Santorini

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We woke up and saw white caps on the water, and a very windy day. This made for a choppy 3 hour ferry ride to Santorini. Anticipating sea sickness, Gigi and Chris pulled out all the tricks they knew. Chris ran into town to grab some souvlaki’s, fries, sodas, and water to eat on the ferry. Gigi waited anxiously for Chris to get back as she saw the ferry arrive. We were one of the last people to board the rocky ship. Gigi focused from her middle seat on the horizon out the window while eating souvlaki to fight the sea sickness. After about an hour of focusing on the horizon non-stop, a man got up two seats behind us and asked everyone around if anybody had a plastic bag because his friend was not going to make it.


When we arrived in Santorini, we were greeted at the port by a man from our hotel that drove us up a winding road to our hotel. We checked in and checked out our view from our terrace - amazing! Santorini is an island that used to be one big circular island, but then a huge volcano erupted sinking most of the island leaving a caldera surrounding a volcano and a few smaller islands. Our room overlooked this view.
This is the first time that we ever stayed at a hotel that required us to turn on the hot water ten minutes before taking a shower and turn it off after we were done.


We explored the charming town of Fira for a bit and then headed back to our room to sit on our terrace to enjoy a bottle of wine made by the owner of our hotel, some sesame covered peanuts, and a breathtaking sunset over the volcano.


We went out to dinner and tried some of Santorini’s famous fava, a yellow split pea dip. We also had some delicious white eggplant as well as prawns saganaki.


The next day we took a bus to a beach. No white sand beaches here, the sand is black from the volcano. It is really cool to see black sand, but really hot to step on.


After a few hours at the beach, we left to go board a boat trip. The best way to the port was by cable car, you could have walked or taken a donkey down, but we thought riding on a donkey is a little cruel and if you decide to walk you have to take the same path the donkeys take and walk through everything they left behind.


The boat sailed to the volcano, where we hiked. We then sailed to some hot springs off another island where we were able to swim in a reddish brown warm water. We then sailed to anther island where we swam off the ship in the most crystal clear water we have ever seen. You were able to clearly see your toes when you were treading in water! We were treated by some wine and mezhades (greek appetizers) of bread, tzadziki, dolmades, eggplant dip, spinach pie, olives, meatballs, cucumbers, and tomatoes. We then sailed to a spot where we had an unobstructed view of the sunset over the water.


After the boat ride, we showered and went out to dinner and enjoyed some of the best lamb we ever ate. The lamb was so tender that it just fell off the bone. We also had some cheese saganaki and fried tomatoes and enjoyed a bottle of Santorini rose wine.


The next day we rented a car to drive around the island. We first drove to another black beach were we hung out and had lunch on the boardwalk of grilled feta stuffed eggplant, eggplant dip, tzadziki, fava, fish roe potato dip, dolmades, olives, cucumbers, tomatoes, capers, and olives. We then drove to Red Beach where you have to hike up and down a cliff to get there. The beach is surrounded by red cliffs and has red sand created by the volcano.
On our way to our next destination, we saw a sign for the lighthouse, so we followed the sign which led us all the way to the top point of the caldera where you could look out over the caldera to see the rest of the island. Then, back to our destination, wine tasting. We stopped at Santo Winery where we sat outside and tried 6 different wines served to us with some cheese, olives, crusty bread and ketchup like dip. The wine was great, but the view made the experience so amazing.


We then drove all the way to the opposite side of the caldera to the town of Oia. We walked though the picturesque town and then found a place to sit, with what seemed like everyone else on the island, to what the sunset.
We drove back to town of Fira and went out to dinner where we had some meatballs in tomato sauce, moussaka, and a mixed grill of meats.


The next day we packed up and left Santorini by ferry. The ferry was an hour late and the ride four hours longer than we thought, making for an eight hour long ferry ride. For the first time on our trip, we were bored. We wrote the blog, played cards, read Outliers, and watched tv shows we downloaded. We arrived in Athens at 8:00pm, and made it by Metro to our hotel by 9:30pm. We checked into the exact same room we had before we left for the islands. We returned to our beloved Savas restaurant craving their lamb gyros, but they ran out so we tried some other dishes including lamb dish with a lamb, pita, and yogurt as well as a grilled chicken kebab and grilled eggplant. We ate outside on the street along with many others watching the tvs that had been placed outside to watch the football game.


Wednesday was our last day in Athens and it was a hot one. We visited the temple of Zeus and Hadrian’s Arch. We went to Parliament and watched the changing of the guards ceremony at the tomb of the unknown soldier. They lift up their legs really high when they walk, I don’t understand why this helps protect the tomb.


We made our way by Metro to the National Archeological Museum where we saw many artifacts that were found on the Acropolis along with other collections. We took a couple pictures at the museum. In front of a statue of Heracles, Chris decided to pose just like him, but before Gigi could snap the picture the guard yells “ No Posing!” , for some reason, you are allowed to take pictures, but you are not allowed to pose in them.


We went to Monastraki to have a lunch of pastisio, lamb souvlaki, and tzatziki. We spent the rest of the day shopping. While shopping we saw one more site, but we didn’t want to see this one (see picture if you dare).
When we arrived back to our hotel, we read a sign they had posted stating that there would be a strike the next day. This meant no metro, no bus, and the airport would be closed for 4 hours. Taxis would be available. Soon we realized that our flight was delayed a few hours due to the strike at the airport. A little hiccup, but we thought everything should be fine.


That evening, we grabbed a chicken gyros to go and crepe with Nutella, banana, strawberry, and chocolate, headed back to our air conditioned room and watched Spain beat Germany at football. We knew this would be the case since Paul, the octopus, had predicted this. After all, Paul was the top story on BBC World News.


Thursday morning we woke up, walked around the Plaka, and went back to Savas to get a €1.80 lamb gyro with mustard sauce to go - absolutely delicious. We stopped by our favorite little store in Athens to grab some pastries that all tastes like different versions of baklava to take back to the United States. We got back to our hotel and they called us a taxi.


The next hour was spent trying to wait for a taxi, as we heard the shouts of the protesters get louder, we realized there was no way that a taxi would make it down our street due to the strike. Finally, our hotel receptionists told us that we would have to walk with our luggage to another spot where we could find a taxi. She gave us directions which included passing the Parliament building and making a left. We found ourselves in 95 degrees heat, making our way through the strikers with our luggage in tow. We saw riot police marching by and avoided them in case they decided to use tear gas. It was hot and scary. As we went to make our left turn, we were taken back to see a row of riot police with shields in place, the only way to get a taxi was to make it by these police men. We made it by, and eventually found a taxi, we have never been happier to get into a taxi in our lives.


An eight hour flight later, we were in Montreal, Canada. We checked into the airport hotel, made our way by bus and metro to see Old Montreal and stayed up to go out to dinner. After a plate of fries with gravy and cheese, we went back to our hotel and crashed.


We are looking forward to coming back home. Gigi wants a cheeseburger, Chris wants a hotdog, and we both can’t wait to enjoy our air conditioning.

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