Blogs from South Aegean, Greece, Europe - page 110

Santorini started off great. On the ridiculously long ferry ride over (7.5 hours), some Torontonians I met at Pagration Hostel in Athens got on the ferry from Paros to Ios! They were awesome, and we had great conversation the whole way, plus they shared their wine... which is a great way to make friends! Haha. I was sad when they had to get off the ferry one and a half hours before me, but it just gave me some time to relax and watch the moon set behind the ferry. On Santorini, I managed to book myself a palace! It was called Pension George and I had my own room with my own bathroom, terrace, fridge, and television! Plus, the pension had a pool! Lovely. My first day there I took my time getting ready and ... read more

Yikes! We woke up at 9:50am and the hotel reception desk had told us to call before 10am to check on availability and make reservations for the volcano tour. Called reception to see if we were too late, they checked and found out we could get on the tour. We would be picked up from the hotel at 10:45am and returned around 5:30pm. We raced through getting ready and went up and ate another fabulous breakfast with eggs over easy today. The bus came around 11am and took us to Athinos port, but the boat wasn’t there. The tour director came over and told us that the boat we were supposed to be on had a problem and that we would be taking another boat which wasn’t there yet. We were told to go wait in ... 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

Ios is known as the party island of Greece and so far we’ve mostly seen the town at night, but today we planned to explore the town during the daylight. Chora, Ios’s main town is a typical of the Cyclades with whitewashed buildings and is full of steps and small alleys, curtained doorways and small courtyards. On the main thoroughfares there are the jewelers, souvenir shops and, of course, the clubs. Ios has lots of churches; as a matter of fact it claims to have 365 churches, one for each day of the year. In Chora in a plateia just off the main road is the modern Orthodox Cathedral of Ios named Evangelismos (Annunciation). It’s an large whitewashed building with the traditional blue domes, very beautiful. Nearby is the church of Agia Ekaterini. First we picked ... read more

Well here I am - nearly at the end of my 6th week here!! How time flies when you're having fun!! Have had a few nights out, some of the photos from one of them are on the website www.photoshow.net/callefix. I'm in the background of some of them, the site does take a while to download them all if you're not on broadband and it takes a while to get through all of them, so would not suggest you do it it work time!!!!!!! We had a day out in Afandou last week (there was another girl from the bank over on holiday - won't divulge her name!!), went to the beach during the day and had a swim and sunbathe and then went up into the town at night with the idea of having a ... read more