Blogs from Fira, Santorini, South Aegean, Greece, Europe - page 4

To travel up the cliffs to this "white washed" city we chose the cable car over a donkey ride. As we ascended up we learned that this entire island is in fact a volcanic crater. The village we visited was Fira (mostly a shopping and tourist destination). We managed to find 2 churches - the catholic church of St. John the Baptist with bells on top and a Greek Orthodox Cathedral. Both of them were inspiring. We ended up shopping for quite a while as we looked at various icons, jewelry, and clothes. Janine made out well. We then hiked down the 588 stone steps back to sea level and returned to the ship. After lunch Janine was treated to a 50 minute massage followed by a very elegant dinner at Tuscana. This is one of ... read more

Sunday 22nd May 2011 contd We had a short stroll around the immediate vicinity early in the evening just to loosen our legs a little. We looked in the tourist shops but didn't spend any money. Did a little surfing in reception and that was really it for the day. Monday 23rd May, 2011. Plan for the day, get back to Iraklion, book ferry for Santorini for Tuesday and find accommodation for the night. We packed up our stuff paid the bill, retrieved my passport and left about 9.30. We stopped at a little roadside cafe along the way for some coffees but basically drove straight through arriving 1230 ish. We had missed the port turn off so ended up coming off the main road at the airport, drove past and took the lesser road back ... read more

I woke up around 10am because Steve got up to get some Dupon (pain reliever) for his crashing hangover headache. We all went up and had breakfast together. We had planned to have a quiet day, mostly hanging around the hotel. Steve went back to bed immediately after breakfast and Alice and I went to the pool. We stayed at the pool until about 1pm, when it dawned on me that we had to pick up the laundry in Fira before they closed at 2pm and the rental car had to be returned by 4pm! By this time Steve thought he was probably going to live through his hangover and got up to go with me. The laundry cost 45 Euros for 5 loads, but it was worth it to get it back all clean and ... read more

Woke up just in the nick of time to leap up and get breakfast at the hotel buffet. It was well worth it though, the hotel put on a huge, impressive spread of food; scrambled eggs with ham, bacon, meats, cheeses, little hot dog things, breads, apple turnovers, mini pitas, chocolate filled croissants (Steve say’s they were extra yum!), fruits, super sweet fruit juices, cereals and yogurts. Whew, I’m sure I forgot something but that was basically it, the only downside was you had to eat in the dining area, if you took the food back to your room or deck there was a 3 Euro per person charge. We planned to go shopping in Fira and decided to go to the Hondos Center , so we parked at the entrance to Fira. We ended up ... read more