The island of Santorini

September 8, 2009

We arrived in Santorini at 1:30 AM, very early on the 8th. Since we had to take the late ferry from Milos, we were cheated out of a whole day on Santorini, and then had to arrive and find our hotel in the middle of the night.
We took the bus to Fira, one of the main towns of Santorini. We decided to stay in Fira because of it’s central location on the island, making it easier for us to go out and about on day trips. The Hotel Loucas was the place we picked, and not wanting a repeat performance of the arrival on Sifnos of climbing up steep hills to our hotel, I decided to call them for directions. I was greeted on the phone by the employee (manager?) of the hotel, and he tried to describe to me where to go. I was frustrated because I was roaming on my phone, and also frustrated because I could NOT see the National Bank that he was talking about as a landmark. He agreed to come meet us in 10 minutes and take us back to the hotel with him. Oh good, I thought, no need to stress now, he’s coming to get us.
We sat down, exhausted, by the taxi station of Fira, waiting for George to come get us. I was expecting a car, now of course I understand would have been ridiculous, but instead, George walked up to us with a bit of peevishness on his face.
“The bank is right there.” He scolded me, “You could have asked ANYONE and they could have told you where the bank was. I’ve been waiting there for you for 5 minutes!”
“We looked for it and couldn’t find it,” I said to him calmly. It was, after all, back in a recessed part of the street, and even Nathan couldn’t see it.
“You could have asked anyone.” He said again.
I can’t remember exactly what I said back to him, but you could have cut the air with a knife the tension was so bad. I said something like, “We don’t know where we ARE, we are in a foreign country!” I should have added, “… and it’s 2 AM and the only people here strange homeless-looking hotel-offering guys out here and drunk people who don’t speak English, and you expect me to talk to them?” Ugh, what a jerk.
Anyway, he walked us to the hotel and even helped us with our bags. We had to go up stairs, through alleyways, down stairs and then down even more stairs to get to our room. By the time we were checked in and down to our room, I had made amends with George being the one to lightly chatter about the weather in Santorini with a smile on my face. He had said it had been windy and cold, but was hoping for a nicer day tomorrow.
Our room was beautiful! When we had made our reservations, all of the “normal” rooms were already booked, so we decided to splurge a bit on the suite. It really was amazing! We had a sitting area with a leather couch, TV, coffee table, and then on the other side, a large bed with a white gauzy canopy and a very large bathroom. The walls were white with a dark grey faux rock back wall. Finally we had room to spread out! We got settled in, showered, and then I couldn’t sleep. Ha. I think it was nearing 4 AM when I finally drifted off to dreamland.

