Yesterday was our last full day in Santorini, and I don't think either one of us was ready to leave! Just about everything in Santorini was beautiful, and it was hard to think about leaving the peace and quiet of Firostefani to come back to the hustle and bustle of Athens! On Wednesday, the 21st, Cheryl and I decided to go on a full day bus tour of Santorini. We stopped in Akrotiri, Perivolos (the black sand beach), Megalochori, Pyrgos, and ended the tour at Santo wines for a short wine tasting. Our tour guide was incredible. Not only did she have an extensive knowledge of everything we saw, but she also gave us a lot of insight into what is currently going on with Greece and a lot of the problems they are facing. For example, she told us the government is reporting unemployment rates of young people at 35%, but the number is actually closer to 45%, if not higher. She also told us that in Greece you are taxed on the income the government thinks you should be making, regardless of whether you are actually working or not. She also told us the average electric bill is 150 euro (about $205) a month. Yikes!! We asked her if she had studied archaeology at university, and she told us that each (licensed) tour guide in Greece has to undergo a rigorous three year study of archaeology and history, and even then they are not guaranteed to be selected to be a tour guide! Anyhoo...we saw a lot on the tour, but my favorite thing was probably Akrotiri. Akrotiri was a town that was covered over by a volcanic eruption in the 17th century BCE, and the main discovery of the site didn't happen until the 1960s. Only about 3% of the site has been excavated due to budget issues, but the things they have found there are amazing. Each house they uncovered had wall paintings in practically every room, and they found a multitude of pottery, furniture (well, imprints of furniture), and the city even had it's own sewer system! You can actually walk amongst the ruins at the site, and that combined with the extensive knowledge our tour guide had made it an unforgettable experience. After our tour, we watched a gorgeous sunset from our balcony, and had a delicious dinner. I don't think we had one meal in Santorini that was not absolutely fantastic! That night, we also made friends with another local cat who was hanging out inside the outdoor area of the restaurant, and we were very happy to find out that they feed him every night after the restaurant has closed (he may have also gotten a bit of my leftovers that night as well ;) ) Our last day in Santorini was spent walking around the capital, Fira, and drinking in the last bit of the island. Oh wait, we also had our feet gnawed on by fish!! Cheryl heard about the type of...foot treatment in which little fish gnaw on your feet and make them softer. If you know me, you know I hate fish!! I thought I would be a good sport, however, and I tried it. It was weird, uncomfortable, and I felt like I wanted to throw up a little bit while it was happening, but darned if it didn't actually work! I have to admit, my feet were softer and smoother than they've ever been after any foot massage or pedicure! I don't think I'll be in any hurry to get this done again when I get home, but I gotta say...it works! We flew back to Athens from the Santorini airport and WOW, neither Cheryl or I could believe how tiny/lax/awful the airport was! When we got there, we had to wait to check our bags because they, "called the police to come and check the bags, but they're taking their time getting here." And who was the officer checking our bags? Why, a guy in a V-neck shirt and jeans of course! We walked through a rinky-dink metal detector (they did more of a security check for a cruise), and when he saw I had a bottle of water, I was told to just empty it in the bathroom that was in the area after security. What?! The airport was also very smelly and had barely adequate restroom facilities. Luckily, we were only there for a short time, and we had a quick 50 minute flight back to Athens. Our new apartment in Athens is much different than the one we had the first time around. While it is very large and appears very old, it is kind of cluttered and kind of feels like we are staying in the apartment of a friend of a friend, rather than a hotel-y apartment. Here's the link if you'd like to check it out. But, we're in Athens, so nothing is all that bad! We spent our penultimate day in Athens at the Acropolis Museum, souvenir shopping, and we took a double decker bus tour. The museum was incredible, and absolutely lived up to the rave reviews I've heard/read about it. I wasn't able to take very many pictures as they only allow photos in a few sections, but that didn't take anything away from the experience. My favorite parts were seeing the section on color used on the ancient statues, where they recreated statues with the colors they originally had on them, and the section where they recreated the large friezes from the Parthenon. Oh, and they had a bust of Agrippina the Younger, who, if anyone knows me, knows that she is one of my absolute favorite women in ancient history! Tomorrow we will go to the Museum of Greek Folk Instruments and explore a little more of Monstiraki since we didn't see too much of it the other day. We leave around noon on Sunday, and although I will miss Athens and I am having a blast on vacation, I am very excited to see my two baby cats! (Oh yeah, and Bryce too ;) ) Μέχρι την επόμενη φορά! (Until next time!) P.S. Comments are appreciated! :)
My very sweet kitty from our hotel. If I could have taken her home, I would have!!
A very cool picture of a storeroom in Akrotiri
How they do roadwork in Megalochori. This is literally going to take a month for them to finish
Church tower in Megalochori
Beautiful doors in a random house in Megalochori. The town is so small they don't even have street names! The mailman comes once or twice a week, and you better hope you are there when he calls your name if you have a letter! After his third time calling your name, you can pretty much kiss your mail goodbye!
