Santorini updates were done very quickly therefore there are no pictures yet or have they been spell checked.
Blame greece internet.
Author Archives: wobbler
Day 10 – Farewell Oia and the beautiful cave homes
It was time to say good bye to our beautiful cave home and head for athens. We spent a good hour playing tetris to fit all our newly aquired wine collection, the estimation is that our main bag now weighed close to 90 pounds. So we started the accent of the 42 stairs, one stair at a time. It didn’t seem like a bad idea at the time when buying the wine however it quickly became apparently that the bag was bloody heavy.
Day 9 – What do you mean Brazilian two piece?
Today we had arranged for a boat ride around the island stopping at a few places for a swim and stopping for a snorkle. This also included a bbq lunch onboard. We took our climb out early after breakfast (SC: 714) to catch the minivan outside of our now favourite bakery down to the port where we boarded our catamaran that we would sail around Santorini on.
The first stop in for our cat boat was the hot spings. There was two other groups of australians on the meow express as we quickly came to be aware of due to their accent and calling things like a bbq a barbie and talking about shitters (toilets).
Day 8 – Beach this way, I don’t think so.
Today we had decided to go to the beach for a nice swim. Rose had suggested some beaches that were good for swimming and after a nice Greek breakfast we headed out (SC: 462). Rose had pointed to some points on the map which we went to, there were no beaches that we could see ANYWHERE near where he had marked on the map. So after about 45 minutes of driving and only finding one VERY shady (as in, I think they are going to strip my car while I swim) beach we decided to turn back and visit the beach that we knew existed, Ammoudi Beach.
Day 7 – Oh no, this looks like a tourist trap!!
We enjoyed our Greek style breakfast overlooking at the great Caldera sea.
Today we hired a car, acending from our cave like dwelling (SC: 294) we headed to the car rental place where I laid down exactly what I wanted and the dude behind the counter said “I wish all my customers were as good as you” he didn’t have to do any work as we knew exactly what we wanted (Thanks wikitravel). Off we went to visit the Archeology museum in Thira to see the things that were taken out of the ground in Akrotiri. After a significant debacle trying to find parking and several attempts to park in people’s front lawns, shopping only parking spots and even a spot reserved for this very popular X person (that actually means no parking), we found a almost full parking lot that we parked in. Not having a detailed map of Thira we decided to wing it to try and find this museum as all we knew was that it was in Thira. We walked, and walked and walked and finally gave up and stopped into a hotel to try and get an idea of where to go or a map. Spotting a map we grabbed it only to be accosted by an overly ambious hotel owner who wanted us to try his souvlaki and then take a tour of the island including Oia (where we were staying) which we rapidly declined.
Day 6 – Oh yeah, side of a cliff
Due to exhaustion we slept late however rose with enough time to enjoy a greek lunch. We checked in at the office to met the owner however there was a sticky sign on the door that said “back in 10 minutes”. Deciding that we would wait the 10 minutes we headed off to the market to pick up some provisions for the week. We purchased a selection of goodies including Greek Yogurt, wine, cheese, turkey, wine, jam, honey, wine and some fresh juice. We returned with our shopping to the office about 15 minutes later to find a sign on the door that said “back in 10 minutes” so we decided that perhaps we missed the owner so we decended (SC: 84) to put our shopping away and return about 20 minutes later to meet the owner (SC: 126).
Day 5.2 – Yes days come in 0.2s
We finished our rather choppy boat ride in Santorini in the wee hours of the morning. We were greeted at the dock by a rather polite but short police man (or possibly a woman it was late) that asked us to “Move please along”. We quickly spotted our transfer and boarded the minibus headed to our cliff side villa. The driver then promptly disappeared, we pursume to try and find more victums, err passengers for his ascent up the side of the cliff.
Day 5 – Farewells and sailing ships
We rose early to get the moat walk in after a quick breakfast. We headed down to walk around the outskirts of the city. After missing the entry at our closest gate twice we walked almost the entire wall before we found a way into the moat. We then proceeded to find all these cave like holes into the inner moat and inner wall that was NOT an exit no matter no much you squeezed up paths that were clearly the den of some creature. After walking around to our gate (gate 6 by the graffiti on the wall) we stalked two other moat walkers and found the exit.
Day 4 – Alarm? What alarm
Today was a “Oh shit, its 9:20 and breakfast stops getting served at 9:30” day. For each of the days that we stayed at Nikolis Hotel we broke our fast on the roof top overlooking the old city. Each breakfast was similar but not the same, there was vegetables (usually tomato and cucumber), fruit (grapes, kiwi, cantaloupe , cheese and meats (yummo), Greek yogurt (with jam, marmalade and muesli), orange juice, some kick ass coffee (possibly the best coffee I have tasted so far), bread and a hard boiled egg. Breakfasts like this are bloody awesome and really get you off to a good start.
They were served by a young lass that also tended the bar in the evenings (although sadly we were never around earlier enough to sit and enjoy a carafe of wine in the court yard).
Day 3 – Stairs, sweat and pregnancy
We had arranged to hire a car for two days, after the driving display on the way in I figured that if there were no rules, why the hell not! So we met with one of Marianne’s friends who rents cars and were quickly sorted out with a chevy (which we then later saw a daewoo version of the same car with the same name) little sporty number with a sun roof.
Given the reckless abandon for rules, we decided to splurge for the 8 Euros extra a day for full insurance (I figured that accident chances were high). We were given a list of things to do;
East coast!
Kallithea
Fertility Temple
Acropolis of Rhodes
Ceramics