How long is a piece of string?
The answer to this question from any Greek is 50m. EVERYTHING is 50m.
"Where is our hotel?" 50m that way. 300m later... repeat! Continue this for about 1km... you get the idea I'm sure. But imagine humid 30+ degree heat, 20kg packs and the promise of a cold beer and refreshing shower. Finally a bloke at a road side bar took us to where we belonged. Turns out it was the bus stop before the one we were told to get off at. Good times :)
Anyway, I'm ahead of myself. We caught the fast ferry to Santorini. Unfreakinbelievable how huge these things are. And quick too. We were lucky enough to be in the non-smoking section which is like being within one metre of a bar in Adelaide. The whole ship is divided in to two massive rooms - each one is 80% smoking and 20% non-smoking and sealed airconditioning. We sat on the edge of the non-smoking area. Enough about that. I'm just a reformed smoker who has found the error of my ways.
Speaking of the "one metre from the bar rule"... this has come up in conversations at various times on our trip. It has been met with astounded looks and laughter. The general opinion of Media Mike's brilliant idea is "we thought our politicians were idiots".
Back on track now... we stayed in Perissa Beach and the hostel was luxury compared with Athens. We even had a fridge in our room - a studio type apartment more than hostel. It has a really nice swimming pool and eucalyptus trees outside our door. They even have there own hire cars available. In fact everyone has their own hire cars in Santorini (and quads and scooters)
After arriving and getting ourselves acquainted with our little patch of the island we did some sniffing around regarding getting to Turkey. Bottom line is from Santorini it would take too much time to get where we wanted to go so we decided we would go to Turkey another time and instead head to Spain after Italy. So we booked the room for an extra night and apparently had plenty to drink (Lina's notes are hard to read so she must have been trashed). The local wine was a bit thin and very dry but really good on the whole even the stuff we got from the local supermarket was ok. Surprising considering it was only €3 ($5) for a 1.5l bottle that you filled yourself from a barrel in the store into a selection of empty water bottles. Had souvlaki for dinner and lunch; Lina had mousaka for dinner.
Santorini Day 2 we got ourselves a left hand Peugeot that seemed to want to drift onto the wrong side of the road, especially turning corners. Took the safe option and got the automatic and after the hire lady showed us how to start it - it took her 10 mins to work out - we were off on our tour of the island...
Headed into the capital Fira which is basically half a dozen roads chock full of tourists on their hire quads, scooters and cars all looking for that one park that really does exist. After getting caught up in the traffic we were glad we went with the car and not the bikes. Too dangerous and we found out later there are around 5 tourists killed each season on the roads and there were already that many this season and it was only early June.
Checked out Fira and arranged a few flights to Athens then Rome and started out around the island, which is only 40km long, with a dodgey map and a desperate need to be on the wrong side of the road - it was the car I tell ya!!
Most of our time was spent on the south coast checking out the little villages and coastal views. There was one little cove in particular that has bright red cliffs behind it and crystal clear water. It looked very inviting but for some stupid reason neither of us remembered our swimming togs. The sign leading up to the cove said Red Cave but we couldn't see any sign of a cave there and suspect it was another of the local's admirable efforts at spelling English words that foreign to them. Interesting site around the island was every available piece of land has grapes growing on it. They aren't trussed up in rows like ours at home - they're just growing on the ground.
We finished up driving to the top of the island to take in the sunset. The little town, Ioa, pronounced ee-o is the famous blue and white buildings you see in postcards. Very beautiful and everything is twice as much there than on the rest of the island. So we get there and of course are looking for a park and we see in the street one of our friends from Egypt, Caroline. Lucky the car was on the correct side of the road for a change or it could have been awkward. Turns out she was trying to remember where she parked her group's car so we drove her down the street until we found it, blocked traffic while she went on her way and promptly adopted the park for our very own.
The sunset was a big non-event. All cloudy and overcast unfortunately. We left a few thousand delusional people on the cliffs to realise it was past sunset and they wouldn't see anything tonight. Not to worry... we can see the sun set over the water anytime at home. Our tour and tals with locals and other tourists proved one thing to us though - Perissa Beach is the all round best place to stay in Santorini for couples.
Dinner was a really delicious souvlaki. Lina had stuffed tomatoes and the waiter to a shine to one of us (still not sure which one) and brought out a local after dinner liquer called Vassanto. A bit like a sweet sherry with a touch of grappa about it. Bloody nice way to finish a meal.
Next day we took a trip to a nearby island to check out the volcano. It never rains in Santorini - bollocks to that!! It was windy as anything on the volcano and peed down most of the time we were climbing it. Lucky for us the wind dried us off after a few minutes on top of the crater. The boat we took over there was an old style tall ship but we felt a bit ripped off when we motored our way around everywhere. I mean the brochure shows it under full sail and the wind was strong enough. After the volcano we were taken around to the nearby hot springs for a swim. They weren't really hot springs - it was a volcanic vent below the surface of the sea. Only a few people from our boat went for a dip - we didn't. The idea was the boat moves to within about 30m of the springs but for some reason our skipper moored about 100m away and everyone was saying bugger that - too far. Many people were keen if the guy would only take it in closer like every other boat and we were all left feeling unimpressed. We returned to our pool for a swim instead :) And we both had souvlaki for dinner.
Got to hand it to the Greeks... it took them a while to figure out what to do with a woman but damn they make good souvlaki!!
