Santorini Sunsets

“…A few days of real Honeymooning ahead for us relaxing on a Greek island, hopefully hovering around the 20 degC mark…”

Day 5 – Famous last words! Whilst the blue skies and sunshine alluded to the 20 degC mark, unfortunately the Archipelago of Santorini whipped up a horribly cold wind chill of about -10 degC. Not the idle weather to be laying around the pool. Having said that our first day in Santorini was more than a success with the picturesque surrounds providing the perfect back drop to a day of wondering through Fira (the main town on the main island). Having no plans meant we got lost for the day, beginning with watching the local townspeople march through the main street to commemorate the day that the Greeks objected to Nazi occupation during WW2. From there it was up through the meandaring streets of Fira to find picturesque churches, over 250 on the island supposedly, blue and white dominant colour schemes, and the faint smell of donkey shit everywhere! We stopped at one of the few open churches where Katrina lit a candle for Nev and said good bye to him on the same day as everyone else back home. A hearty feed of Greek food overlooking the old port was followed up with cocktails at the same venue, after we’d walked off lunch (that’s what I told myself anyway). Finding a different bar to watch the sunset was beautiful even though the sunset into a low lying band of cloud off the coast rather than into the Mediterranean (as per the postcards!). Off to Juilius Ceasar’s for dinner and another over indulgent feed of greek food. Definalty learnt our lesson of not needing such big meals!

Breakfast at the Petit Palace

The Petit Palace!

Celebrating saying 'no' to the Nazi occupation in WW2

Nice view... the back drop is ok too...

The church where Katrina said goodbye to Nev on our behalf

The source(s) of the faint smell of donkey shit!

Sunset from Fira town

Day 6 – We had found out on Friday that the last full day boat tour of the season would run today and foolishly we thought why not. The tour takes in 4 locations on a small ‘traditional’ ‘junk’ fishing boat. First stop was the active volcano island, Nea Kameni, which is the ‘centre’ of the volcano of which all the islands are part of. A personal tour by a self indulgent geologist was too much for Katrina, retiring to take happy snaps. However the nerd of our group, me, huddled in close against the noise of the wind to learn what I could through his heavy accent. The volcano is actually a ‘super’ volcano which last major eruption was over 500 years ago. Whilst a minor eruption in 1950 something created the current little island of the main stack vent which still has some active steam pockets that could be used to warm your hands on the day. The next major eruption is not due until the earth next changes magnetic polarity, although there will be minor lava only eruptions in the next 20 years.

Next it was on to the warm springs. Only problem was you had to jump off the boat and swim the 20m in freezing cold water to get to them, and the same on the way back. Katrina and I were shown up in the bravery award by one old Aussie dude, and 4 young back packer girls, but we both thought the better of attempting it and staying wet for the remainder of the day. Soft we know.

Next stop was Thirasia, a small fishing village town ‘totally’ cut off from the modern world, or so we were told. Personally, I’m sceptical, they have a power source somewhere as the power poles attest to, and at least the one restaurant that was open defiantely had modern cook where, fridges, tills etc. Think it might be a convenient story for the tourists! It was however a stark reminder that we were here at the end of the season, whilst everything had been quiet on Friday, Thirasia¸ was positively dead on Saturday! It was like something out of a Zombie/outbreak/ebola virus movie. Scary. None more so when sitting on the dock enjoying a romantic moment we were attacked by a vicious, horrible, massive, scary…. Puppy. Still it scared the shit out of us as it was deserted and it snuck up on us ok!

Unfortunately the afternoon stop at Oia (pronuced Ee-a) was cancelled due to bad weather but we did do a ‘sail by’ to check it out. Upon returning to the dock Katrina and I, not wanting to miss the sunset jumped in a cab back to Oia to take in the most famous of the Santorini sunsets. Got to say, it didn’t live up to the hype, anywhere along the cliff delivers a good view. Again slightly spoilt by the cloud bank off the cost and the howling wind we were subjected to. Dinner at Oia was a welcome reprieve from the wind and although devoid of alcohol for me (on a self imposed alcohol free day) was still fabulous, Greeks can eat!

On the Volcano vent, windy much?

The warmest Katrina would be all day, warming her hands on the steam vents!

Lets fly Jetstar... or lets sail on the Santa Trini as it would become known (note real name Santa Irini)

Lovers sunset at Oia

 Day 7 – On the 7^th day, they rested… A solid sleep in, followed by breakfast in house and back to back skype sessions with Lee and Sheree, Mum and Dad and Mikey and Tam was a much needed down day for us. The wind did die down enough for an hour by the poolside, I swear, see the pictures! And whilst the water was brisk, we had a spa bath to retire to inside our villa! We had big plans of heading in to Fira for an afternoon of washing and then dinner, however this was soon spoilt as apparently on the 7^th day, the Laundromats also rested! Not all was lost as our shuttle bus driver from the week took us to a ‘locals only’ restaurant where we had the second best meal of our trip to date (sorry Chicken and Rice for 3.50 SGD still takes the cake for me). Served with Ouzo, ‘magical bread’ (as Katrina named it) and mains of pork belly (me) and seafood risotto (Katrina) were absolutely amazing. All washed down with cheap house wine and cold Mythos. Followed up with some chocolate/biscuit awesomeness and some other ‘sweet ouzo’ (horrible) topped it off quite nicely!

Loving the hot weather!

So relaxing!

Sunset at the Petit Palace

Day 8 – Our final morning in Santorini started with our belated trip to the dry cleaners where Nona sorted all our washing out for us, folded and placed in a bag for 12 EUR. More expensive than doing it yourself, but definitely shite loads easier! Unfortuantely Nona must of struck me with some sort of annoying tourist curse as I came down with a horrible Migraine of the type I remember getting as a kid, and once this year at work, so I retired back to the hotel and Katrina charged on for the remainder of the day. So over to her…

Being the last day of the ‘official’ season, most shops were closed, and only the locals were out which was nice. I bought a painting which we had seen earlier in the week together (clearly haven’t learnt our lesson of lugging art around the world) and stopped for lunch where I met another Aussie couple from Tweed Heads, we later sat next to them on the ferry. I picked up our washing neatly folded and headed back to find out if Mark was still alive???

After her adventures she returned to save me and we headed to the new port to board the Blue Star Ferry to Piraeus (Athens Port). Am typing this on board and whilst 9 hours is a long time on a ferry it is very comfortable, once we found an inside seat out of the cold, and the only thing which is lacking is an active wi-fi connection to post this blog! Must of found one eventually!

Love you all!

M&K

Oia from the bluestar on our way out.

The Bluestar sailing to the sunset - No wonder their economy died, their organisation is terrible