TIPS TO MAKE YOUR TRIP EASIER
Ferries
If you want to visit several islands, be sure of your ferry connections. The main ferry routes run within island groups, and there are very few connections (if any) between, say, a Cyclades island and a Saronic island. (Also consider flying – especially between Athens and the islands.)
There are fast ferries (catamarans) and slow ferries. But before you book anything, check the schedules, especially if you’re visiting an isolated island, as the ferries don’t always run every day. We realised this having already secured our accommodation, and had to do a lot of island-hopping to get to our destinations. A bit of forward planning would have saved us a good number of hours at sea.
Faced with making several connections, we handed all our ferry bookings over to a Piraeus travel agency (filippistours.gr/en/filippistours-greece). All we did was pick up our tickets from them.
Catamarans are 10 times the price of the old, slow ferries, and twice as fast. While Linda much preferred the ‘cats’, I loved strolling the decks as the old-timer thumped her way across the sea.
In high season, the ferries are crammed, so consider booking first-class seating if you don’t want to be scrumming with grey-haired Greek tannies who will elbow you out of the way when boarding. (They could teach the Boks a thing or two about rucking.)
Beware the unpredictable winds. Never book a ferry back to Athens on the same day as your flight. If there are any weather issues, you might be stuck for days. The notorious meltemi winds are meant to blow in July/ August, yet we were stranded in mid-September.
Car hire
Plan ahead. We hired a Fiat 500 cabriolet for seven days on Andros for R577 a day. There were several options when we emailed car hire firms from South Africa – not so easy when we tried once we were on an island. On Sifnos, only one of the five car hire firms replied and said they had no cars
– and this wasn’t even high season.
If you need a taxi or a shuttle when you arrive at a port, it’s best to book ahead. We assumed that taxis would line the port at Kamares on Sifnos, and they did – but they were all pre-booked.
Prices
Costs vary widely depending on the island. Sifnos, Syros and Hydra were more expensive, and Andros about a third less. (Mykonos is really pricey.)
In terms of food, mains on the more expensive islands were about 16 euros for sea bass or squid, 10 euros on the cheaper islands, and about 18.50 euros for prawn saganaki.
A bottle of wine is between 22 and 30 euros, but almost all restaurants offer a carafe of wine for about nine euros. And it’s good wine, so stick to that!
Dinner in Sifnos, Syros and Hydra was between 45 and 56 euros for two; this included two main courses, a salad and a carafe of wine. Andros averaged 36 euros for the same food and wine combinations.