That's all for now folks... we've got some Belgian beer and chocolates to gorge on :)
Luv and fuzzies
S&L
"Where is our hotel?" 50m that way. 300m later... repeat! Continue this for about 1km... you get the idea I'm sure. But imagine humid 30+ degree heat, 20kg packs and the promise of a cold beer and refreshing shower. Finally a bloke at a road side bar took us to where we belonged. Turns out it was the bus stop before the one we were told to get off at. Good times :)
Anyway, I'm ahead of myself. We caught the fast ferry to Santorini. Unfreakinbelievable how huge these things are. And quick too. We were lucky enough to be in the non-smoking section which is like being within one metre of a bar in Adelaide. The whole ship is divided in to two massive rooms - each one is 80% smoking and 20% non-smoking and sealed airconditioning. We sat on the edge of the non-smoking area. Enough about that. I'm just a reformed smoker who has found the error of my ways.
Speaking of the "one metre from the bar rule"... this has come up in conversations at various times on our trip. It has been met with astounded looks and laughter. The general opinion of Media Mike's brilliant idea is "we thought our politicians were idiots".
Back on track now... we stayed in Perissa Beach and the hostel was luxury compared with Athens. We even had a fridge in our room - a studio type apartment more than hostel. It has a really nice swimming pool and eucalyptus trees outside our door. They even have there own hire cars available. In fact everyone has their own hire cars in Santorini (and quads and scooters)
After arriving and getting ourselves acquainted with our little patch of the island we did some sniffing around regarding getting to Turkey. Bottom line is from Santorini it would take too much time to get where we wanted to go so we decided we would go to Turkey another time and instead head to Spain after Italy. So we booked the room for an extra night and apparently had plenty to drink (Lina's notes are hard to read so she must have been trashed). The local wine was a bit thin and very dry but really good on the whole even the stuff we got from the local supermarket was ok. Surprising considering it was only €3 ($5) for a 1.5l bottle that you filled yourself from a barrel in the store into a selection of empty water bottles. Had souvlaki for dinner and lunch; Lina had mousaka for dinner.
Santorini Day 2 we got ourselves a left hand Peugeot that seemed to want to drift onto the wrong side of the road, especially turning corners. Took the safe option and got the automatic and after the hire lady showed us how to start it - it took her 10 mins to work out - we were off on our tour of the island...
Headed into the capital Fira which is basically half a dozen roads chock full of tourists on their hire quads, scooters and cars all looking for that one park that really does exist. After getting caught up in the traffic we were glad we went with the car and not the bikes. Too dangerous and we found out later there are around 5 tourists killed each season on the roads and there were already that many this season and it was only early June.
Checked out Fira and arranged a few flights to Athens then Rome and started out around the island, which is only 40km long, with a dodgey map and a desperate need to be on the wrong side of the road - it was the car I tell ya!!
Most of our time was spent on the south coast checking out the little villages and coastal views. There was one little cove in particular that has bright red cliffs behind it and crystal clear water. It looked very inviting but for some stupid reason neither of us remembered our swimming togs. The sign leading up to the cove said Red Cave but we couldn't see any sign of a cave there and suspect it was another of the local's admirable efforts at spelling English words that foreign to them. Interesting site around the island was every available piece of land has grapes growing on it. They aren't trussed up in rows like ours at home - they're just growing on the ground.
We finished up driving to the top of the island to take in the sunset. The little town, Ioa, pronounced ee-o is the famous blue and white buildings you see in postcards. Very beautiful and everything is twice as much there than on the rest of the island. So we get there and of course are looking for a park and we see in the street one of our friends from Egypt, Caroline. Lucky the car was on the correct side of the road for a change or it could have been awkward. Turns out she was trying to remember where she parked her group's car so we drove her down the street until we found it, blocked traffic while she went on her way and promptly adopted the park for our very own.
The sunset was a big non-event. All cloudy and overcast unfortunately. We left a few thousand delusional people on the cliffs to realise it was past sunset and they wouldn't see anything tonight. Not to worry... we can see the sun set over the water anytime at home. Our tour and tals with locals and other tourists proved one thing to us though - Perissa Beach is the all round best place to stay in Santorini for couples.
Dinner was a really delicious souvlaki. Lina had stuffed tomatoes and the waiter to a shine to one of us (still not sure which one) and brought out a local after dinner liquer called Vassanto. A bit like a sweet sherry with a touch of grappa about it. Bloody nice way to finish a meal.
Next day we took a trip to a nearby island to check out the volcano. It never rains in Santorini - bollocks to that!! It was windy as anything on the volcano and peed down most of the time we were climbing it. Lucky for us the wind dried us off after a few minutes on top of the crater. The boat we took over there was an old style tall ship but we felt a bit ripped off when we motored our way around everywhere. I mean the brochure shows it under full sail and the wind was strong enough. After the volcano we were taken around to the nearby hot springs for a swim. They weren't really hot springs - it was a volcanic vent below the surface of the sea. Only a few people from our boat went for a dip - we didn't. The idea was the boat moves to within about 30m of the springs but for some reason our skipper moored about 100m away and everyone was saying bugger that - too far. Many people were keen if the guy would only take it in closer like every other boat and we were all left feeling unimpressed. We returned to our pool for a swim instead :) And we both had souvlaki for dinner.
Got to hand it to the Greeks... it took them a while to figure out what to do with a woman but damn they make good souvlaki!!
That's all for now folks... we've got some Belgian beer and chocolates to gorge on :)
Luv and fuzzies
S&L
posted by Steve & Lina at
10:51 AM
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