Our first morning in Santorini was pretty lazy. We slept in as long as we could until we were going to miss breakfast, so then we rolled out of bed and climbed up the stairs to the Aris restaurant (part of the hotel). We had breakfast and then headed down to our room to relax for a while until our sailing adventure later that day.
We were scheduled to sail with Captain Ted of Santorini Sailing, whose company had been, among other accolades, rated #1 thing to do while in Santorini in 2007 by Departures Magazine. I was STOKED to go on the boat, however really apprehensive since I suffer from motion sickness. The seas were looking angry too! Yikes. Captain Ted, although born in Greece, spent his childhood in New Jersey. He later returned to Greece and married an Australian gal named Dina. They have two kids, 4 and 18 months, very similar to us!
We got ready to go on our sailing adventure, and as soon as we climbed up the ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY SEVEN steps from our room to the top of the hotel, I realized that I had forgotten my Dramamine in the room. There was no way I was going to go back down there and walk back up that insane amount of stairs, so we headed over to the nearest Pharmacy to get some of their motion sickness meds.
We had some time to spend in Fira before our transport to the port where our boat was scheduled, so we grabbed a gyro sandwich from a tiny, very crowded, main street restaurant. It was the type of place where you walk in, order, get your food and leave, pulling up a seat wherever possible. The gyro was good, but still, even in GREECE, it wasn’t as good as the midnight gyro in Ames, Iowa. ;)
We walked around Fira town for a bit to waste some time, taking photos of the insanely beautiful scenic view of the caldera, and being entertained by a local Greek trying to sell postcards. He looked homeless, even though I’m still not sure if he was or not, and was hassling Nathan and me about putting our empty drink cans into the trash with a point of his finger. Ok, man. We get it, the trash is THERE. Thanks. We’ll be sure to do that. Now leave us alone! ;)
I needed to get some coffee to combat the exhaustion that I was sure the Dramamine equivalent was going to inflict, so we went into a hotel right there to grab a coffee before heading out to sail. When we came back to the meeting place for our transfer, about 10 minutes later, the rest of the group had arrived, and we were ready to go.
We piled in a van with two other American couples getting ready to go sailing too. We thought that they were going to be on our boat with us, but they ended up sailing on Captain Ted’s other boat with another captain. They were entertaining, laughing about their trip so far, about hotel mix ups and the craziness that they had experienced in Mykonos. Nathan and I were reassured that we had made the right decision in going to smaller, less touristy islands previous to our stop in Santorini. They said Mykonos was absolutely crazy.
We boarded our catamaran with Captain Ted and crew, and then 4 other couples for a total of 10 guests. We had a mix of Americans, one Australian couple, and one of the guys that was married to an American girl was from London. We all were introduced quickly and the party began… the white wine from Santorini and the Mythos beer started flowing like the sea we were on. ;) Let the fun begin!
Captain Ted was awesome, giving us the “rules” of the boat and then serving as our tour guide around the island. We got to know a lot about the other couples on the boat, and before we knew it, we were anchoring down for people to jump off of the boat and swim for a while. I was still in my clothes, and even though I was much more interested in taking photos rather than swimming, I went and changed into my swimsuit to join in the “fun”. I was told that the water was warm, and I, being a dumb a** , believed them. They were all LIARS! ;) It was so cold that my body had a hard time breathing once I jumped in, almost like my lungs were in shock. I stuck it out though, like someone else said, “If you wait a few minutes, your body will go numb and you won’t feel it anymore.” Ha ha ha ha. He was soooo right.
After that experience, I was the first one to change OUT of my suit and give up the swimming for the rest of the day. I happily retired my bathing suit and reacquired my camera for the rest of the sail. That made me happy.
We spent the rest of the evening sailing, stopping one other time to swim in the hot springs (neither Nathan or I didn’t get in the water this time) with another few boatloads of people (not small groups either, more like herds of people), and then once everyone climbed back on board, we headed over to another scenic area to anchor down, have dinner and relax.
Dinner was served to us by the two crew members, one being a girl from Australia (Nicole) and a Greek guy (didn’t get his name). We started with pasta salad with a bruchetta type of sauce, Greek salad with feta and olives, an amazingly good smoked eggplant dip (white eggplant- a specialty of the island), grilled clamari, huge prawns, and bread. The main course was oven roasted vegetables, grilled pork and chicken. It was all very good, not extraordinary like I had heard it was going to be, but very good.
The alcohol was flowing by now, and we all had a very good time chatting with Ted and the other guests. At one point, Nathan was talking with the Greek crew member about Mousaka. Nathan told him that he had loved the Mousaka in Vathy, Sifnos, and the guy agreed, he had had the best Mousaka of his life in Vathy. That made Nathan happy, and we never did try Mousaka again, not expecting it to mount up to the quality that he had eaten in Vathy.
A few things that Captain Ted told the group was that Greeks are different than other countries of the world… they don’t export their best home made products, they export their second best and keep the best for themselves. ;) That sounds right to me. The second thing was that one of the countries that imported most of their olive oil was Italy. Amazing!
After dinner we started sailing back towards the port, all the while enjoying the sunset. I was standing up taking photos while we were moving slowly along the sea being punched by waves from left to right. The sea was indeed angry, and nothing about the sailing trip was smooth. I was extremely grateful that I had taken the appropriate medicine, and came very close to giving it to others on the boat. They weren’t doing well, but I’m happy to say that I don’t think anyone ended up physically getting sick.
Anyway, I was standing up taking photos when I was unexpectedly LAUNCHED onto my side, down onto the American and British couple. It happened before I could think, and although I was entirely embarrassed, it wasn’t anything I would have had control over. I felt horrible, luckily we were all okay, and the other girl was credited for “catching” me. ;)
The sailing trip was unbelievable, very fun, very interesting but very rocky! I definitely would recommend it to others, but bring your Dramamine! I was actually pretty surprised that he hadn’t canceled our sail like he had the morning sail, but thankful, so thankful, that he hadn’t! It was worth it!
I went to bed super early that night, I was wiped out from not sleeping much the night before and the rest of my energy had been zapped from all the excitement of the evening.

