Santorini.
A small, circular archipelago of volcanic islands located in the Southern Aegean Sea, about 200 km southeast from Greece's mainland.
~our view of Santorini from the ship's anchor spot in the bay~
A small, circular archipelago of volcanic islands located in the Southern Aegean Sea, about 200 km southeast from Greece's mainland.
~our view of Santorini from the ship's anchor spot in the bay~ Santorini was one of two stops on our honeymoon that seemed more surreal than the rest. One of the first perks upon arriving in Santorini was that we anchored in the bay and had a spectacular view first thing in the morning as we sat out on the balcony for breakfast. You are instantly drawn into this world full of rich, royal blue hues contrasted by the bright, white washed, stone structures that line the cliff side of this modern day, Greek wonder. Once the local taxi boat brings you into the shore you realize that there are only three options to getting to Fira, the town on top: via Gondola, via donkey (surprising!), or via walking - the path happens to be the same trail the donkey takes. To get a jump start on exploring the island, we opted for the gondola route and were surprised by how many people rode the donkeys. For me...donkeys and Santorini just do not mix. I mean Santorini is so beautiful and pristine - why would you want to sit on one of the dirtiest, smelliest animals first thing in the day?
Once at the top, we headed out to rent scooters. I was really looking forward to driving around the island, sun on my face, wind in my hair. However, as we were about to rent our scooters we realized that we hadn't brought our ID's. So Adam had to take the gondola back down, taxi out to the boat, pick up our ID's and turn around and come back. I have to include this little anecdote because it's the kind of small, annoying thing that always happens to the two of us on trips...I think we forget things more often than anyone else. And these little slip ups/annoyances really make us grumpy. While I waited for my hubby to save the day, I wandered around taking pictures of the city. The truth is, you can't be grumpy for too long in a magical place like Santorini.
Once at the top, we headed out to rent scooters. I was really looking forward to driving around the island, sun on my face, wind in my hair. However, as we were about to rent our scooters we realized that we hadn't brought our ID's. So Adam had to take the gondola back down, taxi out to the boat, pick up our ID's and turn around and come back. I have to include this little anecdote because it's the kind of small, annoying thing that always happens to the two of us on trips...I think we forget things more often than anyone else. And these little slip ups/annoyances really make us grumpy. While I waited for my hubby to save the day, I wandered around taking pictures of the city. The truth is, you can't be grumpy for too long in a magical place like Santorini.
~If you look closely, you can see a few of the donkeys ready to ride up to the top (left). We definitely took the gondola (right)~
Due to strange insurance requirements, it's apparently safer to rent a 4 wheeler than it is a scooter. Here's a little tip for folks considering a trip to Santorini - try and get the scooter and pay for the additional coverage. The 4 wheelers are SO slow and you wind up getting passed and honked at, etc. We still had fun...even though we were only able to go 2 mph up hill. I'm sure it must have been funny to watch us - two extremely tall people, squishing together, sitting on the world's slowest bike.
We hopped on the 4 wheeler (with me in the driver's seat - DUH!) and slowly plodded along from Fira to Oia - the northern tip of the crescent shaped island - this took us about 30 minutes. Upon arriving in Oia, we walked around and looked inside the shops and admired the art work. When I'm looking for a keep sake to bring home from a trip - I'm looking for something that stands out from the rest of the touristy rift-raft out there. Based on the number of purchases Adam and I made on our honeymoon - you can easily conclude that we ate and drank more than we bought things. In fact, we only purchased three things - two of those three things were Starbucks mugs from England and Spain. The mugs don't really fit into the meaningful, extraordinary items category that I mentioned above - but, I did start a collection upon moving to DC - so I figured, what the heck. All that to say, there is an artist in Oia that took my breath away - they have these over sized, mixed medium (that include stone, wood, and other natural pieces) paintings that were so alive and beautiful, but out of the budget (especially after paying for some of the wedding and honeymoon). Anyhow, the artists' website is really bad and doesn't do the artwork justice...in fact, it makes it look kind of cheesy. Trust me on this, in real life, these are incredible.
