Athens

We flew  with the little plane from samos to athens. Only 1 aisle on the plane and 2 seats each side. We arrived at athens in mid afternoon.
We visited the main tourist attractions over the 4 days there. Though we had to take a day off as we had some food poisoning and then caught a cold after a slow recovery.
We visited many museums, including acropolis museum, national archaeological museum, Benaki museum and the war museum.

The acropolis was the most impressive and has amazing views of the city. It's unbelievable how the it was built such a long time ago.

Food in Greece was inexpensive and most places has free wifi.
Though the serive in most restaurants tends to be really slow.

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Venice

Venice was another city that I set my heart on since start of the planning. It was truely beautiful. Though everything was really expensive. Toilet costs 1.5 euro. It costs 2-4 euro to sit down at table,  even for icecream or coffee.

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Pythagorion - Greece

After a night stay in Ephesus,  we hopped onto the bus to kusadasi. The custom process took a little while, before we get onto the ferry. The port of kusadasi had many Luxurious cruise liners. In comparison our ferry looked like a little dinghy.

The ferry leg took a little over an hour. the sea was pretty calm as well. We got to the town of vathy without feeling much sea sickness.

There are public buses from vathy to other towns in samos. Little did we know, there were only 3 buses run that day, being a Saturday.

With a little patience, we finally found our accommodation: family ran hotel zorbas.

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Pythagorion, such a peaceful town, with beautiful harbour.

We cycled to temple of hera, explored the town.

The only downside the the rural part of town is full of spring flowers, which triggered my hayfever.

We spent 2 nights at this little gorgeous town.

Our next stop is Athens!

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Ephesus

SELÇUK (Ephesus) is the thing drew me to Turkey and it didn't disappoint me.
It sits about 1 hour flight south of Istanbul (+1 hour of train).
I planned to spent a full day at Ephesus then take the ferry across to greece. Unfortunately the ferry was only available in the morning,  so we missed out a few things at selçuk.

Ephesus itself is amazing. The size of the building ruins and the detailed carving is astonishing.

The town centre is also home to lots of nesting pelicans

In the evening we tried Turkish bath for the first time! Cool experience

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Hilton Bomonti @ Istanbul

So I splurged a little when I saw this hilton sale back in January. This hilton is almost brand new, only opened end of 2013. And I paid a little extra for executive lounge access.
I did not have any regret from the moment we arrived.
Our room sit at 23rd floor. The ceiling to floor windows overlooks Istanbul city. We could see blue mosque further out.
Apart from a huge bedroom,  there is also a lounge, a mini study, a dressing room and TWO bathrooms!

We had afternoon tea at the executive lounge and also "light cocktail ". It was such good cocktail meal! From savoury filling food, to huge selection of desserts,  and include free alcohol with spirits, it was completely free!

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Istanbul

Topkapı Palace

Topkapı Palace

Inside one of the Yedikule towers

yedikule dungeon

Hagia sophia

Arriving Istanbul at 8am

Topkapı Palace overlooking Bosphorus

Inside a room in the palace

Istanbul is our first stop in our trip.  We spent a total of 3 days there. Of course we've visited the most famous attractions like Hagia sophia, topkapı palace and blue mosque we also visited some further out places like yedikule and chora church. Unfortunately i cannot transfer the photos from the camera on onto my phone, so there will be only limited photos which i'd taken from the phone.

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