The Final Countdown. Day 27: Athens - Kalampaka / Meteora

You guessed it: this post also begins with an early start! As previously mentioned, the hotel owner started breakfast early for another guest, so he made a bit extra for us. It had been a particularly sleepless night - I got up twice to check that the windows were really shut because the traffic noise was so loud I was sure the cars and trucks were driving through our bedroom. Seeing as we had only gotten to bed at 1.30am and would be getting up at 6.30, we had really wanted to crash had. This did not happen. At about 5.30 we got out our ear plugs and managed a bit of sleep (should have done this sooner, but too tired to even look for them until desperation set in.)

The alarm went off, we got ready and wearily shouldered our luggage and went down the 4 flights of stairs for breakfast. The other guests were already there, and we grabbed our continental breakfast of bread rolls, ham and cheese (some cakes and fruit too), watered down juice (as always) and scoffed it pretty quickly. We wrapped up a couple of little cakes and stashed them in our pocket for snacks later, and just as we were leaving I grabbed an apple and put that in my pocket too.

Checking out was merely handing the key over, and we were off and away towards the station, the area still smelling like pee. Our train wasn't until 8.20am, but because we hadn't been able to get tickets yet and weren't even sure there were any, we wanted to go early so arrived about 7.35am. I went up to the ticket counter, and in a matter of minutes I had two shiny tickets to Kalampaka, Meteora in my sweaty little hands.

I should clarify: Meteora is the big rock; Kalampaka (or Kalabaka, there are two spellings which are interchangeable it seems!) and Kastraki are the two towns at the base of the big rock. We stayed in Kalampaka as it was closer to the train station, but both are walking distance from each other and kind of blend anyway.

It was a pretty long train journey, about 5 hours, and our allocated seats were not only backwards but facing an old could who seemed to be taking up lots of space. My throat was still quite sore, and I was tired and grumpy. I managed to doze a little, but soon my legs and butt and knees were in agony from not being able to stretch them into the little old lady I was facing. There were so many empty seats on the train. I was also starting to get motion sick, so I got up for a stretch and a toilet stop, and when I came back I decided to just sit behind Dan (still facing backwards) so I could stretch out - and move if someone came on needing the seat.

After a little while, Dan joined me on the seat behind. At one point, I looked to the window next to me and noticed a bee had flown onto the vents below the window. As you may know, I hate bees. Well, more specifically, I am terrified of bees. It borders on a phobia - I know it's illogical, and I know bees are good for the environment and I never want to see one hurt, but I really, really, really don't want them anywhere near me. I go into fight or flight mode - and by that I mean just flight mode.

It moved, so I moved. I launched up out of my seat, tried to get past Dan's long legs, tripped right over his legs, sent my phone flying down the carriage and I came landing on the seat opposite. It really was quite the spectacle, and was pretty loud. Everyone look at me but I don't care. I collected my phone and my wits and warily watched the bee.

Dan grabbed a piece of card to try to coax the bee onto it and..I dunno? I thought maybe take it to the window or something? I was saying "Just leave it!" Which he should have, because the next thing I knew it was flying all around the carriage again, with me ducking every time it came close. It hit a man in the back of the head, before flying onto a curtain. At this point, he picked up a newspaper and smacked the bee until it was dead. I was very sad. I hadn't wanted it to be killed, just to be not near me.

Everyone seemed to think this was a great victory but I felt bad - if I had just stayed still it would still be alive. Stupid fear! Even I know it's stupid.

Soon the old people got off, as did most of the train - we weren't at Kalampaka yet so I was quite confused. Our train was running late, and a little while before we pulled into our stop an Indian couple started talking to us. They wanted to know about getting a taxi up to the top of Meteora to see the monasteries and then come back down. We said we had no idea as we would be hiking it, and he proceeded to tell us the details. They were only going to be in Meteora for about 4 hours so good luck to them! Later in the day, Dan and I wondered if they had ever made it up the rock or not...

Our stop! Off we jumped, and headed straight to the ticket station. We wanted to be prepared this time, and so asked the lady behind the counter if there were train tickets from Kalampaka to Thessaloniki for a few days time. She said there were indeed, but her systems were down at the moment. This was fine - at least there were trains running!

It was hot out here, and thankfully our hostel was only about a 5 minute walk away from the train station. Up a flight of stairs, of course, and we were met by a man bounding in energy who raced us through check in. Host El Greco calls itself a "eco friendly" hostel but I'm not completely convinced, also it said it had free breakfast but we had to pay, with the "money going to kids in Africa". Righto, no way to verify that this is where our money is going, and I was a little bit sceptical.

Anyway, our room was alright and we collapsed for a short while. The plan we formulated was: go to the supermarket to get snacks and supplies, go find a late lunch, and then in the evening go up Meteora (sounds easy when I type it like that!) and see the sunset from Sunset Point. We had googled the best photographic places along Meteora and Sunset Point wasn't toooooo far from us, as well as being one of the better places for it.

First things first: lunch. I was starving. I wanted something pretty fast and not very far away, although nothing in Kalampaka is too far away. I found a place called Taverna To Paramithi which got mixed reviews, but was also on our map so we would be able to get a free drink or free dessert. It looked pretty at least and the food was cheap. On the way we stopped at the supermarket, grabbed wine (of course) and some snacks for the hike, and made our way to the restaurant.

The ambiance was indeed very beautiful as we sat outdoors with a view of the rock, surrounded by jasmine plants. Our waiter was pretty grumpy and seemed really rushed - there weren't many people in there at this time (about 2.30pm) so there wasn't a huge rush to get food to our table. We ordered a variety of food: wine (of course), a Greek salad, stuffed tomato and stuffed capsicum, and a souvlaki plate, all to share. It was all pretty damn tasty - especially the stuffed vegetables! Another waiter came along with a smile, and I showed him the map and asked if the free dessert was still available.

Again with a smile, he left and grabbed for us a couple of baklavas with icecream, which was very tasty (I purposely asked that waiter instead of our other one!). We paid up (it was pretty cheap) and wandered back to our accom. We really needed a sit down after our big lunch and busy morning, and we had about an hour before we needed to make tracks, so it was really good to have a rest.

At about 5.30 we left, knowing that sunset was a bit after 8pm and we didn't really know how long it would take us to get up there. Donning our walking gear and lots of sunscreen, we headed out. Soon I realised we probably should have taken bug spray too, although we weren't attacked very badly at all in the end.

Consulting both the map we had been given and Dan's offline maps, we found the beginning of one path up to the mountains. It was paved with big uneven stones, but was a proper path none-the-less. One or two lone hikers passed us coming down as we were going up, which made me wonder if we were the only people heading up at this late hour of the day. It was pretty hot and sweaty, but we were climbing at a rapid pace.

We reached a GIANT rock with two arrows painted on it, saying "FOOTPATH". One path was the one we were currently on, which was quite clearly a path. The other was just steep rocks and rubble. Dan consulted the map, and said we needed to go up the rocks and rubble. I couldn't quite fathom that the maps called that a path, as it was pretty indistinguishable from the undergrowth, but we set on up it and not only did the little spot on the map move in the right direction, but we started coming across the little stone tower markers, which became a beacon to let us know we were going the right way as other people had crossed this path before.

The scramble was very intrepid, but it was fun, and we made really good progress. It would alternate being steep and flat, which gave us time to catch our breath, and admire the view. At one point, we reached a junction. I said to Dan, "Any idea which way to go, love?"
His reply: "Up."

Thanks darling.

