Santorini, Greece
/(June 3rd - June 6th, 2015)
We took a short flight from Athens to Santorini and were then met at the airport by a driver from our hotel. We originally planned on taking a taxi, but definitely felt the few extra euros were well spent once we got to our hotel. It took about 40 minutes to go from the airport to Oia, which are only about 10 miles apart. We zig zagged through narrow switchbacking streets, drove on roads with 100+ foot drop offs on both sides, and realized we would have never found our hotel on our own. Once we arrived we were shown to our cliff side room and admired the amazing view from our private deck. By this time on our trip, we were getting worn out from the constant moving around and the long days of sightseeing so we were very much looking forward to relaxing in Santorini. We had no itinerary, reservations, or plans for the next couple of days so we picked up a map of the island and started wandering around the beautiful town of Oia.
Santorini is a place i've wanted to go to for several years, so it was surreal to walk around and see all the white buildings with blue rooftops in person. I took way too many photos trying to capture the look and feel of the beautiful cliffside town, but it's one of those places where photos will never do it justice. After walking along the main road in Oia we headed to the highly rated Roka for lunch. We arrived at 12:58pm and they told us the restaurant opens at 1pm, so we should come back in about 15 minutes... which of course did not make any sense to Allen :) We decided to wait and we were glad we did. Our first meal in Santorini was absolutely delicious. We enjoyed a Mediterranean lentil salad, I had shrimp and vegetable gnocchi, and Allen had sea bream over veggies and a carrot and red pepper puree. After lunch we continued to walk around the town and stopped in some of the little shops along the way. We both were getting tired and craved something sweet, so we stopped at a little cafe and got some iced coffees and shared a strawberry cake. We had an incredible cliffside view and just relaxed and talked while enjoying our snack. Afterwards we decided that it was pool time, so we headed back to our room to change and went to the pool just next to our hotel. We found two chairs next to each other (one in the sun and one in the shade of course), grabbed some drinks, and took a nap. It was one of the most relaxing afternoons of our entire trip (for me at least). Allen on the other hand cooled off in the pool, casually did some water aerobics, practiced treading water in the shallow end and then dried off while listening to some more podcasts.
After the pool we headed to dinner at Melitini where we watched most of our first sunset while eating a delicious meal on the rooftop of the restaurant. We enjoyed some local white wine, an amazing greek salad, some smoked lamb, and meatballs. After we were done, we rushed back to our hotel to catch the very end of the sunset. Even though our waiter said the sunset was a "bad" one, we thought it was absolutely gorgeous. Right after the sun went down, a harpist started playing on the terrace of a cliffside hotel just below ours. We sat on our own terrace and just listed to the beautiful music while looking out into the ocean. It was such an tranquil and peaceful evening and we realized how quickly we had fallen in love with Santorini.
The next morning we woke up around 5am and got ready to do the 10k hike from Oia to Fira. We were advised to get an early start as there is little to no protection from the sun on the trail. It was so peaceful out on the trail that early in the morning and it was nice to be one of the few people up at that hour. We hiked along the top edge of the cliffsides admiring the amazing views of the ocean and nearby islands that remain from the original volcano that Santorini used to be. The trail was lined with red lava rock and cute little white churches and we even ran into some donkeys resting up before a day full of carrying tourists up and down the cliffs. Allen started getting hungry and we were starting to realize how little activity we had done in the past few days so we decided to run/hike the trail. By the time we got to Fira, we were sweaty hot messes and were ready for some breakfast and tall glasses of cold water. We zigzagged along the streets in Fira looking for a spot to eat and ended up choosing V Lounge Cafe. The view itself would have been enough, but the food was absolutely amazing and definitely hit the spot after our run. Allen enjoyed a tomato, scrambled egg, and pesto bruschetta and i had greek yogurt with raw honey and fresh fruit. I think I could have that for breakfast every day and never get sick of it. The greek yogurt in Greece is so thick it's almost like a custard and combined with fresh fruit and honey...I was in heaven. If we were staying in Fira, we would have gone back to the cafe every morning for breakfast! After devouring our food in about ten minutes, we probably spent another two hours just relaxing on the cafe's deck, sipping coffee, and watching the cruise ships offload hundreds of tourists. After breakfast we wandered around town for another hour or so before catching a bus back to Oia. Once back in Oia, we had a quick lunch, got some gelato and then headed back to the pool for another afternoon nap in the sun.
We decided to postpone dinner until after the sunset, so we picked up a nice bottle of local white wine and some honey and sesame covered almonds and parked it on one of our hotel's terraces with the perfect view of the sun setting into the ocean. We get some amazing sunsets back home in Seattle, but there is just something incomparable and extraordinarily special about watching the sun set directly into the ocean from the cliffside of a Greek island.
On our last full day in Santorini, we decided to splurge on a semi-private sailing tour. We were picked up at 7:30am and bused down to the harbor where we were met by a massive, brand new catamaran. On board there was a crew of about ten people ready to take us on a sailing adventure and we couldn't wait. We climbed onboard with about ten other people and set out for a fun day on the water. We were impressed from the moment we stepped onto the boat and had to pinch ourselves a few times to make sure it was really happening. We were starting to acknowledge how much of an adjustment it was going to be going back home and not spending our Saturdays hot air ballooning through Italy or sailing around the Greek Islands on brand new French yachts...but in the meantime, we were thoroughly enjoying the adventure!
The first stop of the day was the natural hot springs (or lukewarm springs as Allen called them). It was still a little overcast and too chilly to swim for my standards so I stayed on the boat and took photos of the group swimming over to the hot springs, including Allen with his floating noodles...that perfectly matched his swimming shorts :) The sulphuric hot springs are located in an inlet to one of the two small volcanic islands that still remain today. After a quick swim we continued to sail around the islands before finding a calm spot to swim, snorkel, and for Allen to practice his diving skills. As people were in the water the sun finally broke through the clouds and when I thought the day couldn't get any better, we had the most delicious lunch cooked for us by our crew. When the flyer said BBQ lunch, I wasn't expecting too much, but little did I know that it meant amazingly seasoned barbecued shrimp, chicken & pork, Greek salad, rice, with fresh tzatziki sauce! We all went back for seconds and enjoyed the bottomless beverage service along with our meal. After lunch we relaxed in the sun and made friends with some other couples on the boat. We all shared stories from our trips and exchanged restaurant recommendations with each other. We stopped by Red Beach before heading back to the marina to end the most enjoyable day on the water.
We relaxed the rest of the afternoon back at the pool and enjoyed more local wine during our final sunset in Santorini. After the sun went down we had our final stroll through the amazing town of Oia to grab dinner and end a perfect time in Santorini.
I had extremely high expectations for Santorini and it did not disappoint us in any way. We were so happy to have a little change of pace and just aimlessly wander with no agenda for a couple of days. The island was absolutely beautiful, the weather was perfect, the people were warm & friendly, and the food was delicious...all things that make up a perfect vacation spot. We'll definitely cherish our time in Santorini for several years to come, but we were also excited for our next stop...Mykonos!