Black sand beach
We convinced a pool boy to let us use a cabana for free!
Another wonderful panoramic at the Monastery of Profitis Ilias
Monastery of Profitis Ilias
Anyone care to buy a concrete slab? It has a wonderful ocean view! (This is actually a house for sale)
Cheryl and I at Dr. Fish, blegh!!
I couldn't even look at this while it was happening
A rock from a volcanic eruption that they had to just build their house around because it was too heavy to move
My sweet kitty friend from dinner!
Our best sunset in Santorini...breathtaking!
Firostefani/Fira at night
Santorini airport...really
This was the entire security check
All three gates on the main floor
Caryatids from the Erechtheion at the Acropolis Museum
Today begins our second day in Santorini, and wow, the descriptions and pictures of this place cannot begin to capture the beauty! The white buildings on the cliffs of the caldera are surrounded by sapphire blue water. I just cannot believe that people live here and see this every day! Cheryl and I both commented too that it is incredibly quiet and peaceful here. Our last day adventure for our first leg in Athens (Monday) was spend wandering around looking for the elusive Anafiotika neighborhood. While we finally did find it, we spent about two or three hours wandering around trying to figure out where it was! It seemed like every person we asked gave us different directions to get there, but we got to spend a lot of time getting to know the local neighborhoods around Athens. We stopped for an AMAZING lunch at Scholarhio, which was a very authentic Greek restaurant. Instead of a paper menu, the waiter came around with a "live menu", that is, he brought a giant tray with 18 different dishes and we chose five of them to share. We had moussaka, Greek salad, spanakopita, meatballs, and fried zucchini. The moussaka and the zucchini were definitely my favorites, and I felt like I could have eaten several servings of each! I also tried a Greek beer, Alpha, which was surprisingly light and not too bad (which is a big compliment coming from a non-beer drinker such as myself). After wandering around for a bit longer after lunch, we came back to the apartment and got ready for our sunset tour with George's Taxi. Unfortunately, Helios, god of the sun, was not on our side and rather than a beautiful sunset tour, we got a beautiful cloudy and rainy tour. Despite the weather, we saw some beautiful beaches, amazing cliffs, and the Temple of Poseidon, which has an amazing 15 of the 34 original columns still standing. Our tour guide, Demetrius, also answered about the 5000 questions we had, including, "Does Greece have nude beaches?" and "What are some of the most popular American TV shows here?" (Answer: No designated nude beaches, but people would not stop you from going nude, and "NCIS", "Big Bang Theory (Big Bang Theoria)", and "Prison Break") I literally asked questions until I couldn't think of anymore, which if you know me, is A LOT of questions! But, he was very nice at answering them and it saved me a lot of time on Google! The only snafu we had during our trip was our trip to dinner. We both said we were in the mood for seafood, so Demetrius took us to his friend's restaurant in a small town where the fish was, on average, 60 euro! His friend told us this price was actually per kilo, but then said we could pick our own fish which would probably weigh .5-1 kilo. This was definitely not an overly nice restaurant, nor were we that hungry, so we asked Demetrius to take us somewhere a bit cheaper. We ended up getting gyros that cost a total of 6 euro for dinner and we got to befriend the local cats at the restaurant. All in all, it was a wonderful, exhausting day! Yesterday we left very early to catch the ferry to Santorini. The boat ride, though about five and a half hours long, was comfortable and went by quickly. We arrived in Santorini and the view was breathtaking. We spent most of yesterday recovering from the drowsiness of the dramamine we had taken earlier that day, and so we just walked around seeing what there was to see. We had a small lunch at a gyro restaurant, dinner at a delicious Italian restaurant, and watched the sunset from our balcony. Today we are going to take a tour of the beaches and ancient sites, and explore the other side of the island (we are staying inFirostefani, near the capital of Santorini, Fira). We are staying at the Blue Dolphins Hotel, if anyone wants to check it out! Well, it is almost time for breakfast, so "αντίο" until next time, and "ευχαριστώ" for checking out my blog!
Yummy authentic Greek lunch!
Outside the restaurant
Cats everywhere!
Interesting collection of wooden chairs
Someone's house in Anafiotika
Stairs in Anafiotika
Greek Orthodox church in Athens
One of the stray dogs that hangs around the streets of Athens
Another sweet stray dog
Lots of graffiti on the smaller streets around the city
I really liked this bit of street art/graffiti
Street art over graffiti?
One of my new feline friends, Orangie
Restroom sign outside of the tourist info center in Athens
A view on our way to the Temple of Poseidon
A mineral lake Demetrius showed us on our way to the temple. Apparently it's a very "locals only" spot to go!
