Port of Kylini and Island of Zakynthos (Zante)

After we left Meteora, we headed straight for Kylini, which is where we would take the ferry to Zakynthos (called Zante by the locals). On the way to Kylini, we went over this incredible bridge. I say incredible because we paid 13 euro for the toll crossing 😦 I couldn’t believe it was so expensive.

Just a heads up to anyone who wants to drive on Greek highways: Prepare to pay. Just take out 40 euro out of the ATM and keep it in your car because you will use all. of. it. I think we went through at least twenty tolls while driving through. That’s not really so bad in America because you’re paying fifty cents here, a dollar there…Greek tolls are like, 2.50 euro. Or more, depending on what kind of car you’re in. Tractor trailers were paying something like 15 euro every thirty miles.

Olive trees everywhere!

But I digress. Let’s get back to the BEAUTIFUL MEDITERRANEAN WATER. It was unreal. I have never, ever seen water that blue, and I have been to Destin several times. It doesn’t even come close. I have no idea what makes the water that color, but holy heck it’s like simultaneously bright turquoise and clear at the same time?

We caught the ferry at Kylini and spent the next hour just staring at the water. Some people just sat in their cars the whole time, looking bored, but we felt like we were on a cruise. We walked all around that ferry boat.

Port of Zakynthos

But mostly we just couldn’t stop watching the water. Personally, I was inspecting the water for jellyfish. If you know me, you know that I am scared of jellyfish. I have no idea why. In Finding Nemo, they were really cute, so I’m guessing it’s my irrational brain thinking jellyfish = ocean spiders. I didn’t see any from the ferry, so I felt relieved.

We could get into the swimming pool from our hotel room!

Once we were off the ferry, we made our way to our resort. We chose an all-inclusive beach resort because we wanted to eat and drink and lay in the sun as much as possible. And that’s what we did for four days.

We had good company. Literally every person there besides us was British. Hundreds of Brits. Blimey.

View from the restaurant to Tsilivi Beach

The pool had all these pretty sparkle lights at night – this is the view from the other side of the pool. You can see our room (second from the right).

We got out from the resort a little bit to go sightseeing and do some activities. We went to see the Shipwreck Beach and the Blue Caves. The Shipwreck beach was beautiful, but it was really overcrowded. I think there were hundreds of people there, which is to be expected of a tourist site.

We had enough time to go swimming and explore the shipwreck (and watch people take ridiculous photos with the shipwreck) before we got back on the boat to go to the caves.

I watched at least ten people take this photo “pulling” the boat. The best was this guy in the speedos.

We stopped at the Blue Caves to do some picture taking and more swimming. We had a glass bottom boat and you could see the fish swimming around the sea floor.

I spent thirty minutes just swimming around the area. Okay, I say swimming, but it was basically me doggy paddling around. The water is so salty you hardly have to try at all (eat your heart out, Michael Phelps).  I think it was like 30 feet deep, but you could see all the way down to the bottom.

Me succeeding at not drowning in Greece

“Swimming”

We also went horseback riding. It was Claudiu’s first time. I think he enjoyed it 🙂

I found a cute dog at the horseback riding place. His name was Rocco.

Rocco loves me, see?!

After several days of gluttony and sun, it was time to start the last leg of our journey: Athens!