A plethora of choices

I am a research nerd, so before I left on my trip I did extensive research on all the places I wanted to go. I talked to people who had been to Greece (close friends, friends of friends, and randoms!). One of my best friends is Greek and told me about her summers in Athens, Nafplio, and Monemvasia. A friend of my boyfriend's mother told me about her yearly trips to the Peloponnesus, to the island of Kythira, home to the goddess Aphordite. Kythira (and Cyprus) claim to be the birth place of Aphordite from the foam of the sea. In fact Aphros- means foam in Ancient Greek.

I acquired quite a few guide books to Greece and also did extensive Internet research. I knew I wanted to spend time in Athens and go to Santorini. I wanted to see ruins, temples, artifacts, museums, and eat chicken souvlaki, pita and tzatziki. Could I maybe get to Crete, or see the ancient oracle of Delphi? Oooh I wanted to see Olympia on the east coast of Greece, and then perhaps ferry to bus 6 hours back and take a 12 hour ferry to Cyprus off Turkey. Could I get to Egypt? Malta? Ok, now this trip was getting out of hand. I needed a year to do everything I wanted too.

I soon came to realize that even with 5 weeks there was no way I could see everything I wanted to. It just drove me crazy to know I would be so close to everything and not be able to see it.

Lonely Planet's Guide to Greece is an awesome resource. I got the one for all of Greece, and one for the Islands. I started my investigation with my highlighter, marking everything of interest to me and trying to figure out how I was going to get around the country without a car. Part of me decided to go with the flow once I got to Greece, and the other part of me had a long list of place I hoped to hit.

I decided that maybe it would be a good idea to start the trip after time in Athens with some kinds of backpacker trip before I went off on my own. I came accross Fez Travel http://www.feztravel.com/ and decided to start the trip off on a Cycladic Island Hopping tour before I branched out solo.