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Published: October 27th 2010
My mum made a last minute decision to come and meet us in Greece, and we decided this would be perfect timing to give back the car and start seeing some of the islands. We picked Santorini as our destination as she was only out for one week and we wanted to find something beautiful, relaxing, and with a few activities to do during the week. Her flight landed in the late afternoon and we met her at the airport. we had a slower evening as she had just flown for a ridiculously long time. Of course after almost a month of bragging about how delicious the food was in Greece, the first time she gest to try to real stuff is the first time we experience a bad meal at a less the decent resturant. (the waiter was drunk and almost dumped a plate of food all over me and Mum)
The only full day in Athens that we had planned we spent wandering through a very interesting flea market; checking out the Parthenon (again for us but it was still just as interesting) with an enormous crowd of people; and taking one of the uber-tourist mini-train
rides that scoot around Plaka and the surrounding area (Scott skipped out on this part and headed back early). We celebrated my Mum’s birthday that night by having a delicious dinner under the stars with the famous “Acropolis View” from one of the many restaurants on the side streets perched below the well known site.
The next morning we were all up early in order to catch the ‘fast’ boat to Santorini. It was decent enough, the early morning boat got us into the city around noon and we were picked up by someone from the hotel we were staying at in Fira. We chose to stay in Fira as it is the main town in Santorini and we felt it would offer something for all three of us. The hotel we were at was decent enough; I thought that since mum was only out for the one week we would live it up a bit (no shabby digs this week folks) and make sure she had a relaxing time instead of moving her around from hostel to hostel every few days. So being a bit pickier we weren’t too fond of the fact that we were
told we were getting a two bedroom and it turned out to be a one bedroom with converted living room. We decided to stay for two nights in Fira before moving to the slightly smaller but more picturesque town of Oia (pronounced Ee-a).
As for the towns themselves, Fira was beautiful, much larger than Oia there were many cobble-stone streets to explore with interesting shops all over and some very tasty food once you got off the sunset view strip. Oia was much smaller but had amazing sunset views practically every night (I say practically as rain was a factor some of the days we were there). Our hotel in Oia was nice as there was a large patio with pool that you could relax on during the day while soaking up the sun, followed by a lovely sunset before turning in for dinner either in town or in the kitchen of our apartment. They also had a fantastic over-sized chessboard, great for Scott and I as we have found a new appreciation for the game!
We rented a car one of the rainy days and drove around the island taking in the sights
of the different little villages and some of the beaches (Oia and Fira are perched on towering cliffs and offer no sand time). I think we all enjoyed this quite a bit as it gave us a different perspective from the islands cliff views.
On mums last day we did a Caldera tour and visited the volcano Santorini is famous for. We had read that it was an active volcano and I instantly got pictures in my mind of bubbling, boiling lava, of course this lead to disappointment as the most action we saw from the island was some steam issuing out and the faint smell of sulphur around the top. It did offer some very pretty views of Santorini, and we were able to visit some natural hot springs after hiking back down to the boat. We had a delicious lunch on the other island of Thirassia before heading ‘home’.
One week is such a short time, but last minute travel is so much harder to plan, especially when you have limited time off. We had a great week with my Mum and managed to thoroughly enjoy some of the magic of Santorini.
Greek posing as a tourist selling seeds
I asked what type of camera he had, it was a polaroid! I asked him for some film but he had none Though it was slightly more expensive there the sights were amazing, made so much better by the company!! We rented a car to drive Mum to the airport and were able to watch her onto the plane and flash our car lights as her plane was airborne, headed towards Athens, and then Vancouver.
Love you Mum!! We hope you had as good a week as we did!
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Leslie Bryan
non-member comment
Great to see you there Betty!
I am so envious!! My sister used to live in Greece, and WHY OH WHY did I not visit here there??OH ya, I had little kids and no money.... YOu must have packed alot in that week...