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After returning from Barcelona, I met up with my friend Whitney and she and I went to Santorini for two days. It was short, but it was amazing!
We left on Tuesday evening and arrived in Santorini around 2 in the morning. We hadn't arranged a place to stay for Tuesday night, so after we got to the port we found a place and bargained the price to something we felt was reasonable. We stayed in Fira for the night and in the morning rented an ATV for the next two days.
We then began the adventure of finding the hotel we had booked for Wednesday night in Perissa. We never actually succeeded... We made it to Perissa fairly easily. We weren't actually paying attention at first, so we took a bit of a detour and saw a good amount of the south half of the island. Finally we got to Perissa and knew that our hotel was supposed to be somewhere in the town not far from the beach. After forty-five minutes of driving back and forth along the streets of Perissa (and the neighboring town or two) with no success, we finally called the hotel. We told
the people from the hotel where we were and asked how to get to the hotel. They had no idea where we were (at that time we were in the next town over), so we waited till we were in the center of Perissa to call back. We went to the big church, figuring it was an easy landmark and made the call again. This time, it turned out we were right next to the travel agency place we were talking to.
The man we spoke to informed us that the hotel owner of the hotel we were supposed to be in had left for Athens on an emergency and had asked him to take care of us. We were to be put into a different hotel in a private room for the same price as we were supposed to pay for our dorm room in the other hotel. This seemed like a fairly sweet deal to Whitney and me, so we followed paid for our room (the hotel owner who was away had agreed to pay the difference in price) and headed down to the new hotel (escorted by a Hungarian man named Sebastian). We had actually driven
past this hotel two or three times, which we chuckled at. Sebastian unlocked the hotel for us (we were the only ones in the whole place!!!) and got us settled in.
By this point it was early afternoon and we were ready to walk down to the beautiful black sand beach of Perissa. We headed down and sat at a seaside cafe where we were able to lay out under the sun and be served our drinks in a very unrealistic, but completely amazing, manner. After a couple of hours, we migrated further down the beach to a creperie we had passed a few times. We enjoyed a spinach crepe and some frappe (my first experience). I was surprised that the frappe didn't affect me more... many of my friends are strongly affected by it... I suppose I really don't have much response to caffeine?
We knew that sunsets in Santorini are a must, so we decided to head down to a lighthouse at the southern tip of the island. The sunset was absolutely amazing, and the location was perfect. We climbed along some rocks and had a wonderful view of the sun going down over the water.
As we headed back, we saw a photographer walking along the road. We had seen him walking up to the lighthouse and he had been photographing the scenery while we were there. We offered him a ride on our ATV (for which he was very grateful). Turns out the walk from the lighthouse to Akrotiri (where he was staying) was an hour and a half long. Luckily on an ATV it only takes ten, maybe fifteen, minutes. As we dropped him off, he asked us if we wanted to come have a drink, we agreed and ended up spending the next few hours with him and his wife enjoying wine and a delicious dinner (which they insisted on treating us to as a thank you for giving Clement a ride back). Whitney and I were both delighted with the entire evening, it was a wonderfully successful first day in Santorini, despite the fact that we would be staying at a hotel we never found.
Our second day took us back to Akrotiri to see the famous red sand beaches of Santorini. We didn't actually feel like sitting on the beach, so we walked, well climbed, around the basalt rocks
for a little while instead. After Akrotiri, we headed back to Fira to determine the best way of returning our ATV and getting to the port before our ferry left in the evening. As we waited to talk to the owner of the rental place, we walked around Fira, which was fairly touristy, but nice enough for an hour or so. The owner wasn't there when we were told he would be (in typical Greek fashion) so we decided to head on down to Oia anyway. It sounded like we would be able to get a ride from the owner to the port, and if not we had already checked out bus schedules and prices as well as taxi costs.
The drive to Oia was beautfiul. Oia is in the very north of the island, so we got to see most of the landscape and seaside views of Santorini. Once we got to Oia, we found ourselves in the tiny fisherman's port where there were a number of fancy shmancy fish tavernas. We decided to give ourselves a treat and have lunch at one. We had wonderful, fresh, grilled white fish as well as a couple of Greek classics
(Tzatziki and Horiatiki) and the house white wine (Santorini is known for their white wines). The meal was amazing. We spent two and a half hours enjoying ourselves at the taverna. The restaurant owners were very nice to us- they did not give us a hard time for being in a different price range from most of their customers, and all the taverna workers came over to us to speak to us in Greek! Plus, we got free dessert wine on the house!
After lunch, we headed up to the actual town of Oia to find a nice place to watch the sunset. We were a bit frustrated with it though. The sunset was pretty, but the weather was not right for it to be phenomenal and there were far too many tourists everywhere, making it far less enjoyable. We skipped out fairly early without sorrow and headed back to Fira to return our ATV and get a ride to the port from the owner of the rental store.
We went back to Whitney's place when we got back to Athens (she has permission to remain in her apartment for an extra few weeks because she is working
at the American Classical school for the month of June). It was wonderful of Whitney to help me out all day... She helped me bring my luggage back from school to her place and let me hang out there all day instead of having to spend the day in the airport.
I spent my last day in Athens in a fairly low key way. I walked around a bit and in the evening Whitney and I got crepes one last time and then headed to the Irish bar that was a favorite of many students in my program (though it was my first time there!)
I am sad to leave Greece. I have had an amazing semester and have had the privilege to do so many things I never thought I would (or at least not for a long time)! But I know I will be back, hopefully sooner than later. So until then, I am excited to return home to see my friends and family.
A little reality never hurts, right?
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