Now, here comes one of the most amazing parts of the day...we ate lunch on the rooftop of a restaurant that overlooked Oia and the bay. The food was so fresh, I had the best Greek salad with tomatoes, feta - that makes you want to import the cheese from Greece, olive oil, local wine...and the only faux pas I committed was when I scooted all of the olives to the side of the plate, creating a little wall of olives. You see, I was too scared to ask for the Greek salad without olives in Greece...I thought they might laugh at me. They probably noticed the wall of olives once they collected my plate, but I was gone by then - and avoided the shame of looking at the waiters face while I rejected what is probably the people of Greece's favorite thing to eat.
After lunch, we walked around Oia a bit more, enjoyed the views and took the quintessential Santorini pictures:
~I had to include this picture of me because I loved this JCREW beach embossed dress and I now refer to it as the Santorini dress, don't you think the color of the dress fits in perfectly? ~
We hopped on the 4 wheeler (with me in the driver's seat - DUH!) and slowly plodded along from Fira to Oia - the northern tip of the crescent shaped island - this took us about 30 minutes. Upon arriving in Oia, we walked around and looked inside the shops and admired the art work. When I'm looking for a keep sake to bring home from a trip - I'm looking for something that stands out from the rest of the touristy rift-raft out there. Based on the number of purchases Adam and I made on our honeymoon - you can easily conclude that we ate and drank more than we bought things. In fact, we only purchased three things - two of those three things were Starbucks mugs from England and Spain. The mugs don't really fit into the meaningful, extraordinary items category that I mentioned above - but, I did start a collection upon moving to DC - so I figured, what the heck. All that to say, there is an artist in Oia that took my breath away - they have these over sized, mixed medium (that include stone, wood, and other natural pieces) paintings that were so alive and beautiful, but out of the budget (especially after paying for some of the wedding and honeymoon). Anyhow, the artists' website is really bad and doesn't do the artwork justice...in fact, it makes it look kind of cheesy. Trust me on this, in real life, these are incredible.Now, here comes one of the most amazing parts of the day...we ate lunch on the rooftop of a restaurant that overlooked Oia and the bay. The food was so fresh, I had the best Greek salad with tomatoes, feta - that makes you want to import the cheese from Greece, olive oil, local wine...and the only faux pas I committed was when I scooted all of the olives to the side of the plate, creating a little wall of olives. You see, I was too scared to ask for the Greek salad without olives in Greece...I thought they might laugh at me. They probably noticed the wall of olives once they collected my plate, but I was gone by then - and avoided the shame of looking at the waiters face while I rejected what is probably the people of Greece's favorite thing to eat.
After lunch, we walked around Oia a bit more, enjoyed the views and took the quintessential Santorini pictures:
~I had to include this picture of me because I loved this JCREW beach embossed dress and I now refer to it as the Santorini dress, don't you think the color of the dress fits in perfectly? ~After a nice afternoon in Oia, we decided to hop back on the 4 wheeler and hit the beach. Since it was already late in the afternoon, we decided to look for a beach closer to Fira and our ship. We found one that was okay - it was a rocky beach - with the hottest black rocks I have ever stepped on! You had to sprint to the water before your feet blistered. I guess this could be helpful if you are the kind of person who is always hesitant to get in the water...the hot stones will force you to get right in and cool off! We had a tricky time getting the 4 wheeler back to the rental place - there are several one way streets in Fira which were not obviously marked and I believe we broke the law several times before getting the 4 wheeler back to it's rightful owner. At this point we are completely out of money - well, I think we are litterally like 50 cents shy of a gondola ticket and we only had Adam's credit card on us which consistently rejected ATMs throughout our trip. This forced us to just walk down the donkey path - which was the WORST. The entire path is covered in donkey dung that has been sanded over, but you still step in it and it's so smelly, and slippery! I almost fell in it several times on our walk down. I don't recommend this route. It doesn't really fit in with the rest of Santorini and I think the donkeys should be shipped out :)
Here are a bunch of pictures that I took throughout the day:
Here are a bunch of pictures that I took throughout the day:
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