We only made one wrong turn, but it took us to an amazing view point. Unfortunately there were a few extra bees and giant yellow-green beetles (that looked a little dung beetles/scarabs, they might have been!) which were looking ready to attack, so we hastily left. My shoes are pretty slippery so I didn't go at a very fast pace, but we made really good progress none-the-less. The path really wasn't a path - I continued to question whether we were going in the right direction until I would see another set of stone markers.



Soon, we landed on a big of an uphill clearing, and could clearly see Sunrise Point (not to be mistaken with Sunset Point) which is actually very close to Sunset point. Excellent! We had actually made it! We popped out onto the road and sat for a minute, surveying the view and congratulating ourselves for the trek. It had taken us about an hour from getting to the beginning of the walking trail.

Walking along the road, we stopped to check out Sunrise Point. It wasn't supposed to be quite as beautiful as Sunset point, so we took a few pictures and carried on. There were already a lot of people on this rock, and there were also a lot of people with their wine and picnics at Sunset Point when we got there too. We should have brought the wine that was sitting in the fridge! Nah, it would have been too hard to carry.



We walked along the rock and found a second level. Surprisingly, no one was sitting here, so Dan and I setup camp here. Even if we stood up, we weren't in anyone's view. A little uncomfortable perhaps, and we had to keep shuffling, but it was a great spot. Another few people ended up sharing it with us - but we of course had prime position.

Some American girls set up next to us; one was obviously quite interested in photography and had some serious kit; the other - far, far, far less so. We couldn't help giggling at their conversation. The non-photographer demanded a few pictures of the photographer, saying "Don't make me look fat. Does this make me look fat?" At one point, I leant over to her and told her that the strap on her top was twisted, saying "You've got to make the picture perfect!"

Later on, the non-photographer was trying to take pictures of the photographer, and she was clearly utterly hopeless. The photographer kept saying "How have you made this blurry?!" and there were many, many attempts. I think also the non-photography kept taking panos on her phone while trying to take a selfie - and there was a lot of giggling about that.

Dan and I took a tonne of photos here - it was actually quite hard because the sun was really bright and blowing out the sky. But we had plenty of time - we had arrived at about 7pm to this point, with sunset about 8.20, so had lots of time to practice. It was indeed very beautiful, to our left was one high rock face, in front, a valley, with a little rock in it. To our right, 3 of the monasteries perched precariously on the top of the rocks - we would be visiting some of these on the morrow. We ate a couple of the muesli bars we had brought as snacks.

The sun set, the valley turned from golden to blue, the sky turned pinkish and Dan and I needed to figure out how the hell we were going to get down. Dan thought we should take the road that we could see below, I wondered if we should take the path that we forewent for the steep rock climbing. We went with the road (the correct choice).

It took us about an hour and a half to get all the way down again - the road was winding but not very steep thankfully, and we occasionally had to go into the gutter to let cars pass, but we were generally the only ones on the road. There were no street lights so we were guided by moonlight, which was rather beautiful. As the light faded, we saw a few bats, and soon it was fully night time.

I remembered that my jacket has a reflective arm band, so we unravelled this from it's little hideaway pocket and instantly I felt safe on the road knowing that my arm would reflect our position and let drivers know where we were. (Also the fact my jacket is garish pink/orange probably helps too).

By going down the hill this way, we had to walk through Kastriki town before getting to Kalampaka, and at the base of the road we started coming across signs of civilisation. We contemplated getting some food at some point, but neither of us were hungry at all. As we were walking through Kastriki, a big black dog joined us for a stroll, being a bit of a guide doggy. It then wandered in front of a car and Dan and I both shouted out "DOGGY!" to try to get it away. Thankfully, all was well, the car passed and the dog trotted away.

At some point in Kastriki, everything was starting to complain (took a while!) so I crumbled and checked google maps - we were literally only 15 minutes walk from our accommodation, so I pep talked myself and we stumbled across the finish line.

Neither of us had any appetite, so we had nothing for dinner this night. We figured out our plan for the next day - would we take the bus up instead? We really tossed up this idea, but in the end decided a) we didn't want to be beholden to a time table and b) that's cheating - we were there to hike Meteora!

Til next time,
xxx

The Final Countdown. Day 26: Paros - Athens

We had to check out today but we still had almost a full day in Paros. We didn't really know what we wanted to do with the day so we meandered our way to the bus station to find we had just missed the bus to Golden Beach which was one of the main attractions. I really didn't know what else do to, and eventually we settled on getting a bus to Naoussa but that wasn't leaving for over an hour. 

We wandered through the white washed streets of Parikia trying to get lost and see what we could see, occasionally popping out on the waterfront and diving back in again. With time still to spare before the bus left, we got a frozen yoghurt each - we are in Greece after all! Must have yoghurt. I got natural yoghurt with fresh banana, chocolates sauce and crunchy bits, and Dan got toppings of sour cherry, chocolate and strawberry flakes. 

We could see people gathering around a bus so we headed over there. There were people already on the bus but a lot of people standing outside too. We stood outside for a while not sure if we could get on, under the guise of "enjoying the sunshine". One person jumped on so we followed - the rest of the bus crowd following us also. The man came up he aisle to check our tickets and we were away. 

The drive to Naoussa only took about 20ish minutes which was good as the only bus back was at 4.30pm, so that left us plenty of time to get our luggage and go to the foreshore. 

When we arrived in Naoussa we got off a stop early with everyone else but it was the right stop right on the water front. We started wandering leisurely and as we went to cross the road, two giant geese were just sauntering down the road ahead of us. No one seemed to pay any attention to this other than us. 

There was a small bridge that wasn't really necessary and didn't really lead anywhere - I think it was a throwback to an old castle - and so we went over to it to cross it because I like bridges. 

Underneath I noticed more geese, some with very very strange colourings (they were huge with bright red on their noses - very ugly) and also some ducks - also with very odd colouring. In the shallow water beneath the bridge there were also a lot of little fish - the birdies dream! There was a short pier so we walked across that, thinking there might be a nice view to the buildings and boats on the waterfront. 

Suddenly we hear a smacking sound, and see a man smacking a fish against the bricked fence next to the boats. That's a bit violent. Then we realise it wasn't a fish, but an octopus. And he kept slamming it and smacking it into the fence - the staccato sound seating through our brains each time as we knew exactly what was happening even we weren't watching. It was pretty awful. It seemed the octopus got longer as a result - maybe tenderising it? It was brutal. We kept walking the other way along the pier and eventually the sound stopped, and we sighed with relief. 

We could now walk back the other direction past the octopus beating corner and along the foreshore. This is a fishing town to all along were fishermen setting up, fixing their boats and thankfully no more octopus beatings. The water was crystal clear and we could see all sorts of sea urchins and fish and anemone and sea cucumbers. 

At the ending the shore shore was a rocky outcrop leading to the ruins of a fort. We had seen people climbing all over these rocks and wanted to give it a go. We made it to the fort hut the rocky path beyond it was a bit much for my slippery shoes so we abandoned that idea. The water was filled with what I can only think were jelly fish - they looked entirely spherical and just sort of bobbed everywhere like whiteish orbs. 

Back on land we did a once around all the restaurants. I saw one that did a fish deal for two people - and it was teeming with cats and a duck after scraps. After going around once we returned to this place and got ourselves a table outside looking out to the water. 

To be honest the food wasn't amazing, but the service and ambiance was nice, and Dan and I ended up with a kitty each at our feet which we fed our scraps too. About four were milling about at the time, and the bloody duck kept eyeballing me. 

The fish plate came with a variety of whole fish - we are getting rather good at deboning them now - and a Greek salad. Some cheap white wine (I think it was watered down). At one point I looked up from the meal and noticed some octopus had been draped over the sign of the door ahead of us - I wondered if one had been our octopus we heard being beaten earlier?