September 9, 2009

After breakfast on the 9th, we decided to go to the Old Port of Fira. There are three ways to get there, one being a long walk down a ton of stairs, a hired donkey ride on said stairs, or a gondola. We opted for the gondola, and somehow lucked out with perfect timing… it only ran every twenty minutes, but we hopped on immediately and there was absolutely no line. When we reached the bottom, we marveled at the line waiting to go UP. Nathan figured out that the line going up was from the people being dropped off at the old port by the cruise lines, and those people wanting to go up to Fira to look around and connect to the rest of the island.
We roamed around the old port for a while, looking at everything and doing a bit of shopping. We wandered into a store that caught my attention, and ended up spending a good amount of money on some souvenirs. I can’t mention what those were, as they may or may not be gifts for people. ;) We were happy to find those souvenirs, and we had the store ship them to us instead of us having to cart them home. Best money I’ve ever spent, right there. Ha.
The old port wasn’t all that entertaining, so we decided to hitch up the gondola back to the main town of Fira. Again, totally lucked out… no line going up, we walked right on… but when we got up there, there was an enormous line of people waiting to go down to the port. Someone up above was on our side!
We headed back to the hotel to shower and reset ourselves for our night out in Oia (pronounced ee-ah). We were told not to miss this town, but especially to see the sunset from this part of the island. The couple from Tmapa that we had met in Sifnos at the beginning of our trip had told us to go early, and to go to the Sunset café for dinner and the sunset. The two couples from the transfer bus to and from Ted’s sailing adventure told us to eat at Dimitri’s in Amoudi in the old city below Oia. Hmmm, what to do… what to do…. We decided to go down to Amoudi, but the problem was that it, like the old port of Fira, had a huge set of stairs to climb down, but no gondola. The couples had given us the advice to go down the stairs and taxi our way up. Smartest people ever! We did just that, and on our walk down the insane amount of steps, we saw people climbing up. They were absolutely insane! One American guy even told us, “Don’t do this! It’s horrible!” We told him of our idea to take a taxi and he praised that idea.
We were told to get a reservation at Dimitri’s, and tried to have the concierge at the hotel call for us earlier, but she couldn’t find the phone number for the restaurant anywhere. This is why we headed down to the small fishing port so early. We found Dimitri’s restaurant at the very end of the line of tavernas in Amoudi, and it ended up being right next to Sunset café. Turns out that the couple that told us to dine there forgot to mention that it was in Amoudi and not Oia. I didn’t know which to pick, so I asked one of the locals working at his own shop right there on the waterfront (I knew he was fluent in English because he had offered to hold my sunglasses while I shot photos- I had the glasses held in my mouth). I said to him, “Which restaurant do you like better? Dimitri’s or Sunset café?” Trying to not pick sides, he told me, under his breath “Probably Dimitri’s.” Settled. We headed over to Dimitri’s and made a reservation for 7 PM. Then we just had nearly 4 hours to spend in this tiny little place. Ugh.
There was a small graveled pathway leading away from Dimitri’s and around the corner of the waterfront. We decided to follow the path for a while. The shore consisted of about a 10 foot cliff of enormous black lava rocks just below us being smashed against by the rough sea waves. Other people had the same idea of walking this path. We eventually we ended up at the dead end of that path with sunbathers (stupidly and desperately sitting there soaking up rays with intense wind whipping against them), other tourists and even a few people snorkeling in the clear water. The water was beautiful! It was a stunning color of turquoise blue, and just beyond the immensely saturated color stood a gigantic rock, proudly jutting up from the water like it was it’s own Mt. Everest. I shot a ton of photos, and was extremely grateful at that point that I had decided to bring my wide angle lens. What a site!
We successfully but sloooowly wasted time around the waterfront, walking back and forth, shopping a little, shooting photos, etc. We sat at a small café that had music blaring to have a drink… our standard pick me ups… Nathan had a Red Bull and I had a frappe. We watched the bartender/waiter sit at the table next to us playing backgammon against a friend while juggling being the waiter whenever someone new would approach the bar. I asked their permission to take their photo of them playing the game, and they agreed. The waiter piped up and said to me, “You could title this, ‘Hard work in Sanroini!’” and he gave me a pretty good chuckle.
We went to the restaurant a bit earlier than our reservation since we were desperately bored and tables were available. We had effectively stalled our dinner long enough to be able to dine while the sun was setting.
We sat down at table that was on the edge of the waterfront with about at 2 to 3 foot drop to the water. Our table was so close to the drop off, Nathan insisted that we scoot my side of the table just about an inch or two away from the edge. Suddenly an image of me leaning on the table to get a good shot and me falling into the sea below shot through my head. Good idea, honey.
The main draw for Dimitiri’s restaurant is the fish that they serve, and the fact that you go back to the kitchen and select your own fish from the supply that they have for the evening. Nathan wanted to get the Black Sea Brimm that the Americans had suggested we get, but they were sold out of it. We decided to split a large grouper filet, and for sides we got eggplant dip and fried zucchini. We selected the house red wine to drink. Dinner was okay, I was pretty disappointed when our fish was overcooked and dry, but everything else about the meal was good. The sunset was absolutely unbeatable, stunning and priceless… all those cliché things. We ate, drank, and watched she sun set over the bay of Amodi, all the while I was snapping pictures of course!
We took a taxi, as planned, back to Fira after dinner. Nathan tried to push me to walk up the gigantic set of stairs back to Oia, but I had nothing to do with that. The 137 steps of the hotel almost killed me every time, I couldn’t imagine walking up 300.
Once we got back to our hotel, I parked my rear in the bar while Nathan went down to the room to change clothes. I shot a few pictures of the bar with my small camera because it was so insanely lit with blue lights, and decorated with backlit tables. However, the prices of the drinks reflected the stunning location and view of the caldera, so we decided to try a different bar up further than our hotel, the Tropical bar. They advertised Happy Hour, so we took advantage of that, but she only had a few certain drinks for a discount. Nathan had Alfa beer, and I had a tequila sunrise. It was so strong I couldn’t drink it… but the bartender was super nice, a US native from Santa Barbara. We had plenty to talk about! She had been in Greece for 20 years but frequently went back to Cali to visit.
I was so tired that I headed back to the hotel and left an unhappy Nathan back at the bar without me. He watched the Greece vs. Maldovia soccer game, downed another beer and then came back to the hotel. We were both exhausted and kinda grumpy! Too bad it was our last night on Santorini. ☹

