Getting from Athens to Paros sounded simple enough. Get on a ferry. Sit for a few hours. Get off on an island.

I was picturing something along the lines of the Staten Island Ferry, only longer and presumably with better scenery.

This was not that.

We chose a high-speed ferry, which would get us to Paros in about three hours, and arrived to find a long line of passengers waiting to board. Everyone had luggage. Everyone seemed to know what they were doing. Cars were somehow joining the operation too, driving directly into the belly of the vessel while the rest of us shuffled forward on foot.

The boarding process happens one person at a time, and while you’re standing there watching hundreds of people funnel toward the entrance, it feels mathematically impossible that this boat is going to leave when it says it will.

And then it does. Exactly when it says it will.

In fact, shortly after we sat down, I turned to my son and asked when he thought we’d actually leave.

He looked at me.

We were already moving.

I hadn’t even noticed.

Once aboard, I realized that taking a Greek ferry is surprisingly similar to flying. There are assigned seats and, apparently, classes. We looked up toward an area above us that appeared to be the ferry equivalent of business class, with larger, considerably plushier seats. Our own section had rows of seats arranged much like an airplane cabin, except you could get up and wander around without waiting for the seatbelt sign to turn off.

There was also food. Actual food.

The ferry had a full snack and food bar, along with coffee, cappuccinos and, because this is Greece and Greece understands what travelers actually need, freddos. There was Wi-Fi too, which meant that somewhere in the middle of the Aegean Sea, you could drink a cappuccino freddo while checking your email.

The three hours passed surprisingly quickly. There was something wonderfully strange about knowing that beneath us were cars, around us were hundreds of people, and outside was the Aegean, while we sat comfortably drinking coffee on our way to an island.

Getting off the ferry, however, was an experience unto itself.

As we approached Paros, everyone began migrating downstairs with their bags. We followed and eventually found ourselves packed together near the enormous doors in the lower part of the ship. It felt less like disembarking from public transportation and more like preparing for an exodus.

We stood there, shoulder to shoulder, luggage everywhere, waiting.

Then the massive doors began to open.

Sunlight came pouring inside as though none of us had seen daylight in days. Suddenly the entire crowd started moving forward together, emerging from the belly of the ferry into the blinding Greek sun, hundreds of passengers and suitcases spilling onto Paros at once.

And just like that, we were on an island.

There are faster ways to travel around Greece, and certainly calmer ways to arrive somewhere. But taking the ferry made getting to Paros feel like part of the trip rather than transportation between two parts of it.

Three hours earlier, we’d been in Athens.

The doors opened, the sunlight hit us, and Greece had completely changed.

For the return to Athens, we decided to switch things up and fly, which turned out to be its own experience. The Paros airport is tiny, the kind of place that makes you wonder briefly whether you’ve accidentally wandered into the wrong building. Our plane was a small propeller aircraft, which felt appropriately island-sized after arriving on a ferry carrying hundreds of people and their cars.

The flight itself was almost comically short. It felt as though we’d been in the air for only a few minutes when an announcement came over the speaker telling us we were beginning our descent into Athens. After three hours crossing the Aegean by ferry, suddenly we were looking down at it from above and, almost as quickly as we’d taken off, preparing to land.

I’m glad we did it both ways. The flight was certainly faster, but the ferry felt like an experience. It gave us three hours to watch Athens disappear behind us and anticipate the island ahead, even if I somehow missed the exact moment we left the dock.