Just as we were leaving another two cats of note arrived - one with a weird looking black eye who was appreciative of our scraps (my bloody cat wasn't) and another that had clearly been in the wars very recently and looking at it made us sad. We scrounged through our fish to find it some flesh left, gave it what we could, and left. 

There wasn't an awful lot to do here and we had until 4.30 for the bus, so we wandered trough the streets and did a reccie to the bus stop to see how far it was. We found quite a large church and a little park full of cats - but these were all quite skittish no matter how hard the Pied Piper Dan tried to get a pat out of them. Back on the waterfront we endeavoured to find our first cocktail of the trip - but they were all so so expensive, starting at €10. We found a place with couches doing cocktails for €8, so just settled in here to wait for the time to pass. 



We did a bit of research on some trains and buses for one of our next legs - we had heard that the train we intended to catch from Thessaloniki - Skopje and then later from Skopje -Belgrade may have been cancelled until June. It didn't say anything like this in the Serbian Railways website, but we took note to research this later. 

Downing our delicious sour cherry and strawberry cocktails, we went to he bus station. No dramas catching the bus back to Parikia, and we slowly walked back to our accom to pick up our belongings. 

As much as we had enjoyed Goodys on our first long ferry, it's pretty expensive, so we opted to bring our own food for this leg of the journey which would take about 4 hours. Dan sat down near the port in a little park and I went back to the supermarket. 

My little shopping list consisted of squishy cheese (if available) and accompanying meat, wine (duh), tomato and feta and olives for a pretend Greek salad and maybe something for dessert. I took a little longer than expected because I had trouble finding things. Cherry tomatoes were horribly expensive so I chose a couple of normal tomatoes. I ended up getting some olives from the fresh service area which was no problem (after watching two Americans be rather obnoxious trying to buy meat and cheese from the deli also, I figured I'd be a breeze!). The squishy cheese was eye wateringly expensive but I got it anyway. I naturally chose the slowest counter, and then proceeded to slow down everything even more as I hadn't gotten a price ticket for the tomatoes, and then to pay via card she had to walk to the other side of the store. She actually did the tut-sigh when I pulled out the card. Oh well! Got, in the end. More expensive than I would have liked but still cheaper than Goodys, slightly better for us and we got wine. 

Today my throat started to get sore, which was a massive bugger. Do not want to get sick! I had looked for some vitamins or soothers but there was nothing in this store. Back with Dan in the Park, we shouldered our luggage and went to the port entrance - the first people to get there. This boarding experience was a million times nice than that in Santorini. Only a handful f people getting on. No rushing no pushing. The boat arrived roughly on time - getting on was no problem and was e found a seat on the very top deck in the sheltered area on some lounges - a nice change from the school style seats we had been sitting on. 

We couldn't fully see the sunset from here - it was hidden by the body of the boat but if we stood up we could, and we had seen it twice anyway. It glowed a lovely orange pink as it slowly went down. 

As the sun was setting we ate our wine and cheese, feta and tomato. Te olives turned out to be really overpoweringly salty so I didn't have many of these. Across from us another set of travellers had also wine and cheese picnicked for the journey / ours was a bit fancier tho!

Even changing into warmer clothing, there was still a cold breeze out here so we eventually decided to migrate indoors. Everyone around us had already done this, so Dan did a reccie and off we went. We found some lounge chairs near the departing point and plonked ourselves down for the remainder of the journey. We finished off the wine and polished off the Greek orange chocolate I had also bought, typed the blogs furiously and soon enough it was time to get off at Piraeus. We would be staying a single night near the main train station before heading to Meteora on the morrow. 

We weren't looking forward to walking through Piraeus again. Originally we were going to take the actual train straight to Larissa station (main station) but they weren't running, so metro with a change it was. There wasn't a huge crowd getting off the ship so it was pretty easy to get off and walk through the streets unmolested. On the way, I saw a homeless man under a rug with a box of kittens in front of him, which were trying to climb out of the box. 

Getting the metro was fine - as we were the first stop we just bagged a whole four seater for all our stuff. At the change, the sign said a 15 minute wait so we settled in for this - however with 8 minutes to go a train rocked up, so we scrabbled for our stuff and jumped on just in time. Phew!

At Larissa station we wondered if we could buy tickets for tomorrow from a machine, but this was not the case. We would have to go to the ticket office in the morning and fingers crossed there were tickets available!

By now it was approaching midnight and thankfully our accom was only about five minutes (of pee-stinky) walk. The gentleman at the Neos Olympia hotel greeted us. 

Checkin seemed to take an age, and I had been wearing the bags for ages, and I started to get fidgety. I didn't want to take it off because I wasn't sure id get it back on again tonight. I tried everything to lessen the weight, and a couple of times accidentally knocked the counter. The man apologised for taking so long. He then mentioned that breakfast started at 8 - at which point I butted in and asked if there was *any* way we could possibly have a bite to eat a little earlier as we would be leaving before 8. He asked when we would be leaving, we said around 7.30, to which he replied "ok you be downstairs at 7.15. I'm making breakfast then for some other guests."

Extremely thankful it was time to go to our room and crash. Four flights of stairs later (!) we made it up there, by now it was about 12.30am. We had to be up at 6.30, so it really was just a place to lay down and shower (and also get fed, thankfully!) before jetting off again. Quick showers - hot water and good water pressure is really something you appreciate when you travel - and off to bed. 

Til next time,
Xx

The Final Countdown. Day 25: Parikia, Paros

The night before our host had offered to help us hire a car. There seemed to be a lot to do on the island so this sounded like a great idea to me - as I would be the passenger (I'm a woeful driver). I didn't realise that this had stressed Dan out so much, so we slept on the idea and in the morning Dan finally told me he just wanted a day to rest. That was absolutely fair enough and I wish he had said something sooner.

We slept in and had our breakfast in our little balcony. As we had a little outdoor washing line, we took the opportunity to hand wash some stinky clothes as they would dry quickly in the sunshine. 

Our host had shown us on the map that there are two bays in Parikia, one the closest to the port, and the other about half an hour walk beyond but with much nicer beaches. We decided to make this our destination today - to relax by the waterfront. 

We took it leisurely and found the little arched alleyway we were supposed to take the night before when we got lost. The alley was filled with kitties as someone had put some food down, and we patted one friendly cat which we mistook for the kitty of the night before. She too was pregnant but had slightly different colouring. We called her the fake kitty - we ended up seeing her a few times but never our other friendly cat. On the waterfront, the ferry arrived. We perched ourselves up on the brick wall to watch people embark and disembark. The boat created quite. If waves that splashed with force against the brick wall - except we were behind a few large stones and managed to miss the splashes by about half a metre. 

We walked a little further and came across a supermarket. While in here, we checked the time, and Dan made the suggestion that we have lunch first even tho it was quite early because by the time we make it to the beach, we may end up being starving and not enjoy our rest. Good idea, so we about faces and returned to the town centre. We had been recommended a place called Chaniotis Restaurant by our hosts that makes cheap traditional foods. We found it easily enough, walked inside and had no idea what we needed to do. There was the town drunk in the corner with his finished beer eyeing us, while the lady behind the counter continued setting up. I think we were a little early so we walked out, figuring it what we would do. We did a small lap around the whitewashed streets and reappeared about 15 minutes later - things looking a bit more ready for service. 

Apparently the man who owns this cooks up a selection of different dishes everyday, so we chose from the trays in front of us. Each tray had a price tag, and I ended up somewhat copying the people in front of us even though I thought it would end up quite expensive. 

We chose an eggplant parmigiana type thing and a veggie casserole for the side. For the other dish we chose what was translated to meat and rice filled lettuce balls (but may have been wine leaves?) with a side of rice.  We initially chose something else for the side but the cool advised us not to mix those two, and said rice would be the better option. He was right of course! Also Turns out we didn't pay for any of the sides even tho they had their own price tag! It ended up being a really inexpensive meal. 

