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Published: September 20th 2012
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We were lucky enough to have four wonderful nights in Santorini. From the first time I saw Santorini, I knew I would love this place. Sailing in on the ferry, we saw Santorini with its white roof tops which from a distance looked like snow on the top. Santorini is quite a high island, which is probably why its sunsets are so well known. We got off the ferry and the port and like all the others it was a sea of madness; People, cars and signs everywhere. We soon found our transfer to our accommodation “Villa Toula”. The drive from the port to our accommodation was an interesting one. As the port is at sea level, we had to go on a zigzag road up to the top of the island. This makes being driven around the Greek Islands, Santorini in particular very interesting and stressful because most of the drivers are very erratic and impatient.
We soon arrived at “Villa Toula”, and met Toula who gave us an orientation of the Island and showed us to our room. We settled into our room before meeting our group for dinner (They were all staying at a different
accommodation). Tonight’s dinner was the “Sunset Dinner”. It was situated on the cliffs of Santorini and also included a whiff of donkey poop. Our tour guide had told us earlier in the day that the entrees at the dinner were divine. So with the group of people we were sitting with, we decided to all share entrees and get a main each. Our entrees consisted of feta wrapped in filo pastry covered in honey, zucchini balls (locally grown) and barbequed octopus. We enjoyed this beautiful locally grown food while watching the famous Santorini Sunset. Once dinner was over, we went out for a couple of drinks with our group before heading to bed.
The next day we went on a bus tour with our group, which was called the ‘Santorini Bucket List’. This took us through some of the pearls of Santorini. The first stop was the Monastery situated on top of the highest hill of Santorini. As soon as we stepped outside the bus, we could tell we were so high off the ground because of the wind on top of the hill. We were also blown away by the beautiful view we had of Santorini.
We had a quick look around the Monastery, before hopping back into the bus. We then headed to the Black Beach and the Red Beach, respectively. These beaches have their names, because of the colour of the once volcanic sand that is on them. We had some time on both these beaches to have a swim and to sit back and relax. The sand on the black beach was very gritty and hot and very painful to walk on. The black beach also had many rocks on in the shallows so we decided to do some sun baking. The red beach, while difficult to get to was beautiful to swim in.
Our final stop on the bus trip was at ‘Santo Wines’, a winery situated again on the edge of the cliff. The grapes of wineries in Santorini are grown in a round shape. This is to protect the grapes from the harsh sun, as Santorini is so high. While at the winery, we did some wine tasting, accompanied by some cheese. We then admired the view, before heading back home.
The second night we once again met up with our group and headed
to a town in the north of Santorini, called Oia (pronounced ee-ah, not oiy-ah). Josh took us for a short tour of Oia, showing us some picturesque locations before taking us to the location of our dinner. It was at the end of the island and once again we were going to watch the sunset. This was situated on the edge of some very windy cliffs, so we had quite a time setting up our picnic rugs and our food. After what was a very long but enjoyable day we headed home for an early-ish night.
Our third day in Santorini was a quieter day as Brendan was not feeling very well. We had a sleep in, before going to the hair dressers. This was an interesting experience as the hairdresser had very little English and we had very little Greek. We were lucky enough that the hairdresser’s husband spoke a bit of English and was able to translate. When he was asking about Brendan’s haircut he said something about David Beckham’s hair; we’re not quite sure what he was trying to say.
Once we had had our haircuts, we went for a wander
around the Santorini shops. It was here we found the donkey trail and donkeys. Once I had taken many pictures of the donkeys, we had a little lunch before heading home for a siesta. That night we met up with some of our friends for a group dinner of traditional Greek Food at ‘Mama’s’.
For our final day in Santorini, we decided to catch the local bus to Oia to have a more thorough look around. Oia is a bit different to the main town, Fira as it is quieter and I believe more beautiful. We had some lunch before having a look around the shops and at the views. Before we departed we decided to have some afternoon tea at a patisserie. I had a Rice pudding, and Brendan had a custard pastry. Both were very yummy! Once we arrived back in town, we decided to have a swim in a local pool. We then had some take-away gyros (pronounced with a silent g) before heading to bed early in preparation for our time in Ios (Party Island).
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