Blogs from South Aegean, Greece, Europe

Yesterday's visit to Santorini was beautiful, but today's visit to Patmos was truly inspirational. Although smaller than Santorini, Patmos has been designated a Holy Site by the Vatican and a world historical site by UNESCO. All of this is due to the fact that the Disciple John was banished from Ephesus and imprisioned here for 18 months near the end of his life. During that time, John received the visions which became letters to the 7 churches of Asia Minor and later became the Book of Revelation. Today we visited the Grotto of the Revelation, a cave on the top of a beautiful hillside where John received those visions. Although once open to the sea, the cave now has a beautiful Greek Orthodox church added to it, so we were not allowed to take any inside ... read more

I spent about 4 and a half months in Kos. In this time I think I saw it rain about 3 times, one of those being a massive storm back end of the season, which I love. Sat on my balcony at about 5am with Myphos in hand, having just got in from work, watching Zeus carry out his finest work until A lightning bolt came down and struck, leaving Kardamena silent with no light. Peace at last! I have always been a fan of the Greek islands since I first ventured to Malia in Crete in 2004. Even though this was just a lads holiday it gave me an insight into the laid back approach and friendliness the Greeks bring to everyone. The waters are fascinating and it is very easy to fall in love ... read more

Santorini s the kind of place you visit for a weekend, and end up buying a little store, packing up your life and moving there. The beach front is littered with little stores owned by travellers who just couldn’t resist the pull of the volcanic island. We met a divorced English police officer, named Tess who comes to Santorini twice a year because she can’t get enough of the place, or it could be that she is secretly in love with Steve, the San Fransicoian bar tender. We stayed at a place called Annie’s which was great, the pool bar- was brilliant and everyone is super friendly to the point where you watch romantic comedies together and comment on Jennifer Anniston’s figure with no hesitation. The island has three main parts and we stayed at the ... read more

Well, once again Iv neglected this blog for afew weeks with the combination of being tired/busy and no decent wifi signal, but here in Santorini they believe in good wifi. So in the past few weeks, instead of giving full descriptions Im just going to list the cool things we've done and if you have any specific things you want to know just ask rather than making me sit here for 3 hours typing them all out in one go on here. Taxi racing in Istanbul, then 3 hours in a streetside bar watching some locals dance and try to impress us, then having 3 kebabs before we went back to the ship (Turkish kebabs are AWESOME) Going to the Lido beaches in Venice at 1.30am for several hours, having a drink/singsong, paddling (the sea was ... read more

I got up to arrange to pick up our tender tickets as we had to tender into Santorini. We met for breakfast at about 8:30 am on the ship. Jill and I decided to walk up to the town of Fira. It is the same walk that the donkeys take when they carry tourists up to the town. We knew there were 588 stairs to get there. From the ship looking up at breakfast, the town looked pretty high up on the bluff. Physically, the walk wasn't too bad. It took about 25 minutes with a few short stops to take pictures of the ever increasingly beautiful view as we rose higher. The stairs were about three feet deep, ten feet wide and four inches tall. Also, it was in the shade the whole way. So ... read more

Good morning from Santorini It's another perfect morning here on the Greek island but unfortunately we are heading back to the UK today flying out at midday so our time here has come to an end. We then only have 1 more full day before flying back to Oz so our trip has nearly come to an end and it has been absolutely fantastic. We have spent the last 3 days in Santorini with our wonderful friends Katherine and Bryan and have had a ball even though we have eaten our fair share of Greek salad with feta cheese and tzatziki!! So back to the UK by 3.30pm staying at the Crown Plaza in St James, just around the corner from Lizzies place! Then we have an early morning start for our whirlwind day trip to ... read more

Yassou! Or G'day in Oz, we are now enjoying the liveliest of weather and locations on Paradise Island called Santorini, it is absolutely stunning. We arrive in the early hours of Saturday morning after a 3 hour plane trip to Athens leaving Heathrow at 10pm and landing in Athens their time at 4am! Then a short 30 minute flight to Santorini, unfortunately it was still dark coming into land so we couldn't see the true beauty of the place. We were picked up by our host of the villa we are renting and woke Katherine and Bryan up. The villa was superb, authentic white stone cave with a balcony overlooking the ocean. We had a very relaxed 1st day exploring the island in our rental car, then a beautiful dinner in the local traverna eating some ... read more