September 10, 2009

We were up early in the morning getting ready to check out and leave the Loucas Hotel in Santorini. We had a flight to catch to take us from the island back to Athens for one night before we were to head home.
Since we arrived at 2 AM, we had not officially met the porter that worked at the hotel, but we had seen him around since staying there. He gave me the creeps, eying me one time when I was in the office without Nathan. I had my huge camera around my neck and he was staring at me. After about a minute of the uncomfortable feeling that he was staring at me, I turned to him and shot him a look like, REALLY? He flashed his smile at me, grinning ear to ear, showing me all of his crooked yellow teeth. Shivers…. Yikes.
The porter proved his usefulness the morning we checked out though, hauling our huge suitcases, one at a time, first to the office and then all the way through the town, up the stairs and then back down to the taxi meeting place. From the office to the meeting place, he literally hauled them all at once. He treated his body like he was a camel, literally having my large camera bag around his neck and rolling both of our huge suitcases. I honestly do not know how this guy did it… but he was totally against me or Nathan helping in any way. Needless to say, he earned a LARGE tip. I really wish I would have taken a video of him hauling all of this stuff… first of all for the pure insanity of it, second of all, to record all of the tourists STARING at him while hauling all of our stuff. They guy is certifiably insane, and that was the type of gazes he was getting! Ha.