We grabbed our tray and took it outside to eat and people watch. The lettuce wraps in particular were creamy and delicious and the rice soaked up their extra sauce perfectly. Also with the eggplant and casserole we got some much needed veggies. 

Sated we continued on our mission. We popped back into the supermarket and picked up a bottle of wine. We thought it was €1.50 but it was actually €4, damn those confusing "loyalty card" buy stickers! Oh well. 

Onwards and upwards, quite literally. It didn't take us too long to walk around the first bay. This had a sandy spot and a few people were setting up to swim here. We thought about just stopping but he had told us the one around the corner was more beautiful so we carried on. And up. The path around the tip of the bay became a bit intrepid and the path quite rocky. At one point, I could hear a cricket chirping and just not getting any further anyway no matter how far we walked. It was like it was in Dan's pocket! I eventually looked up from where u was treading and there I saw the little bugger sitting on Dans backpack. No wonder he wasn't getting quieter! As Dan removed his bag the cricket jumped off, and I exclaimed "it's gotten even closer!" The critter was now on my backpack but soon jumped off. It was a funny little interlude on our trek. 

Once up and around the tip, some of the path became fenced off due to a house. We continued behind the house until the path ran out, and headed down some slippery stone steps. Back on track. We saw people ahead of us go down towards the beach so we knew we in the right spot. The beach here was rather secluded and there were no fishing boats around. We descended to the beach and began to walk to find the perfect spot. It wasn't as shelteredbhere from the wind so we kept walking until the wind died and we found a little tree to set up under. 

Others were sunbathing but Dan and I do not do that. Dan because he is literally incapable of sunbathing due to his ginger pale skin. And me because I just find it boring and too hot. 



We got down to our bathers and sat on our towels in the shade of a little tree. A good sunscreening followed, and then Dan grabbed the red wine we had just bought from his bag and I took out our little sippy cups and he poured us a glass. Yamas! Cheers. The sippy cups actually come from Norway - while on the Norway on a Nutshell tour we cruised through the fjords. The onboard shop sold single servings of red and white wine in these little cups, slightly shaped like a wine glass but with a lid. We loved them so much - we thought they'd be great for picnics - that we took them home wth us (not before getting another round of course). These cups have come with us on this journey and have proved invaluable. Not just for wine, but if hostel rooms don't provide cups and we have some multivitamin dissolvable tablets, or so we can economise by getting a large bottle of juice and use our cups instead of buying smaller more expensive juice bottles. A bit luxury, a bit wanky, but we like it!

We drank down the wine, contemplating getting into the water. Hardly anyone was swimming, which made me wonder how cold it was. No matter - we were here to dip and dip we would! 

The. Water. Was. Freezing. It literally hurt our feet and calves. It took our breath away. Unfortunately we are not the sort to just jump straight in - no we like to drag out the torture. So inch by inch we entered the clear crystal blue water, exclaiming each time the fresh water hit a new, sensitive, unwet part. The backs of the knees were the first hurdle. The next - well, you can guess. Once our limbs stopped hurting I'm pretty sure they just went numb, and it was quite fine then. At some point a largeish fish bit me on the calf and I exclaimed. Why do creatures like to bother me so?

Eventually after a lot (and I mean a lot) of dithering, I finally threw my upper body under the water. My breath was instantly gone it was so cold, and I splashed about for a bit. Ok. That was done! Time for Dan to go under. 

I think it took him another 20 or so minutes t actually go under - he was dithering far more than I! But eventually he threw himself under, came up spluttering, and we had done it - gone for a splash on a Greek island!

Time for more wine. We waded out of the water flopped onto our towels and poured another. I lay back on my towel using a bag as a pillow and we just watched the world go by. A few more people came to the beach and we could hear the squeals as they each entered the cold cold water. We watched one man launch himself into the water and literally swim to the other side of the bay (to parikia) and at some point he swam back again. We watched a cruise ship come in, which caused our calm bay to create a few miniature waves. 

We thought we would go for one more splash holding our wine glasses but a quick toe in the water brought an end to that idea! Instead we perched ourselves on the old pier or water break dangling our feet in the water and sipping our wine. Dan grabbed a towel and our shoes and we dried our feet, getting ready for the trek back to Parikia. 

The walk back didn't seem as arduous as the walk there. The scrabbling of the rocks from this direction was quite easy even with the hot sun beating down on us now. More people had come to all the beaches as we headed back to our accommodation for a quick shower before dinner. 

On the walk back we popped into the supermarket and got - you guessed it - nmore wine. Our plan for the evening was to have a bottle of wine on our rock from the night before and to get a couple of gyros. We got the wine and went back to our accommodation. 

Time to head to dinner and watch the sunset. Almost everything went to plan, except we got to the seaside gyros place and I had forgotten the wine. Back to the accommodation and back to the gyros place. 

Our rock was free so we sat down, poured some wine and tucked into dinner - the sun still quite high in the sky. This wasn't the best gyros we had had but it was tasty and did the job. It probably went a bit weird as we didn't eat it straight away. 



The sunset was beautiful but not quite as amazing as the night before. I think this was because more boats came in and this made the water less glassy, and there was a slight haze on the horizon. A man with a professional looking camera was darting everywhere taking photos - I think we ended up in a few as subjects when I spotted him standing behind us! 

Sunsetted, wined, fed, we wandered back to our accommodation (not getting so lost anymore) and called it a night. 

Til next time
xx

The Final Countdown. Day 24: Thira, Santorini - Parikia, Paros

One last breakfast on the balcony in the hot sun (not windy today!) and we repacked and checked out of the Sea of Aegean, one of the nicest accommodations we have stayed in so far. We had trouble getting the ATV out of the parking bay - a truck and another car were trying to come into our street and it all got a bit confusing, but Dan managed to soar the ATV up over quite a crest and we were off and away. The hill to our place was a bit of a challenge, so Dan found a slightly less steep road just a little way along. Thank god! I was worried I’d fall off the back.

When we got the ATV back to the lady, we had some problems navigating the very tightly parked cars around her shop. She motioned that we should get off, and she expertly whisked it between the cars and into park. That’s how it’s done! Dan got his licence back and we were away. We left 3/4 of a tank of petrol which in some ways was a little wasteful (as we really didn’t know how much we would use) but we like to think of it as repaying forward our travel karma! The next person shouldn’t have to put any petrol in. We are in no travel karma debt now!

We wanted to use today to explore Thira has we hadn’t had much of a chance until now and also to get me a magnet. We went down a little side street, looked in some shops and soon I found a magnet I really liked. When I went to purchase it, the lady also gave me a pin with an evil eye and a horse shoe on it “for good luck”. That was nice!

We slowly walked along the wall through a section we hadn’t been through before. There was a lovely view of the Caldera here (the ‘crater” of the volcano), and even some seats. Further along the wall, all you have is restaurants and shops, and the pathway becomes quite narrow so it was nice to see that there was room for seating here. I looked at all the restaurant menus on the way - we thought we may grab a cocktail or a bite to eat and watch the view. We kept walking and found a path up to the cable car which I nicknamed Donkey Poo Lane (and a cruise ship tourist repeated me, which was quite embarrassing!). I know it was a cruise ship tourist because one was in the port, and we could see hordes of them coming up via either donkey of cable car. I nicknamed this path so because it was obviously the way the donkey companies take the donkeys down to the starting place below Thira - it was covered in shit, and it avoided the town getting covered in shit. No one tells you about the shit when they tell you about Santorini!

