IOS BABY!

As mentioned in my previous post I was planning to do a two-part series for my travels to IOS, an island in Greece. The first part of the post was about my journey around the Greek islands in order to get to IOS which became a whole trip within itself. In this week's post, I wanted to share with you what my friends and I got up to during our week together.  

Day 1- Saturday 

As told in the previous post (which I have linked here: Trip to IOS ). We travelled from London to Mykonos, then from Santorini and over to IOS by ferry to make it all in time for the sunset at 8:30pm. 

Day 2- Sunday 

On the second day, we were still pretty exhausted from our Greek odyssey so we spent the majority of the day on the beach. Making sure to keep my tan up and take swimming breaks in the secluded beach by our villa. 

I use to find tanning so boring and spent a lot of my time scrolling on my phone, however, over the last year I have found a real passion for reading so spent most of the day with my head in a book- specifically, It Ends With Us which I had chosen from my Reading List, which I created before summer began. 

To end the day before dinner we all played a round of backgammon (I observed as I have never understood the game). At the Villa, we were staying at we had a housekeeper who prepared meals for all 10 of us. This meant that no one had to worry about who was going to cook next or when we were going to get our next meal- Olga just rang the bell and we would sit down at a set table for a traditional Greek dish. 

Day 3- Monday 

As it was a beach holiday, we spent a lot of our time by the villa and on the beach, this meant that we never even needed to leave our area.  

In the evening though, we felt it was time to explore the town more. So everyone got ready and we all set off in our 'Jimmy' cars down to town, where we found this small local restaurant. All of us were so excited that we were ordering over each other. Mostly for "more tzatziki" and "extra calamari". 

After all our bellies were full with amazing food, we all set off into the centre of town for a wonder. Picking up unique earrings and purchasing many tourist gifts- like magnets for family members. 

Day 4- Tuesday 

Another day at the beach to relax and now we were ready for our first night out in IOS! 

Firstly, we headed to a port for a reservation at the Octopus Tree for dinner. Ordered plently of grilled octopus and hummus... and obviously Greek salads. 

Afterwards, we heard from the locals that there was a party happening at a Billionaires estate that was open to the public so we thought why not? We drove up to his house and then we were driven down in minibuses to his private church where we could see people dancing, music was playing and food was on the grill- plus side, everything was free.

Dancing with the locals and loading up on free drinks made us all prepared to hit the infamous IOS clubs. And let's just say that the nightlife deserves the hype. By 1am the streets had changed completely and we were no longer shopping for gifts but being taken into small bars and being served free Sex on the Beaches. We head to the 'DISCO 69' a little bit later and were there until 4am when we all exhausted so we went back to our villa to get into bed. Europeans really can stay out later than we thought but the next night we went out we planned to challenge them to that! 

Day 5- Wednesday 

My friend and I felt that we needed to visit more of the beaches on the island and took a trip across the island to explore what we called 'Pebble Beach’. Instead of the sandy beach, we had been staying on for the past week, this beach was different as it was filled with pretty and colourful pebbles- perfect to add to one's collection. 

As we were already in town we stopped off for a small lunch (which actually wasn't that small at all). With grilled sardines and Greek salads, we were recuperated to spend the rest of the day by the ocean. 

Before heading to another beach to meet the others we spent some time exploring the local churches. The white buildings and simple interior are so different from the churches I have visited in the UK, this truly added to our trip and reminded me of how appreciative I should be to experience new cultures once again.

To finish the day off before we headed home for Olga's dinner, all of us decided to participate in a challenge. We all jumped onto a droplet which was towed by a speed boat and then pulled along- the catch was if you could stay on the ride would be for free. And... only I managed to stay on!  

Day 6- Thursday 

The 18th of August 2022 was a big day for A level students as our results were coming out so everyone had to be prepared. We spent the majority of the morning on phone calls to friends and family giving the (good) news. 

After all the craziness of the past couple months and the anticipation of waiting for our grades we didn’t have much energy to do anything that day but we did want to get out. That afternoon we got into our ‘Jimmy’s’ and went round the island stopping off at local churches we hadn’t visited before, including one that was built over a hundreds of years old remains.

Once we got back we enjoyed celebration drinks and a homemade dinner before getting ready for our final night of clubbing in IOS! 

We started with the bars and then moved on to the clubs. This time we wanted to test more of the nightclubs around the town but ultimately went back to the original club we had gone to on the first night- DISCO 69!!

Day 7- Friday 

The last day was quiet sad- no one wanted to leave the Villa and definitely not Greece. However, to make the most of it we spent the day hanging around the beach our villa was on. I spent the day tanning and reading while others went off exploring the ocean for sea urchins and fish. 

To say our final goodbyes we decided to treat ourself to our last dinner out in town in a restaurant on the sea. Behind us music was blasting from the beach club called FarOut which we enjoyed from a distance as we were all too tired to go our dancing again that night.

Overall I would extremely recommend IOS to anyone who is interested in both a relaxing beach holiday and a crazy night out at the nightclubs- it’s the best of both worlds! 

Love, 

Aria XO