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There's nothing quite waking up at 4am, taxi arrives and holiday bound.
Usual airporto fun with Helen having to through the x-ray body scanner, i tried to see the picture but the airport staff didn't seem to happy about me peering over the barrier...
Time for some brekkie before lift off and Weatherspoons looks decent, although on entering we notice a lady drinking a pint of red wine, bear-in-mind that its only 5:33am, strong commitment to the drink!
In the flight we board and get seated, usual tiny seats made for Mr Average. We doze off until I'm woken by Helen wanting me to look out the window... Its the Alps and they look pretty awesome and completely covered in snow, maybe a skiing holiday later in the year is in order..! A few G&T's later and we land, whoop!
The hotel looks great and we have a top floor room with a balcony overlooking the pool and sea views, sweet! Time for some exploring and local beers.
The week fly's by and somehow its already Friday, a few days of pool & beach sitting along with two books read (Sharpes Christmas and The Hunger Games).
Alps from the plane
Pretty cool views on routeWe think its time for some more exploring and head out of our hotel and head left along the nearest main road, finding a few villages on route and a marina we decide to keep going... 2 hours later through farmland and 12 o'clock heat we keep walking...maybe the bus wasn't such a bad idea! Finally, hot and in desperate need of a WC we find a Bakery with a bus stop attached! Time to get a bus to somewhere, we decide to check put Fera.
Mama mia! Fera is quite touristy with loads of high end restaurants overlooking the bay and volcano, we see a Costa (not the Concordia!) cruise ship, not sinking, pulling into the bay and grab a Mythos to watch it pull in. Abit of town exploration and we are set for Perissa and a chilled out evening, at this point I think its 2:1 to me at sh1thead!
It's Saturday and that means Greek dancing evening, the rest if the day is a lazy one by the beach. Unfortunately, the restaurant Meteor didn't have dancing in the end but did have two guys playing old'school Greek tunes.
Day out to Kamari, this
is the next town across from Perivolas but it’s either a taxi boat, bus to Fera and then a bus from there to Kamari… or, the Mountain! We opt for the taxi boat.
Kamari, aka Calamari is a built up town with a load restaurants along the breach front and the usual little shops with evil eyes and donkey related paraphernalia. We walk the end of the promanarde and decide we have done enough walking and head for a drink on the beach. The rest of the day is pretty chilled out and we eat our fill of meze and kebabs.
We head back to the boat taxi and instantly realise the time is 4:45pm… the last taxi left at 4:30, oops! Now, it’s still daylight and I feel confident that we can scale the mountain road and just head back down the road on the other side, seems very do’able. Although I’m basing this on nothing but a look at the mountain at this point. I convince Helen this is an easy walk and the road is just a traversing one that shouldn’t take more than an hour. Or so I thought…
The walk up, although
Porto marina
Found this on our epic walk knackering wasn’t so bad, a well laid road and daylight on our side, until daylight was not on our side! We get to the top and see that the road just loops back around and back down the way we came, we are losing light and the path looks pretty rocky and by all accounts not one for flip flops and Helen’s new shoes (which I’m told I now owe here a new pair!).
Anyway, we decide we can’t head back as it’s getting darker so we soldier on and head down the rocky path in near darkness. The path is nothing but a dirt track and some pretty steep drops dispersed with a few ancient Thira tombs. That said, I let Helen lead the way and I carry the beach towels etc. About half hour later we are halfway down and it’s a beautiful sight of stars and the town of Perivoluos light up far below. We keep going and near the end, sat this point two slightly tipsy 40 something ladies are making their way up the dirt path towards us. I advise them that it’s probably not all that advisable to head up the dirt track
Hotel Pool
Budget underwater camera working well! with no torch, they don’t seem that bothered at my warning and we never see them again..! Back on at sea level we decide to roll home and have an early night as we are spankered.
The next morning we are both aching so have a day by the hotel pool along with the next day kicking back on the beach with a few beers and local Greek salads for good measure.
And so cometh the storm from the mount, as blowy and dusty as the oldeth days doth tell! You got it, we had a day of rain here in Santorini, I guess one out of 14 isn’t all that bad.
The day began as any other day, a morning coffee and a think about what to do followed by some food. We decided to head towards the currently unknown town on the hill above Perissa, we walk the gravel road heading what I would describe as north, although this may be open to interpretation…
A few local houses and barking small dogs we get to a decent sized town that just happens to have a castle/fort from the 1800’s along with a still in
True
...and we did. use town built into the mountain. This is pretty interesting so we aimlessly wonder around this town getting lost a few times before we notice its getting a bit windy and a bit dustier than we are used too.
We head out, or at least try to head out of the old town and find it’s a little easier said than done, three churches and a few wrong turns later we find out way into the town and the wind is getting a little crazy. A still Fanta later and we start the walk home, about ten minutes in we are been blown left and right by a sand storm, t-shirts and tops over our eyes we continue to head towards the sea. The dust storm that follows us feels like a twister, being from Birmingham and having the only recorded hurricanes’ in a UK city I know all about this! We begin to run as our legs start to get swept from under us, fortunately we are almost back to Villa Etheria and get back from the unknown village in about 20 minutes or so. At this point it’s raining and fork lighting every few minute’s rumbles overhead.
The mount!
Climbed this in the dark, fun... We hide!
The next few days are a bit more sedate with afternoon drinks and beach and pool days.
Oi, Oi… Oi! That’s me at 4:30am sleep shouting, apparently I’m dreaming about some small furry things that look like mini Henderson’s family big foots covered in bright blue paint, they’re covering a room in the stuff and I’m chasing them. It’s a fair assumption that had something to do with the pack of Edam I ate before I went to bed!
With Oi in mind we decided to head for Oia in the North of Santorini, the last part of the island we hadn’t seen. Bus trip to Fira as all buses go there, change for Oia and across the fairly standard death roads with a rally driver for a bus driver. We make it alive and well and head into a restaurant for some beers and snacks overlooking the bay and Volcano. The views at Oia are amazing and the sea at the bottom of the donkey walking trail as crystal clear as we’ve come to expect. After a little look around it feel like a slightly wealthier version of Fira with some lovely bars and
restaurants’ at the base, of which we settle for dinner. The chosen dish for me, given then proximity to the fishing boats and water, was scorpion fish which if I remember from diving is pretty dam poisonous! It’s by then KG and I select my fish from the counter, I decided to go for the slightly above average sized one and it came in at 38 euros so not bad for something that would be well over £50 in the South East. The danger fish arrives and it’s a bit of an ugly bugger to say the least, tastes delish though!
We decide not to stay for the sun set tonight as we plan to take in Santo Wines tomorrow and watch it from there. Heading back it’s a comical one with a ticket collector on the bus that clearly wasn’t in love with his job, every stop he would be telling people quickly quickly get off the bus and for people boarding he’d be hurrying them angrily to their seats, sit SIT! Another day down and it’s time to do some more relaxing in a beach bar, we decide to check out a new world cuisine posh restaurant.
As I'm not allowed to eat lamb at home I go for the lamb shank, the restaurant is a bit more upmarket than the rest in Perissa and my flip flops and shorts probably make me look a bit more chilled out than their usual cliental! Food is great and the service was something special. The two courses following our earlier feeding means we are feeling pretty sluggish and call it a day.
It's all gone a bit windy. Fortunately for us we are burnt to a crisp so are happy to have a movie day and walk down the beach before we have to pack for home. It's crazy how quickly two weeks fly's by, time to begin the next countdown to a holiday, if I'm not wrong it's 37 days till centreparcs with the family, whoop!
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