We wandered at our leisure through the streets we hadn’t seen before until we found a little liquor shop selling Yellow Donkey beer for cheaper than we had seen it anywhere else. This I about the only beer made on the island, so we had wanted to try it. We got a Yellow Donkey and a Red  Donkey, inquired as to whether it’s possible to drink in public (the answer being yes), and returned to the seats we had seen earlier in the day by the wall. Here we sat and drank our beers (it was after 11am so that makes it respectable), watching as the cruise ship people swarmed the walls getting their hurried snaps.

Time for lunch and we went back to the same place as the night before, both getting a chicken gyros this time and also trying a greek beer. The beer was pretty average, but the gyros was awesome, and we finished our beer sitting in the sun people watching. By now, my bladder was making itself known so we returned to the accommodation to pee and collect our luggage before seeing what kind of chaos getting the bus to the port was going to be.

Chaos it was, but true chaos was to come later. But I get ahead of myself. The bus station was a mass of confusion, as buses pulled up and left for various parts of the island and for the airport, with little to no signage  or announcement. The man who had shouted at me a few days previously recognised us, said “Port? Sit here.” And ushered us out of the way. We knew this time that we had to get our luggage under the bus first before buying tickets (to avoid any more shouting) so we entered the shelter and waited for word about our bus. While there, we chatted with an American girl who had been on the road for months and was in her final few weeks. She had flown in, so hadn’t experienced the well-oiled-machine that is the port and ferries.

We all exchanged a lot of travel stories until Dan noticed a bus come in that looked like it might be for us. It was. It was early, too, but we threw our things underneath and joined the queue for a ticket. It seems that the buses arrive before schedule and take a load down when full, then come back up and grab the next load.

The drive down was quite pretty and nondescript. However, what ensured once we arrived at the ferry port was an utterly awful - probably hour? - of my life, and it took all of my will power not to punch someone in the face. Anyone would have done, although I can think of some contenders.

Shouldering our luggage, we meandered towards the building we would have to pass through to get out to board. It was pretty full, almost completely already, and full of big groups of young teenagers and Asian tour groups. We put our things down behind one of the groups of school kids, and just waited.

Apparently waiting was not what one of the tour groups behind wanted us to do. I was being tapped on the shoulder, and a hand waving frantically ahead of me at the 2 inches of space that was available. I refused to budge. I hate being shoved. In the end, a whole group of people pushed their way past me (some treading on my luggage, which resulted in some choice words again) until they filled the gap. And more came. More and more people tried to fill the space that literally could not be filled any more. If we had known, we would have stayed outside the building - this was not worth it. In the end we were shoved forward quite a considerable distance, the only consolation being that we ended up underneath the fans.

The boat was late, too, but about 15 minutes. When it came into view, Dan and I braced ourselves for the surge forward as people would think they could board, not thinking about the cars or people trying to come off. All sense of rest and relaxation of the last few days vanished entirely as I closed my eyes and did some breathing exercises. 

The doors opened, and the man who had been frantically flapping his hands in my face (one of my anger trigger motions is flapping and pointing, I can’t stand it!) was at the front with his stupid little tour guide flag, running towards the boat. Our part started to shuffled forward, and next to me there was a slip stream that was going a lot faster. I was hesitant to join it, but in the end got pushed in against my will. It was ok - it actually led to a second door that most people weren’t using. Just ahead of us, everyone had to stop as some more cars were boarded, but soon enough we were racing towards the boat. A massive queue to go up the escalator - so Dan and I sucked it up and climbed up the two flights of stairs with all our luggage.

We got to the spot we wanted and - - - there was no one here. No one on this deck at all. For god’s sake, where did everyone push to get to? Out here was the view. Turns out they all wanted to be near the restaurant.

The journey ahead of us was going to take about 3 hours, and we had come prepared. After that hideous boarding, we quickly whipped out the Rose we had been carrying and had a few crackers with cheese to accompany it. It went quickly enough with no dramas, and soon enough we were approaching Paros. Yet again shouldering our luggage, we wandered down to the disembarkation deck (significantly fewer people this time!!) to wait for the ramps to open. The siren sounded, and out we walked - not pushed onto a new island.

I breathed a sigh of relief. This felt better. We saw a sign saying Hotel Margarita and with a big smile and a handshake, our host greeted us and started walking away from the port. Even though I knew the accommodation wasn’t far, for some reason when we had booked a pick up I had thought we would be driven. Turns out, it was good we had a guide as the streets are so windy that we wouldn’t never have found it alone!

We chatted with our host, a lot about our plans for America which interested him greatly, and soon we were at the hotel, where we received a warm smile and handshake from his wife. Both of them were so lovely. We were shown our room and told to pop up to the roof terrace when we were ready for check in. Our room was a triple room so we had plenty of space, and we had a little balcony overlooking the whitewashed streets.

When we were ready, we wandered up to the lovely terrace and offered drinks and some cookies. Our host thoroughly went through a map of Paros, including pointing out many places that were only accessible by car. This piqued my interest, and the car hire was ridiculously cheap. I said we would get back to him about it. They also suggested a few restaurants that were tasty and the best spots to view the sunset from.

Back in our room, we collapsed for a few minutes before realising the time and that sunset was soon. We raced out, and tried to make it to one of the restaurants that had been recommended that was supposed to have an excellent view. When we burst out of the white washed streets, the sun was directly ahead of us and rapidly heaving towards the horizon. There were a series of flat rocks here and so we settled ourselves down here to watch the sunset - we would have dinner later.

This sunset took. my. breath. away. The water shone all the colours of the sun, oranges, pinks, yellow and reds, and in between the water was an amazing blue-green. This sunset was even better than that from Oia, in my opinion, because the colours really caught on the water. At one point, I leaned back to take photos of my feet with the sunset in the distance, and I cried out in surprise. Something was behind me, which had squished when I leant back.

Dan turned and I turned and there was a cat, cuddling up to my back. A kitty that sought us out for a pat! This delightful kitty kept us company for the while time we sat there on the rock, snaking behind our backs and climbing on our laps for pats. She was pregnant and couldn’t get enough of our affection. I wanted to adopt her. Once the sun had set, and the sky had stopped changing colour, we said farewell to our favourite kitty and found the restaurant we had been recommended.

It was called Mira and it was indeed very tasty, if a bit pricier than our usual restaurants. It still only came to about €24 in the end! We had bread and dip and olives for starters, half a carafe of wine (of course), and I had something akin to a vegetable moussaka with lots of tomato sauce, and Dan had the proper moussaka. They were both delicious and we were very happy! Our meals with served with spoons so we thought we were supposed to eat it with those, so it was with great embarrassment when the owner quietly mentioned that the waiter thought we would be sharing, hence the spoons, but we could continue to eat with them if we liked… Oops!

As I was paying for the bill, she asked if we would like a shot to finish off with - strong or sweet? I asked if we could have one of each to try them, and we were given a shot of ouzo and I don’t know what the sweet one was, but after the shuddering induced by the ouzo the other was the right flavour to end our night on!

We got lost walking back to our accommodation, quite literally. We reached a point where the map seemed to indicate a road but we couldn’t see one - turns out that during the day we realised we were supposed to have gone down a few steps and through a very low tunnel that was obscured by the high street. In the end, and many kitties later, we arrived at our accommodation and crashed for the night.

Til next time,

xx

The Final Countdown. Day 23: Santorini

Today we allowed ourselves a little bit of a sleep in before heading straight into the town centre of Thira. Our plan for today was to hire a quad bike/ATV for the day so we could scoot all around the island at our leisure, and not be beholden to the bus timetables (which as previously mentioned are a little bit unreliable). On the first day, we had stopped in a couple of places to ask for prices and as we returned to one of them, we got a big wave out of the lady shop owner - she recognised us.

