One of my favourite stories growing up was how our trip to Kashmir was planned based on an article in a grocery bag made out of newspaper , which my father happened to come across when he went to buy sugar. Back in those days, when we lived in sleepy little Shillong, this was as impulsive as one could get, planning a family vacation with nothing more than a grocery bag as your tour guide. Well, almost 3 decades later, our trip to Greece was also conceived along vaguely similar lines. My husband and I were generally musing about how the baby was growing up fast and would soon be two, and all of a sudden it hit us! Turning 2 would mean 1 extra plane ticket to buy for all future air travels. Reason enough to plan a trip pronto? Enough and more for sure! A few minutes of throwing ideas back and forth, and we knew we wanted to go to Greece. The draw of those pristine blue waters, the romance of ancient history and the exotic charm of white and blue Santorini towns - Greece seemed just the perfect traveler's delight. We briefly considered clubbing Greece and Turkey, since they were so close together, but soon chickened out as we were not confident enough to be able to pull off 2 countries with a toddler, that too on his very first international trip. On hindsight, we should have been braver, it was much easier than we thought.
Planning the itinerary was hard - there's just so much to see! With just more than a week on hand, we came up with the following plan. It sounds rushed, but with excellent connectivity and short flying times between places, I'd say it was just perfect for us.
Day 1 - Bangalore to Athens
Day 2 - Athens to Kefalonia in the evening
Day 3 - 4 - Kefalonia
Day 4 - Kefalonia to Athens in the evening
Day 5 - Athens to Oia
Day 6 - Oia
Day 7 - Oia - Athens
Day 8 - Back to Bangalore
We flew with Qatar, and had an excellent experience. Being our first time travelling with a baby, child friendliness was the top of the list priority. The airline scored on every count - right from smiling staff throwing us sympathetic nods as we paced up and down trying to tide over a sudden meltdown for no apparent reason, to supplying milk at just the right temperature every time we asked. I'd like to think that's standard for most international carriers, but my subsequent travels have taught me otherwise. The route we chose came with quite a long layover at Doha, but that turned out to be a good thing as it let my son use up his energy running around. The Hamad airport at Doha has a wonderful play area for children with interesting slides and tunnels, and we sure made very good use of it! Our flight to Athens was much more peaceful than the preceding flight, with the baby sleeping across our laps as we flew over the Aegean Sea!
The next 8 days were like living in a dream, exploring Athens in bits and pieces, basking in the sunshine in Kefalonia and the stunning contrast of the deep blue caldera against the resplendent whiteness of Oia.
Useful links/resources (that we used):
For trip planning: Tripadvisor.com forums primarily
Flight booking: Qatar Airlines website after comparing fares on Cleartrip/Makemytrip
Flights within Greece: Fares compared on Expedia, booked directly on Airline website
Hotel booking: Booking.com, Expedia
Visa: VFS Global, Bangalore
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