Advertisement
Published: September 18th 2007
Edit Blog Post
What To Do If You Find Yourself In Oia
The Greek Islands: a collection of vastly different ecologies that all have one thing in common - tourism. Amongst these hundreds of islands there are a few that stand out as the jewels in Greece’s island crown: Mykonos, Crete, Rhodes, and Santorini. Mykonos is known for its party life, Crete for its history and Rhodes for its coastal resorts. Santorini, sometimes ascribed with being the most beautiful of the many islands, is known for its whitewashed cliffside villages that tenaciously grip onto the volcanic precipices looking over the blue water of the Sea of Crete.
We found ourselves headed to Santorini because Kel’s best friend Jen and her husband Jeff along with Jeff’s sister Tracy wanted to hit Greece. Greece, which is one of Jeff’s top five destinations, seemed like a great place to meet. They wanted a good vacation and we wanted rest. Turns out Santorini was the perfect place for what everyone wanted.
Before we move on, I think it’s important to be up front with any of you who might want to come to Santorini in the future. Turns out that our fabulous Santorini
experience had much to do with good planning and foresight on the part of Tracy who planned the vacation. On our way back from the island for a brief stay in Athens (see our next blog) we ran into many people who stayed on Santorini and utterly hated it. It seems that most of the major towns on Santorini are, and I quote only what I heard here, “dirty, cheap, overcrowded, unsanitary, full of backpackers and feels like the third world.” Now with that said, we stayed in Oia (said EE-ahh) which was everything we hoped for and more. If you plan on heading this way, be cautious when you plan and make sure that the pictures you see on websites are representative of the area you will stay in because most websites use pics of Oia - even if they’re actually miles away.
Located on the far north side of Santorini, Oia is a collection of white “cave” houses which are made of concrete and dug into the actual cliff face. Because the houses are densely stacked and a bit buried they all have pretty good insulation which keeps them cool. With the use of decent air conditioning
BFF
Left to Right: Kel and Jenn and the insulation provided, we were incredibly comfortable in our dark, cave-like room.
What To Do With All That Time Time in Santorini seems to stop. There are no clocks anywhere in town and alarm clocks are never provided in your rooms. Pretty much you sleep when you want and wake when you want while you are here.
We found that the average day consisted of a late start with a bite to eat provided by the hotel, usually O.J., a croissant, some honey and a cup of tea. Then we would sit around and read or maybe head to the pool until lunch. A brief stop back at the room for some sandwiches and we were back to the pool. Maybe we’d have time for an afternoon nap and a shower before heading out to find dinner. Dinner almost always ended at around 11pm and we would return to our rooms for some drinks and then bed.
All in all, time in Santorini is meant for doing nothing. Read, drink, sleep, swim, it doesn’t matter what you do because every turn leads to relaxation. Kel and I both got a few books read
and I managed to kill a few hours working on the pictures for this blog. If anything, Oia is one of the most photogenic towns we’ve ever visited. This fact is easily proven by the pictures on this blog as well as the fact that anyone with pics of Greece will have at least one photo of Oia.
Going out on the town at night was always an enjoyable experience. Around dusk all of the stray dogs in town wake up from their day time naps and came out as a welcoming committee for anyone out and about. As we found dinner night after night we found ourselves getting to know all the dogs in town. When dinner would end and we’d stagger back to our place, inevitably at least a few dogs would walk us back to our rooms and drop us off before heading on for more night time escapades.
Greek food, while monotonous to some, is a pleasant break from the eastern European fare that we have been eating for the last two weeks. Kel and I gorged ourselves on souvlaki, spanakopita, tiropita, and tzatziki. While I’m sure that a few weeks of the same
food over and over again would become tiresome, we loved every minute of the Greek food we could get.
Activities: Well, If I Have To . . . While Kel and I would have been completely content to do nothing but sit on our behinds while we were in Santorini, Jeff, Jen and Tracy were on one of their big vacations for the year (being working types, unlike us) so they obviously wanted to see a bit more of Santorini than we did. We, being completely cool with doing whatever they wanted, tagged along on most of their island escapades.
We spent one afternoon walking around Oia to get a feel for the town. The girls all got a chance to shop while I did some photo exploration. The general consensus is that Oia is worth some good wander time. With quaint churches, a few old windmills and tons of beautiful flowers, every turn through the town brings a new beautiful view.
Kel and I branched off from the group one of the nights we were in town so that we could have a romantic dinner. For what it’s worth, Oia is everything a
romantic would want out of Greece. While we did the lovebird thing, the rest of the gang went off to the south end of the island to see the red sand beach, the only one on Santorini. They had a blast and thought it was well worth the thirty minute cab ride. I wish I had pics to show you, instead you’ll just have to take their word for it that the red sand beach is awesome.
Our final night we caught a cab to the nearby Sigalas winery. Set down closer to the east side of the island, Sigalas produces about six wines that are all pretty decent. Having seen a ton of vineyards in Australia, Kel and I weren’t really interested in a tour so we stuck to trying the wine. Our personal favorite was their only red table wine, very good and worth the very cheap 8 euro per bottle price.
We were sad to see our time in Santorini end, we could have easily rested in the Santorini shade for another couple of days. If you want to see a unique volcanic island and get some much needed rest, Santorini, and namely Oia, is for
you. We also had a great time kicking back with Jen, Jeff and Tracy and were quite sad to see them go. Kel loved seeing Jen - her BFF from childhood - so that was a big highlight for her and she’d been looking forward to it for months.
Hope everyone is doing great back home! We miss you all!
Be Sure To Check Out The Second Page Of Pictures Edit 7/20/2009: I've been getting a ton of questions about where we stayed in Oia. Here's the link to the hotel:
Rimida
Advertisement
Tot: 0.086s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 10; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0349s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
garron
non-member comment
What to do if you find yourself in Oia...you certainly don't need to buy a vowel!