She by far had the cheapest prices that we had come across (as it even said on her sign!) and so we started the process of hiring the ATV. She was only going to charge us €30 for the 310cc, which was at least €10 less than everywhere else, and we threw in insurance which brought it up to €37 in total. If you want to hire a quad bike out of Thira, definitely go to the lady in the shop next to Falafaland! She’s a star.

As Dan was dealing with the license and insurance, she invited me to start trying on helmets. I have a bit of a pin head, and I couldn’t find anything less than L or XL. “Want babies size?” She said, laughing. I eventually found an S which fit me nicely. Dan grabbed a helmet too and we were introduced to our chariot for the day.

I didn’t listen while Dan was shown all the instructions on how to drive it, and then we were told to get on, go down the street and put a bit of petrol in. “Bring it back with the same amount of petrol as is in it now.” Ok… should be easy enough? I was quite nervous - not because I don’t trust Dan’s driving, but because I’ve never really ridden behind a quad bike before, and you’re rather exposed to the elements, and god knows what other drivers were like. We jerkily set off - getting out fo the quad bike place was rather complicated with skinny turns, but Dan navigated it quite well considering! We stopped down the street to consult the map, and found a petrol station.

A man jumped up to fill up our tank for us. He asked us how much we wanted, and we said to full. “To full?!” He replied incredulously, and continued to question it. We had no idea how much that would be or whether we needed, and to full cost about €17 and was about 9.5L. Ok, good to know.

We did an about face and made our way to Oia. Dan did exceptionally well, it was a little jerky sometimes on the corners (which made me squeak) but all in all it was enjoyable. As the day got on, I totally relaxed and really loved it! 

Not many people were in Oia when we arrived - we found a park easy enough and went straight to the postcard shot, only sharing it with a couple of other people who offered to take some photos of us. It was hot by now - there’s little shade in Oia, and the white washed walls are quite hard on the eyes!

We pottered around Oia, but there wasn’t a great deal to do (it’s mostly just tourist shops, to be honest), so we decided we would come back for sunset and head off down the island again. As it was getting close to lunch time, our next stop would be a restaurant Matt and Ellen recommended near the Red Beach called Cave of Solidas. The Red beach was literally at the other end of the island, so we weren’t sure exactly how long it would take to get there or whether we would need stops on the way. Back on the ATV, I was feeling considerably more relaxed and Dan had also settled in to driving.

We made a couple of short stops on the way to rest our hands and bums (I was alternating holding onto Dan’s waist but also onto the bars next to me - I didn’t want to distract him if there was a big bump and I squeezed him too tight!). Dan did an excellent job of navigating our way there while I just sat on the back with the wind in my helmet, enjoying the scenery. We knew that the restaurant was before the beach but the next thing we knew, we had turned off onto a road for Red Beach and landed in a parking lot. We seemed to have missed it. A quick google search showed it was 6 minutes in the backwards direction - well, we were so close to the Red Beach now we would do that first instead.

When we jumped off the ATV, we were presented with a beach with dirty black sand. “This is Red Beach, I guess”, Dan said. This didn’t seem quite right, and I could see people walking through the parking lot and up a hill. We wandered in this direction, past a few little shops selling slushies and other warm-weather-appropriate treats, and started the scramble up the rock face. Past a lovely “do not enter, risk of land slides” sign, where the rope had clearly been cut to allow people to go past.

With this in the back of our minds, we continued up the rocks and down the otherwise, and soon before us lay the Red Beach. It actually was red, from volcanic activity I believe - the sheer rock face behind in this bay (and this bay only - the one beside it was white) was a deep ochre red, and this lent the sand to also be a deep dark brown red. It contrasted nicely with the aqua water and after a few photos, we made our way down. This way down to the beach was far more intrepid, and I was pretty sure I was going to go arse up at some point. Thankfully this didn’t happen, and when we arrived on the beach we walked a little way to find a spot to sit. A patch of the beach was covered in what looked like straw - we weren’t sure if this had been put there specifically to make sitting more pleasant, or if it was plant material that had fallen from above as we could see something similar up the rock face.

The red sand itself was nice and soft, but surrounding the red sand was black rocks - smooth, but difficult to walk on. The bigger rocks were slightly easier but the black grit rocks were very sore underfoot. We found a little spot with lots of red behind us, lots of red before us, took off our shoes (and I took off my tights) and had a little paddle.

When we were done with our feet being wet, we sat back on our towel to let them dry. There was a strange rushing and crumbling noise behind us, and looking around - there was indeed a mini landslide on the red rock, pushing more fine red dirt towards the ocean - as well as a few quite large rocks. These rocks thankfully missed the folks sitting at the base of the rock face (it would have done a bit of damage!) and at this point, we thought it might be a good idea to mosey on, we were hungry and didn’t feel like being hit by falling rocks.

Dan decided that we would drive to the restaurant, even though my maps said it was only 6 minutes walk away, and I was quite glad of this. It took us a little while to realise that the bank of restaurants was right on the waterfront with no direct front access, so we parked and began walking along the front of the water. The Cave of Solidas was the 2nd restaurant in and we found ourselves an outside table which still had a nice view. As we walked up to it, I noticed a sign for a lunch deal and had already decided this was probably what I was going to have.

The lunch deal consisted of fresh fish of the day, dolmades and tomato, and a glass of wine. As Dan was driving, he wasn’t able to partake in any liquor, and he was also about to order this (with an exchange for soft drink) when we saw the waiter walk past with some grilled octopus. It looked and smelled delicious, so we went with 1 fish deal and the octopus, and would share.

We are slowly getting better at eating whole fish, and we slowly picked out all the bones while nomming on the octopus. It was a great, simple meal and I would highly recommend. When I went to pay, I followed our waiter who walked straight into the kitchen and started washing dishes. I stood there for a second thinking, “um..?” When the cook started laughing at me, asking me if I wanted to wash some dishes too. Everyone in the kitchen then turned to laugh at me, and I realised that I wasn’t supposed to follow him all this way but he hadn’t indicated where the cashier was so I had just kept going. Oops!

Back on the bike, it was time to find White Beach and the lighthouse. Somehow, we completely missed White Beach but we ended up at the lighthouse, which is the furthermost tip of the Santorini crescent. A few photos and back on the bike - I didn’t want to get blown off down the cliff face! On the way back, Dan found the turn off to White Beach. The road here suddenly turned into a dirt and rock road, and all of my jiggly bits were definitely jiggling, and I lost my breath a few times with some heavy potholes.

I guess I was excepted a White Beach, as the name would suggest, but it was more big black rocks on the ground and maybe some whiteish cliff faces? We knew we were in the right place because a few tour boats had pulled up, but it wasn’t quite what we thought it would be. There weren’t many people here, any shops or restaurants were totally shut, and so we sat on a rock for a little while and then made our way back to the ATV.

The day was getting late now and we wanted to catch the sunset in Oia. We tossed up whether we should see the Black Beaches - Red Beach lived up to its name, White Beach didn’t quite, would Black Beach? In the end, it wasn’t too out of our way so Dan navigated to the otherwise of the island, stopping when we reached the beach. In front of us was, in fact, black, sparkly, glittery sand. It was actually quite beautiful, and in some places had become rock-like. I could pick up whole chunks, and could crush it with a bit of force, leaving black glitter on my hands. It brushed off really easily, and left my hands feeling nice and soft.

We drove along the foreshore until Parissa, which is quite a little resort town and completely different to the rest of Santorini. The sand here was also black but was more gritty, so wasn’t nearly as beautiful as our first stop. This is where people go for the beach vacation on Santorini as the rest of the island is on a cliff face. There were a lot of people here sunbathing - not many swimming yet as it was a little cold for them still, and had a more meditteranian vibe.