Temple of Poseidon
Temple of Poseidon
One of our dinner companions
View from our balcony in Santorini
Balcony View II
Panoramic from our balcony. I learned that panoramics are not my camera's strong suit
It has been a few years since I have had interesting international things to write on this blog, but here we go again! I am currently in Athens with Cheryl, and will be in Greece until the 25th. Tomorrow is our last full day in Athens (for now), and then we will be taking a boat over to Santorini and staying in Firostefani. We come back to Athens late Thursday night and will be here again for the rest of the trip!
Yesterday was a VERY long travel day. We left LAX Friday at 12 p.m., and did not arrive in Athens until about 6:00 p.m. on Saturday! We had a layover in Paris which was short, but I was pretty exhausted by that point. We flew on AirFrance which I loved, and they gave us two very nice meals! I even got a baby bottle of wine, ha ha!
Driving into Athens from the airport was interesting as they do not have the most *spectacular* apartments as you drive in. We are staying in an apartment in a neighborhood called "Kolonaki", which I read online is like staying in Chelsea in New York. The taxi driver was arranged by the lady who is renting the apartment, and he was very nice and answered the many, many questions I asked him! He will also be picking us up at the buttcrack of dawn to take us to the port for Santorini (we leave at 6:00 a.m.).
After we got settled in the apartment, we walked around for a bit and I managed to channel Bryce's excellent direction skills (he's a human MapQuest you know), and I got us back to our apartment just on gut feeling! Since it was Saturday night, there were lots of people out and there are plenty of bars and restaurants in this area. We got yelled at by two very unfriendly Greek men at separate times for walking too slowly on the sidewalk, but we're hoping those were isolated incidents! There were LOTS of shoe stores around, and I read that there are more shoe stores per square mile in Kolonaki than anywhere else in Athens. There are also lots of fancy stores here, like Armani, Guess, and a few others I haven't heard of. There is a Zara and a United Colors of Benetton down the street which I can't wait to go in!
After walking around for about an hour, we stopped at a market right outside our apartment and got some munchies to hold us over for the night (including some Coke Light, which is Europe's equivalent of Diet Coke and definitely not as good!)
Today we woke up early, had a nice breakfast at the apartment, and made our way to the Acropolis. Today was International Museum Day, so we got in for free! However, today is also the mayoral elections for Athens, so the sites were only open until 4:00 p.m. The Acropolis was breathtaking, and imagining that I was apart of the Panathenaic Procession as we hiked up to the top of the hill only added to the experience! I had downloaded a Rick Steves audio tour for us to listen to, and it was incredibly informative. Rick Steves offers many (free) audio tours, primarily for Europe, and I highly recommend him!
After spending a few hours at the Acropolis, we had a light lunch and walked around the touristy streets that surround the Acropolis. There were several gypsy children playing accordions and begging, and it broke my heart. The youngest was probably six, while the oldest couldn't have been older than twelve. There are also many large (think German Shepherd size) dogs that were laying around sleeping in various areas today, yet they all had collars on. I checked online afterwards, and apparently there is a stray dog population in Athens, but the government vaccinates them and they are fed and played with by many of the locals. I didn't take any pictures of them today because they made me a little sad, but now that I know they are at least partially taken care of, I will snap a few of them tomorrow.
After walking around and looking at all the fun touristy stuff, Cheryl and I decided to go back to the apartment and take a nap (is there a Greek word for siesta?). We ended up sleeping pretty late, and so we just ate at a yummy Italian restaurant that is literally right next door to our apartment. Hint: the water and bread at restaurants here is not free! ;)
Tomorrow we will be headed to Monastiraki to see the famous giant flea market and Anafiotika, which is a small area that still looks ancient and looks like the homes on the islands. At 5:30 pm, we will be taking George's Taxi on a 5 hour tour to Cape Sounion, which goes on a coastal road. We're taking a sunset tour, which was highly recommended!
Unfortunately, the SD card with the majority of my pictures from today won't load onto my computer, so the ones here are just a few I took with my phone. I'll definitely make sure to use another SD card tomorrow!
Until next time!
Inside the Paris airport
Street photography, just for Ans ;)
I was trying to figure out how they still ride this thing!
The sign and doorbell outside our apartment
In front of Syntagma Square
Display of artifacts found while digging for the Acropolis metro stop
Theatre of Dionysus (looking down from top of Acropolis)
Funny street performer!
Our first Greek meal, haha!
Greek boy scouts
Soldiers doing a changing of the guard ceremony for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier outside the Greek Parliament building
I thought this flyer was silly, and it had a cat! I think it means something like either "Vote for the Kittens!" or "Vote with the cats, vote for (somebody)!)" The title at the top says something like "Athenian Mayoral Elections"
Tiramisu from dinner
I know this is a serious thing for them, but honestly, it just looks so ridiculous!
