As I am writing this (a few weeks after my spring break), I have only about five weeks left in Madrid. I know I said the same thing last semester, but I really can’t believe how fast time is going by.
Between traveling, figuring out logistics for the summer and next year and, yes, some schoolwork as well, my time in Europe is coming to an end.
Spring break (or Semana Santa as it’s called here) is, for most students at UC3M, a time to go home and spend Easter with your family. For exchange students, it is a time to cram in as much of Europe as is possible in ten days. And we really tried out hardest. Within ten days, we visited five cities and three countries, got to know six different airports very well and stayed in five different accommodations.
We left Madrid on Friday, our last day of class, and flew to Nice in the South of France. I didn’t know much about Nice before our trip, but it really is such a beautiful part of the country. I got to polish up my one semester of French skills as well and eat delicious crepes, pizza and gelato. The beaches in Nice are absolutely beautiful, and though it was too cold to swim, we spent a lot of time hanging out reading, eating ice cream and watching the sunset.
We also took a day trip to the village of Eze and Monte Carlo. Eze was like a little stone maze on top of a mountain with cliffs on all sides that drop down in to the Mediterranean and had some pretty spectacular views. It also had an interesting garden at the very top of the village with statues and exotic plants.
Monte Carlo was a bit of a let down. We were there for probably a total of about 45 minutes in which time we took in the casino (from the outside because we were all under 21), walked through some of the fancy shops and admired the many enormous yachts in the bay. We all definitely preferred Nice and Eze to Monte Carlo.
After Nice was a pretty cool flight over the Alps to Zurich for a layover (where we all of course bought Swiss chocolate in the airport). We were then off to Athens for our second stop. We had the afternoon in Athens and then had booked ferry tickets to Santorini for the next day. Since all of the museums closed pretty early, we decided to take a hike up Mount Lycabettus. It was extremely windy at the top, but we had a great view of all of Athens and the Acropolis from afar.
We had some tasty Greek food for dinner. I never really thought I liked Greek food, but I ate so much souvlaki, gyro, tzatziki and yogurt that week. I am craving it as I type. We woke up around five in the morning to get to the port and catch our 7:30 ferry. Unfortunately, upon our arrival at the port, we were informed that no ferries would be leaving for Santorini that day due to weather.
At this point we were all half awake and carrying all of our bags, and none of us had data on our phones. We all piled into this tiny corner deli, ordered a coffee and frantically searched our iPhones for other options.
Eventually we booked ourselves on a five am flight the next morning from Athens to Santorini, called our guesthouse in Santorini to arrange to come late and decided that we would be sleeping at the airport that night.
After a delicious breakfast of baklava and cheese pastries (which was definitely necessary at this point), we lugged all of our things back to our airbnb from the night before who kindly allowed up to store our things until about 10 pm. We spent the day at the Acropolis and Acropolis museum, and around 10 pm we took an Uber to the airport and attempted to sleep until our flight the next morning.
We arrived in Santorini in time to see the sunrise around 6:30 and took a bus into Fira where our guesthouse was. After we checked in, we promptly all fell asleep for about five hours. That afternoon we decided there was no time like the present to attempt the 7 miles hike from the village of Fira to Oia in to see the sunset. We almost turned back because of the wind, but we pushed through and made the trek in time to see the sunset and catch the packed bus back to Fira. It was so worth it. My only regret was that we did not have more time to stop of take pictures because literally every ten steps was a different photo opportunity.
In our final two days in Santorini we spent time hanging out on the black sand beaches of Perissa and took a boat ride out to an active volcano. We flew back to Athens on Saturday and then had a leisurely day walking around the city. As a great way to cap off the trip, our flight from Athens was delayed, leading us to miss our connection back to Nice. Fortunately, Lufthansa came in clutch and put us all up in a hotel in Frankfurt for the night with free breakfast and dinner.
We arrived at the Nice airport around two pm the next day and hung out there until our flight back to Madrid at 6:30. I think we were all very happy to be home and sleeping in our own beds.
It was a pretty amazing trip, and I made some amazing memories. But I never want to step foot in an airport again.
Next weekend we will be going to Rome, and I know I am so excited for some real Italian food. I am also trying to check some day trips and local things off my Madrid bucket list, so I’ll keep you all posted!
Eliza Abroad 