We took some photos, hopped back on the ATV and waited for a car and a girl on another ATV to about turn and make their way out of the car park. We followed, but they zoomed off into the distance, trying to overtake everyone.

We stayed steady and with our 300cc’s and, with a skilled driver behind the wheel, it wasn’t long before we overtook their erratic 200cc’s. We made our way to Oia wth a couple of stops on the way to rest Dan’s hands and our bums - some parts of the road were particularly bumpy. To see a different part of the island, Dan turned off to take the road on the lower part, not on the cliff face, for a chance. This started off well until we hit a sign, “do not enter, road works” (well, essentially, it was in Greek). We had seen cars disappear this way already, and we could see cars ahead, so we just bumped our way down onto the unfinished road and continued along, occasionally passing cars coming in the other direction. It was particular bumpy and I was quite pleased when we finally hit the sealed road again! The houses along this part were already in full shade from the hill - it was only about 6pm - it wouldn’t be so nice to live on this side!

In Oia, we found a park relatively easily, considering the place was now teeming with tour buses, Sunset - of course. Everyone comes out in droves at sunset. A cruise ship had arrived earlier in the day and we were pretty sure they had been deposited here at Oia via all the buses. We thought that the “picture perfect” spot for the sunset would be too overrun with people, so we walked across the front of the town, to find ourselves basically at the same spot as last night. Hmm, not ideal. We kept going until we hit the “picture perfect” spot which is in the old fort, to find it already 1 layer deep of people sitting all around the outsides. Many Asian tourists and a lot of girls in skimpy clothing getting ready for their Instagram photos lined the fort walls. 

This wasn’t relaxing at all. Dan stayed put while I went to see if there was anywhere better but returned to where he was standing. He staked a spot behind two tourists who ended up sitting down for most of the sunset show - which was excellent as we could shoot over their heads. Some risqué professional photographers with their fancy equipment had scaled the fence and were sitting on the otherwise of the wall, in the do not sit part. 

The sun started to lower, and the crowds became two, three people deep, and pushing and shoving to try to take photos. One Chinese man became so pushy behind me - he even rested his big “professional” camera on my shoulder to take photos! I gave him some choice words, and he retreated….to stand next to Dan and start harassing him instead. The sunset was indeed beautiful - although I think our sunset the night before was even better. The sun became an orange ball in the sky, and dipped behind a little island before poof! It disappeared completely.

Now the sky went a beautiful pinkish shade, so as the droves of people left, we stayed around to take a few more photos - this was the best time to take pictures of the town on the rock face as the sky behind turned lovely pink and purple shades.

We decided to leave before it got pitch black and Dan would have to fight for space on the roads with the big tour buses. Once out on the highway though, we got stuck behind a touring mini-bus which was fine - it determined the pace and we couldn’t get past it - nor could anyone else. We had quite a convey behind us when we finally reached Thira! 

Time for dinner, so we tried to find a park near the main square and ended up quite a distance away. As it was a nice night, everyone was out wanting dinner! We nabbed the last parking spot in the supermarket carpark (to the point where people were asking us if we were leaving…er, no, we just got here! No luck for you, sorry!) and walked back into the square. We passed a lot of places on the way, but all we really felt like was a gyros and we needed a cheap feed. There had been a gyros shop that we had passed a number of times, so this time we tried it. I had the chicken gyros for a change and it was amazing. I think it’s my favourite so far. We sat on a bench, scoffed our gyros, and wandered back to the main square. A tourist shop was still open, and so we had a bit of a peek, Dan getting himself his postcards but I couldn’t find a magnet I liked. That’s not quite true - I found one, but it wasn’t in good condition and I couldn’t find any others the same. I figured if I couldn’t find anything on the morrow I’d be able to come back to this store.

Turning off into our street, Dan suddenly pulled over, and told me that the bike had just turned itself off. Ok…that’s not great. But it turned back on again easily enough and we were away again - I think the “on” spot was a little loose and the key had just wiggled itself out of position, turning the ATV off.

We pulled into the undercover parking space of our hotel, and had to duck. We somehow hadn’t realised it was so low! I could stand up underneath it but of course Dan had no hope! It was very noisy and if anyone was sleeping, we definitely woke them up.

And here ends our day hooning around the island. It really was the best way to see it and I can fully recommend hiring an ATV, especially from the little lady next to Falafaland, as you can get to all the hard-to-reach sites with the wind in your hair!

Til next time,

xx

The Final Countdown. Day 22: Santorini

We had booked on the Volcano and Hot Pools tour today, so we packed our bags accordingly and wore out bathers. Before leaving, I did some research, and becoming increasingly despondent that we had made a mistake. The hot pools weren’t “hot” per say, but just warmer than freezing sea temperature, and the whole swimming bit seemed really unappealing. I got a bit crabby as we left our accommodation, following a train of donkeys through the back streets. 

We decided to walk down to the Old port via the stairs - the other options are to take the cable car, or go via donkey. I had decided that I did not want to take a donkey ride here - especially after seeing them. They looked pretty sad and not very well treated, and this was repeated in the reviews I had read.

So we started the walk down, and had to skirt lots of donkeys. Many were huge - they were probably mules, and looked more horse-like. The walk down was - suffice to say - shit. It was covered in shit. They don’t tell you this in the reviews, nor do you see it in the photos. It stank like donkey shit and was covered in donkey shit. At one point, of course - I slipped over. Thankfully, I managed to land in a patch that had no donkey shit otherwise my mood may have been even worse. I hurt my hand in the fall, and was just generally unimpressed.

This is my problem - I get so worked up over a thing or a place that my disappointment knows no bounds when it doesn’t meet those expectations, even if I try really, really hard not to get my hopes up about a things. (The hot air ballooning in Cappadocia, somehow even exceeded my ridiculous expectations.) I was thinking, “I hate it here. I don’t know what the fuss is about. It stinks, it’s slippery, this tour is going to suck.”

To be fair, the tour wasn’t great, but thankfully later that day my feelings towards Santorini did take a turn. We got to the bottom sans anymore slips, and waited for our boat. There were about 15 other people doing the tour with us, and we all piled on. Dan and I sat in the front portion of the boat which didn’t have a lot of covering or protection which would soon make itself apparent.

Our guide came over the speakers and explained what was going to be happening. First, we would go to the Volcano and walk to the crater, followed by skirting around the island to the hot pools. This was the opposite direction to what I had read, and I was quite relieved. What I haven’t mentioned yet is the waves - today the weather forecast, whether sunny or not, was only described as “WINDY” and windy It was. The waves were extremely choppy, and once we set sail our little boat was buffeted about. Many times the sea water hit the side, splashed over the edge and soaked Dan and I. Occasionally, it would come in the other side of the ship, but most of the time it was ours.

After about 25 minutes of my stomach lurching every time we crested a wave, we docked at the volcano. Here we saw our guide for the first time, paid our additional €2.50 entry fee each and started the climb up. Somehow this also hadn’t occurred to me, but it turned out not to be a problem. Dan and I ended up overtaking everyone and being the fastest people just behind the guide. Some people had a lot of trouble with the rocky uneven and uphill ground, but we have done plenty of walking like this and knew what to expect. Up and up we went, and the wind became greater and stronger. I wanted to take off my sunnies to survey the landscape unhindered, but couldn’t because they were keeping the masses of dust from blowing into my eyes.

