Three Days in Santorini

We woke up in Naxos, had a quick breakfast before getting on another ferry to Santorini. This time we took World Champion Seajets. Unlike our earlier ferry this one was huge, could carry cars and was filled to the brim. It was also a little fancier than our last ferry and the hour and fifteen minutes simply slipped away.

But we were not in the least bit prepared for what happened when we disembarked. 

It was a zoo! Thankfully we had asked the hotel to collect us but how does one even located the driver in this madness.. the picture I now realize does not fully showcase the madness. We eventually located the fella but saw so many people struggling to find a taxi. 

The driver dropped us off near a church in Fira.. we were initially a bit confused but then a porter arrived and took our luggage down many many flights of winding steps until we finally reached our hotel, Cori Rigas. We chose to stay in Fira, the capital of Santorini instead of the tourist hot spot Oia. And we made the correct choice. phew. It had enough of the hustle and bustle without the bus loads of people disembarking by the hour. 

The boys in the balcony with a little hot tub hidden in the corner. 

The view.

The room

It was so lovely and so much space!

First order of business was getting to Perissa, the black beach. There is no Uber in Greece. There are taxi stands where you just wait until a taxi is available and comes to the stand, Santorini also has a good bus system or you can have the hotel call a taxi for you. We stood at the taxi stand for a few minutes and before you know it we were off.

Perissa beach is set along the east coast of Santorini and is made up of volcanic black sand. Note - the black sand heats up very quickly so water shoes and sandals are highly recommended on the sand. The massive Mesa Vouno Mountain juts out to the left with Kamari beach on the other side. 

Before running down to the beach we had lunch at Mezedaki. It was beachfront and provided free beach loungers to its customers.

The food was a little eh. 

It was a perfectly beautiful day. The waves so gentle. M and I grabbed two freddo's and asked one of the waiters if he could call us a taxi back to our hotel. This time the taxi driver was a lovely man and he gave us the number for the taxi service so that next time we could call one for ourselves.  

Quick showers and we were out again.. catching the beautiful caldera view sunset on our way up. There were people everywhere lining up the see the view.. all we had to do was look our our balcony. Another note - Santorini is very hilly, full of stairs and not really ideal for the disabled or the elderly. My 80+ year old aunt was there just a couple of months before us and she came back exhausted. She found it very difficult to keep up. Sure you can book a tour etc but to really experience it you need to be physically capable. We spotted so many people struggling. Just the hike up from our room to the main road could sometimes feel like a bit much. 

 We had Mexican food again! At Los Tres Amigos. Scrumptious.  

Day two we started with breakfast delivered to our room. They had a little menu card and you filled out what you wanted and when you wanted it and viola.

I am going to start overusing the word perfect but I have no other way to describe the experience. We ate in the balcony overlooking the pristine blue water and the caldera, a few cruise ships here and there. 

We were up early that morning because we wanted to beat the heat and hike or at least try to attempt to hike from Fira to Oia. It's a popular and highly recommended walk.. 6.5 miles long. I had my doubts about our ability.. didn't want to be completely worn out and tired by the time we arrived to Oia. 

We walked a total of 1.3 miles and we were already tired. It was another very very hot day. We made it from Fira to Imerovigli and then decided to call for a taxi. 

Oia is carved out of Santorini's cliffs, a panorama of white buildings dotted with vibrant blue rooftops famously seen in so many photographs. It is one of the most visited places in Santorini. We arrived in Oia ready to explore and were welcomed by this

I kid you not. It was freaking insane and did not look safe or fun. Eek. In all our years of travelling I have never ever seen anything like this. 

We tried to find a less busy pathway.. 

Walking down to Amoudi Bay. It was a long way down.. 278 steps in total which going down was easy but we knew it was not going to be easy going back up in the peak of heat. There were mules available to give you a ride but we did not do that.

The bay lined with restaurants. We took a taxi back up.. it was a major rip off for a 2 minute ride but there was no way we could make the kids climb back up those stairs. 

Then we looked for lunch. We found this great thai place, Paradox, right were the taxi dropped us off and they had air conditioning. We cooled down and had a delectable meal.

Then a little more exploring, a picture with the blue domes was a must of course. 

Afterwards we took a bus back to Fira. The bus was extremely reasonable and comfortable. 

The boys couldn't wait to get back to the hotel and get into the hot tub. 

Sillies!

Before we went to dinner we took a cable car down to Santorini's old harbor. The harbor was visible from our balcony and the cable car terminal close to the hotel in Fira. You can see the winding stairs leading down to it in the picture below.

We made a quick round trip to catch the view around sunset. Then we had an incredible dinner at Kokkalo.

The salad was excellent.. the Greek really know how to make a salad and the potatoes that came with the steak and burgers were crispy perfection. Afterwards we roamed around Fira.

Our last day in Santorini was a free day. I had left it open so that we can do whatever we thought we missed or just lounge by the pool. After we had our amazing customized breakfast we headed out to Akrotiri via the very convenient bus. It is home to the ruins of a prehistoric settlement. But we skipped that and headed straight to the water where we found the red, black and white beach ferry boat. 

The boat provided you access to the three different colored beaches. You could just make the round trip or get off at different beaches. While it was tempting we choose to make the round trip and not get off at any of the beaches. 

The first beach was the red beach. The beach is a small cove under a cliff, surrounded by huge rocks. The sand and the soil around have a red-brown color which gives the beach its name. Going to the red beach is inadvisable. There are many signs telling you to watch for falling rocks. You can only access it by hiking down to it which they also warn you against doing. But that just makes people want to do it even more right? 

The beach did not look enjoyable to us but it was beautiful from the boat, a sight to see for sure. There was a very narrow strip of sand and no amenities or space. Our boat captain said he was not allowed to let anyone disembark on this beach. 

The second beach was the white beach. The white beach is not accessible by car, only by boat or by hiking there from the red beach. This beach was gorgeous.. the setting was breathtaking. So striking with the great big jagged white cliffs surrounding the beach. 

The beach was very shallow so the boat had to stop some distance away from the shore and those who wanted to get on or off the boat had to be in thigh high water. There were little to no amenities on the beach. But if I had to choose any beach to get off at this would have been the one. 

The last beach was the black beach. Since we had already enjoyed a very beautiful black beach already this held little appeal to us. 

Again, there were little to no amenities it was a very narrow stip and not too impressive. There was no dock but the captain tried to bring the boat as close to the beach as possible and let people on and off. Many people were like us, on the boat just for the views.

Once our boat trip concluded we took a bus back to Fira. We had a quick lunch and then headed back to the hotel. 

The kids had been waiting to get some pool time. They prefer to pool to the beach.

It was a uniquely shaped cave pool. From the pool they went to the jacuzzi. And I got to packing for our early morning flight the next day. And then instead of dressing up and going out again we ordered Chinese take out. There's nothing better than being freshly showered eating take out in your pj's. 

       

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