Oia, Santorini

The first town we stayed in when we arrived in Santorini was Oia (pronounced "Eeea"). This is the town with the perfect situation to watch one of the best sunsets in the world. We could not have asked for a better hotel than the one that we stayed in. It had the perfect view, had a nice swimming pool and was just lovely.

As I'm sure that you can tell from the pictures, our hotel was on the side of a cliff. Our room was literally a cave. That was cool. What was not cool was getting to our hotel from the main roads. David forgot to check his e-mail to see if we were sent any directions, so all we had was an address. We couldn't find it. I finally insisted that I was going to run inside the travel agency directly in front of us and ask for directions. They told us to go to another travel agency who will take care of us. Huh. Didn't know we needed 'taking care of'. So, we found our way to agency #2. Without explanation, they took our credit cards and passports and told us that we were now checked in and that all we had to do was wait for her "colleague" to arrive to take us to our room. Really? What room? We did not see a hotel, let alone anywhere that looked like the hotel we booked online. But we waited. Soon enough a man, maybe 50 years old, arrives to take us. He doesn't speak English. But he smiled and we went. David and I had absolutely no idea what we were getting into and we had both our suitcases with all of our things plus souvenirs we picked up along the way. Then, he insists on taking the HEAVY suitcase which he then proceeds to carry on his shoulders (mind you this thing weighs about 60 lbs). A human mule. We were going up and down the tiniest little walkways along the cliff of a volcano and this guy insists on carrying the heavy suitcase. David & I both feel terrible. Dave tried to insist that he should carry the heavy suitcase when we stopped for a break. Oh ya, did I mention it was crazy hot out? Ya. Well, the guy didn't let David take the bag. About 15 minutes later we arrive at our hotel. Except that it's just a room on the side of a cliff. It looked like a home by itself, not part of a complex. But he had a key, dropped us off and said c'ya! Huh. Ok. Well, it's a nice room with an amazing view... we're not going to complain. We're confused, but we're also thirsty. I finally tell David "those over there look painted just like ours... I bet that's our pool!" We go over there and sure enough, we were part of a hotel! And even better, that was our pool!! Hallelujah! We finally figured out where our breakfast would be served and where we check out. Which was the next day. If we had known what a trek it was, we would have stayed longer... but as it was there were more places to go. We did love it there. It was wonderful. (As a side note- we felt so bad about the suitcases that when evening came, we consolidated all we would need for 3 days for both of us into one suitcase and David carried the heavy one back to the rental car where it stayed until we reached Hydra. We didn't want that poor man to have to carry it again!)







The sunset was truly lived up to the hype. David is a wonderful photographer with these sunset photos but you'll have to trust me when I say that the photos absolutely don't do the scenery any justice.







The first night after sunset, we cruised the town. I was really wanting to see the "Caldera" at night (which is a fancy way of saying the "cliff on the side of the volcano"). It was pretty cool:





The goal of the first day in Santorini was to relax, enjoy the view and relax some more. We did "hike" down a bunch of stairs to go down to the harbor that was directly below us. We also cruised the town of Oia for a bit... here's what we saw:

Island Hopping: Naxos

Sorry for the delay in writing more, but since we've come back from the trip, it's been go-go-go in the lab and on weekends, and the stories have taken the hit. But I made a promise and I will tell you all about our travels.

I will spend more time on Athens later, but the first "real" destination that we had decided on in Greece was the island Naxos. Naxos is one of the islands in the group called the Cyclades which tend to be more mountainous than most of the islands with the exception of the two volcanic islands in this archipelago. We spent three nights in Naxos and we don't regret it. Although we laughed when we read that these were supposed to be some of the best beaches in Greece and yet the sand paled in comparison to my beloved San Diego. But, we were determined to explore and see things and experience Greece- regardless if the beaches were lacking.

The first thing that we did when we arrived after settling in and going for a swim on the famous St. George's beach was that we went for a walk downtown and to see the Sanctuary of Apollo (see below). We went first in late afternoon but decided that pictures at sunset would be terrific, so we went and had a drink at a bar that had happy hour that was 12 hours long and then trekked back up for more photos. The pictures turned out wonderfully, thank you David! Here's some of what we saw:








Day 2 we rented Big Red. That little jeep took us all over the place. Literally. We went clear across a HUGE island on little dirt roads and through the towns where most of the people who live on Naxos live. (Side note- 85% of the population lives inland because there used to be a big pirate problem, so nobody wanted to live on the coast!) OK, back to the stories. So Dave really wanted to go and see Zeus's cave/mountain. He thought that we would climb the whole mountain in the middle of the day in full heat wearing Teva's. When I found out that it was a 3 hour hike up to the top and I was expected to climb Mt.Crazy, I veto'd the request and we hiked only the 30 minutes up to the cave. I love him, but you should have seen this mountain. It's so ridiculous that there isn't really a good trail that goes to the top. Not exactly a Michelle excursion. But here's some pictures from our hike and the famous cave.






The drive to the opposite end of the island was amazing and we ended up at a little beach with crystal blue water and almost nobody there except us and another car of expedition-ers determined to get their money's worth. We drove a lot of crazy roads, but saw some pretty cool sights:














We spent Day 3 exploring the West Coast of Naxos... more fun!







Stay tuned for my next posts about Santorini!