On a good day, ti would have been windy up here as it was completely unprotected, but today had a forecast of windy - so it was almost a hurricane. We reached the crater, and our guide explained what lay before us. We could see steam or dust or ash coming up from a few holes not far from us, and despite the wind we could still smell the sulphur. The volcano is still active, and last erupted in the 60s. Our guide explained that the additional entrance fee is so that they can keep a close watch on its activity and make sure everyone is safe. She said that the ground here is warmer (which we could definitely feel), and that the ground temperature down in the crater just below us was about 100C.

Normally I would try to reword this, but today I'm quoting straight from Photo Volcania, which came up as the first link on Google: "Santorini is largely volcanic in origin and consists of several islands arranged in a ring around a flooded caldera." 

We now had free time so we circled around the top, also taking in the view of the beautiful island and white towns we could just make out. I laughed to myself as we got buffeted about, thinking “not only do we have to worry about being blown down a ravine, but we could get blown down a ravine into the crater of an active volcano. We didn’t spend a lot of time here - it was just too windy - so long before the appointed time we made our way back down to the boat via a different path than what we went up.

It seemed that everyone got back to the boat early so we left early, headed for the hot pools. I had started leaning towards not swimming, although I decided I Would wait until we got there to ascertain the situation. I knew that it was a brown muddy patch that you had to swim towards, and when we got there and I saw the waves, I decided not to do it. I am a bad swimmer these days, not confident or strong at all, and the waves would have been just to big for me to comfortably swim in it. You see, you have to jump off the side of your boat into the [freezing] ocean, and then swim - maybe about 20m, to the opening of the thermal pool bay, where it got shallower (you could even stand up here). However, swimming back to the boat would have been problematic - against the waves.

This is what I had come to do, and I wasn’t going to do it. Perhaps on a calm summer day I would have, although still the things I had read had said it was more of a tick off thing to do rather than a great experience. The water temperature differences was from 18C to 25C, so not even super hot, and the brown muddy sulphur water would ruin any jewellery or colourful bathers. Our boat stopped, and a lady was ready in her black bathers. Without blinking, she dived in and start swimming towards the bay - not even a blink of how cold the water was. Obviously a seasoned winter swimmer!

The next few people exclaimed at the cold, and soon they were off too, towards the bay. Some American jocks jumped in a powered their way across, making it in about 3 strokes. One larger guy jumped off, and he looked like he wasn’t trouble swimming. He hadn’t aimed quite right, and ended up right on the rocks. The first mate on the boat was calling out to him to come back, although he didn’t seem to hear and kept buffeting against the rocks. The first mate threw (very skilfully) a life ring and it landed right near him, so he grabbed it and swam his way back. He wasn’t the only one that needed rescuing.

I was disappointed that our boat stopped to the side of the bay, and so we never really saw inside it, except for a bit of a brown muddy opening. Other ships stopped in front of it and had the clear view. We watched as more people swam, and other people had to get rescued as their overestimated their swimming abilities. This would have been me. I would have gotten about 5m and then needed to be rescued. One lady was struggling, and when the life ring was thrown to her, the wave caught it and flung it into the rocks out of her reach. A second ring thrown to her made it, and she paddled back to the boat.

After a while, it was time for people to come back. As the Americans got closer to the boat, the tour guide shouted out if anyone would be able to collect the rogue ring that was up amongst the sharp rocks. This was the American’s time to shine, and after a lot of confused looks, one finally volunteered and powered his way to the rocks. Hero. To the side of him, there was a dilapadted tent, and a doggy came out to look at the commotion - obviously someone lives here! There was also a small church next to the thermal pools, so it must be visited occasionally.

Soon it was time to make our way back to shore, and I was quite relieved. The tour hadn’t lived up to my expectations and the water was so choppy that I was feeling a bit seasick. At one point, I thought I’d try to take a photo near the edge of the boat and the next thing I knew, I was covered in Seaspray and everyone laughing at me. I guess I had that coming!/

Once on land, we caught the cable car back up. There’s no way I was going to ride a donkey, they just looked too sad. We jumped in the cable car, which was more of a mixture of funicular and gondola, and bumpily began the ascent (with me exclaiming, Is this really any better than riding a donkey?)

After the tour we had planned to hike from Thira to Oia. I was feeling pretty dejected, and it took some convincing from Dan to actually get up and do it. I had read that it was a must do on the island (but then again, so were the volcanos and hot pools) and I didn’t think I had it in me to complete a solid 2.5 hour hike through a lot of uphills. He managed to convince me, and at about 3.30pm we left our accommodation, hoping to catch the sunset when we arrived in Oia.

The hike ended up being spectacular and a definite must do if your body allows. It’s not overly strenuous - we made it more so by choosing the scenic paths in a few places instead of the easy paths, which made it considerably more intrepid. You can find the way to take the path here, [insert link], and this is what we used as our guide. Most places had a fully paved path, others nicely worn dirt paths, and others had us scrambling over rocks. The whole time, the wind kept up - but it wasn’t as bad as the volcano, and frankly kept us cool while we did so much exercise!

Every so often you’d make it to the next town, and wander through the white washed streets. The sheer cliff face was below us, and ahead of us we could always keep Oia in our sights, and right in the middle was quite a large hill. “I hope we aren’t scaling that!” I said, just before we ended up scaling it. It wasn’t as bad as all that, in the end. We were overtaken and we overtook others. In the end, the journey took us 3.5 hours because we made many photographic stops on the way. I loved the little churches dotted around the hills or rocky outcrops. 

Soon, civilisation starting to become more frequent, and we reached the Welcome to Oia sign. We were now in the outskirts of the town - the beautiful part was still probably a good half an hour way away.



As we walked the amount of people grew thicker and thicker; we popped down a couple of alleys (and found the postcard spot - teeming with people! At least we would know where to find it again). Our plan was to grab a wine to celebrate our hike and to have a good sit down. We walked along the “front” of the town - that is, the cliff face that overlooks the sunset, and everywhere people were pushed up against the wall, securing their spot. We found a lovely little place to take photos, and then spotted a free table not far from it, so we sucked up the €6.50 that each glass of wine was, sat down, and enjoyed the show.

Santorini sunsets are famous, and from Oia it is particular spectacular. From Thira, the sun dips behind the Thirissa island but from Oia, it falls almost into the ocean before disappearing behind a tiny little island, which ends up illuminating the sun. It looks like a bright orange disc and hasn’t much power so you can look at it. We were particularly lucky to have such a clear night to see it - many people take their expensive cameras and never get a chance!

And so we drank our overpriced wine and watched the sunset. A kitty visited us briefly, which resulted in a quick flurry of photos, and once the sun had fully set, it became really quite cold. Time to find some food, especially as the wine had gone straight to our heads!

I had found two places that received good reviews - we only wanted something cheap like gyros as we had spent so much on wine. The first place had no indoor seating, and we ended up at another just down the road. They didn’t do gyros, but reasonably priced savoury crepes, and turned up to be delicious and a welcome change from the gyros! It was called Hungry Donkey and the food and service was impeccable. We were watched the whole time with puppy dog eyes from a young 6 month old puppy who was eyeing our crepes lustfully!

Time to catch the bus back to Thira. We had found a bus time table from 2012 so we were pretty sure the buses ran every 20 minutes according to that. We found the bus station, and I just popped into the tourist office to make sure we were in the right spot. ‘Yes, the last bus for tonight leaves from just outside.”

The last bus? It was only 9.20pm. We later found a much more up to date timetable and yes indeed, at this time of year, 9.20 is the last bus. Lucky for us! We piled on the bus with a lot of other people also wanting to catch the last bus and landed back in Thira. The drive took about 25 minutes to our 3.5 hours, and it was quite funny approaching the same landmarks - much more quickly - via the road.

Well and truly exhausted, we hit the hay after a very long, and in the end very lovely day!

Til next time,

xx