Greece Itinerary: Part 2

From Mykonos we took a ferry to Santorini. We got to the Port in Mykonos really early and had to wait in the heat for two hours (the cafe was full) so I don't recommend that. Thankfully the ferry was high speed and we had chairs inside! It was glorious. We were in Santorini by 6. We took the bus directly to the Fira town center. There we asked around for directions to our hotel.

After getting various hand motions and distances and a fifteen minute walk we found our place! We stayed at the Villa Alizea and it was really nice. Very spacious clean room, had a pool and reasonably priced, though I would skip the breakfast in the morning (coffee and bread and tang.)

From our hotel was walked back into town and found a great little rooftop restaurant, Elia Tavern, with awesome food. Free shots of some Greek alcohol and baked eggplant (amazing when you're starving)! My meal was delicious. 

 We ended up wandering around, through various alleyways, past shops and as some point found people taking pictures, turned around and saw this. It was awesome.

 The next day we rented an ATV (from the villa owner's husband) for $25 euros a day. We rode it to the Ancient Akotiri. It is this ancient city that was preserved when a volcano destroyed it. It was 5 euros, and shaded so not too hot. The tours were crazy expensive (like 25 euros) so we skipped it.

 After that we rode to the Red Beach, made from volcano rocks. Crowded and the beach is rocks. We payed 7 euros for chairs and an umbrella but only stayed for an hour. I would say drive to see it but don't hang out there.

Then we went to Kamari beach. There were tons of restaurants along the beach so we grabbed lunch at a place that had free chairs if you ate there.

And that view was our afternoon. There is black sand on the beach, which was really neat to see. There were bigger waves on this beach than in Santorini but it was still really nice to cool down when we wanted to and just read while sitting in chairs under the shade.

That evening we walked around the caldera (in Fira) and saw the view in the day time.

 We picked our restaurant because I wanted a view. We got appetizers that were SO GOOD. Fried tomatoes (pictured), fava bean puree, and chips with an egg on top (interesting....).

 That evening we went to the Open Air cinema in Kamari. It was one of my favorite things we did despite the terrible movie (Big Wedding, awful). But the cinema has these great chairs, a fantastic bar and is surrounded by all these trees. We loved it.

 The next morning we went to Oia (a town further north of Fira) and found an amazing bakery and ate breakfast looking at the ocean.

 Oia has a less people (or it did in the morning) than Fira and great shops in the town. The picture at the very top is Oia. From up in Oi you can look down on Amoudi Bay. We went down there later and Seth hopped in.

 Down at the bay!

 That evening we had set up a cruise through our hotel owner (a 6 hour boat ride for 25 euros per person). We walked down a billion steps from Fira to the Old Port. This was our ship:

 Our ship took us to the volcano island. It's an active volcano. I wasn't ready for a little hike (wearing sandals and a skirt) so I didn't love the volcano, but at least we saw it. The cruise also took us to this area of hot springs. You hop off your boat into the ocean than swim over to this area of high sulfur, so it's orange and only sort of warm. We were unimpressed.

 The saving grace of the cruise was that we saw the sunset from the boat and it was incredible. Something about being on the water, staring at this view that really makes you feel pretty blessed.

The next morning we took the bus to the airport, hung out at a cafe there, then flew back to Athens (read about the rest of our Athens trip from earlier this week)

That was our trip! A dream come true and we did really incredible things. Besides being a little sick one day, nothing bad happened, we ate awesome food and had the best experiences.