were salt water. The pool deck
Piraeus Port
View from our ferry area had several beds with billowy gauzy drapes and colorful pillows! Just beautifull like a postcard! Pretty much as soon as we got to our room and checked everything out, we took a serious nap, after only a couple hours of sleep the night before we were exhausted. We woke up around 10pm, got ready, grabbed a taxi and headed into Ios Town.
We had dinner at a restaurant called Kalypso which was owned by four brothers and served traditional Greek food. It was really delicious and it was also a place that Steve, Alice and I ate at back in 2007. This particular restaurant was outside on both sides of one of the narrow alleys of Ios Town and also had an upstairs inside eating area as well. Very, very cool place.
Next we hit Ios Blue, Flames, Circus and Rehab. We met some British guys in Flames and hung out with them the rest of the night; Jon, Matty, Jonathan and Wilson. I'm guessing the bar is called flames because the bartender juggles flaming liquor bottles. At one point one of the flaming bottles landed upright on the top shelf of liquor and lit the ceiling on
fire, another time the bartender lit his shirt on fire. I can’t ever imagine this happening in the states! Both Rachel and I ended up dancing on the tiny counter along the wall, thankfully there’s no photographic evidence! I ended up talking quite a bit to Matty as he works for VW in London and owns an S3 – I’m jealous!!. From here we went to Circus with the Brits, although Wilson stayed at Flames, and had drinks called Flaming Lamborghini’s, which were literally on fire when you drank them. Finally we went into Rehab and watched girls doing body shots off of guys. Jon was so drunk he pants’d one of the guys – nothing impressive there believe me!
Kostas, who fast became our favorite taxi driver, picked us up outside of the Scorpion Club which is just outside of Ios Town heading toward our hotel. The taxis don’t like to drive down to the plateia area late at night because there are so many people in the streets it takes them too long. We got back to the hotel around 6am. There was a yellow Labrador looking kind of dog sleeping in the hotel lobby and we
Ios Palace Hotel
View of Mylopotas Beach from the lower pool deck said hello to him on the way up to our room.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.203s; Tpl: 0.02s; cc: 8; qc: 23; dbt: 0.177s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
