Santorini/Athens

Greece overall was one of our favourite places to visit and it was an excellent way to end our trip.  It was our mentality that we were going to relax and explore and not worry about any tourist traps.  We decided that we would fly from Athens to Santorini (a 45 minute flight) as we only had limited time to spend there and didn't want to bother with a 5-8 hours ferry ride (depending on which one you take).  We stayed at an AirBNB that turned out to be more like a hotel located in Karterados, which was just outside Fira, the capital of Santorini.  We were picked up at the airport and we immediately rented a quad from the daughter of the couple that we were staying with, it was to be delivered the next morning.  Our first night consisted of walking to the grocery store and preparing dinner for ourselves in our own personal kitchenette.  The next morning, we woke up and first stepped outside to check out the amazing views.  Our balcony faced the eastern side of the island, with the blue ocean off in the distance with stark-white greek buildings and blue shutters, all around us.  That morning, our wheels had arrived!  The quad was an awesome feature as it was very cheap (15 Euros per day plus gas) and gave us mobility on the island we hadn't experienced on our trip to that point.  It was also necessary as the bus system was very limited.  Our first full day we decided to head out exploring on our quad to the nearest "black beach" nearby.   The island was formed by volcanic eruptions approximately 2 million years ago, so a lot of the rocks are volcanic.  This causes there to be black beaches, white beaches and a red beach. There was no one on the first black beach so we took our quad off-roading down the beach, getting stuck a couple times. We continued on exploring to the eastern shore where Kamari beach is located, another black beach.  The weather was very nice and the water was the warmest we had experienced yet.

 Our ATV on Kamari Beach

The view from our balcony

Just cruising on the beach

The second day, we explored the red beach which was on the south side of the island.  The water was extremely buoyant in that bay, and it took us awhile to find our way down to the beach as the path was roped off in order to get down there.  We finally figured it out, and after a bit of a risky climb down, we came across the infamous red beach, along with some strange doors built right into the cliff side.  After spending the afternoon there, we made our way back to the hotel.

 The walk down to the red beach

The red beach

The third day, we explored Fira, went for lunch and tasted ouzo (Kev liked it, Holly, not so much).  We explored the shops and also went back to Kamari beach.  That night, we decided to check out the infamous Oia sunset, located at the northern point of the island.  That was definitely a must-see, it was an absolutely breathtaking sunset.  The town of Oia was neat itself, very old buildings, neat shops, and everything was on multiple levels above the ocean.  Afterwards, we went for dinner in a neat restaurant that had a view of the sea and the moon before heading back to our room for the night.

 Kev drinking ouzo

 The views on the way to Oia

 As the sunset started in Oia

 Sunset in Oia

As the sunset ends in Oia

The next day, we went to the volcano off of the island.  In order to get to the ferry, we needed to climb down the craziest set of stairs.  There were donkey rides for 5 euros either way, so we decided to walk down in the morning and then we would take the donkeys back up later in the day, after the volcano tour.  When we got down to the bottom where the ferries were situated, we found the tour we were going to take and got on to this really neat old boat with a huge mast.  The tour guide was very friendly, and once we got to the volcano, we hopped off and got to explore.  There was sulfur smoke coming up out of many areas, and it was very hot on the volcano (it didn't help that it was bright and sunny, and that we were standing on mounds of black volcanic rock).  

When we finished exploring, we got back on to the boat and were taken to the "hot springs".  We both thought that they were more like "warm springs", as the water was maybe a bit warmer than luke warm.   When we got back to the port, we took our donkey rides up the stairs, which was a hilariously fun experience.  Kev's donkey was charging ahead, while Holly's donkey kept playing this dancing game with another person's donkey the whole way up.

 The view out towards the volcano

 Down at the port

 Down at the port

 Sulfur smoke 

 Oia from the Volcano

 Sitting on the volcano

 Our donkey rides

We decided to spend the last complete day of our trip in Athens as we were flying out from there to come home.  We flew from Santorini to Athens first thing in the morning to arrive around 8am.  We took the metro system to the hotel we booked near the city centre.  Our hotel turned out to be gorgeous and because we were there before our room was ready, we were upgraded to a suite with a built in Jacuzzi ("quite nice" as Peiter, our BNB host in Bruges, would say).  We headed into town in search of food and stopped at the first souvlaki joint we could find for some cheap lunch.  From there we headed out on foot to admire some of the ancient architecture and to check out the famous market.  The market turned out to be fairly underwhelming in my opinion based on what we were expecting but it was still pretty cool.  It was a lot of American brands which made it lose some appeal.  The city centre area was crazy though, packed with people and some officers patrolling the streets with swat gear and large firearms (I guess they are very cautious with some recent unrest of the people in Greece).  We continued on walking to check out some ancient architecture including Zeus' temple and to get a good view of the Acropolis without actually going inside.  That night, we packed our bags and went out for our final dinner of the trip, a very bittersweet moment.  It sucked to be going home but the trip was a huge success and produced some great memories!

 Overlooking Athens

 Zeus' Temple

 A fallen pillar at Zeus' temple