We woke at a leisurely time, looked out the window to beautiful blue skies and lots of wind. Lucky we did the sailing cruise yesterday.
We both had a hearty breakfast today. Yoghurt (local, I mean Greek of course) with fruits followed by Strapatsada, a local version of scrabbled eggs with pureed tomato, herbs and olive oil. It was tasty, we are always up to try the local food. So far it has been very good.
We had checked out and with our driver by 10:45am, and on our way to the Port. At check out we were given a parting gift, two ceramic saucers, a nice memento.. Our ferry was running 5 minutes late. I noticed a blast from the recent past at the port, a locked up Covid-19 testing shed stood quietly by the terminal.
Boarding wasn’t as smooth as at other ports, and it took sometime to get onboard. We eventually got underway around 12:20pm. We hadn’t been going for very long when we were paged to go to the main bar. No they weren’t buying us drinks! Shame really!! 🤣 They wanted to check our tickets, due to us loosing our original tickets in Athens. All good, they crossed off the new ticket numbers and sent me on my way.The ride to Santorini was a bit bumpy, much different to our first two smooth rides. They have Mr Bean on the screens around the boat, no language issues there! We sailed closely past Folegandros, from the ferry it looks very rocky, its about halfway between Milos and Thira. We had an unexpected(to us) Stop off at Folegandros at 1:25pm. There was a small settlement at the port, it does indeed look very rocky and inhospitable.The ride from Folegandos to Thira, Santorini was much smoother than the first half of the trip, coming into Thira it was very misty/foggy on the water with low visibility.We arrived at the Port of Athinios at about 2:20pm, roughly on schedule for the 2 hour trip. The port of is underwhelming, not the hot tourist destination you expect. A shabby looking row of businesses mainly offering tours and rental vehicles. But they are set in a backdrop of the walls of the caldera rising sharply behind them.
We were picked up by a gruff/grumpy Mercedes driving taxi driver. I guess he was on the phone for at least a third of the trip and dead silent for the remainder, except towards the end when he grumped out that we were about 3 minutes from our hotel, Perivolas, Oia, Santorini.
The ride to our hotel was really interesting. A series of long switch backs took us to the top of the island. There was a very long queue of vehicles lined up to get down to the port area. I felt really sorry for all the truck and coach drivers trying to navigate the steep decline with sharp 90 degree turns on very narrow roads.
I was surprised when we got to the top of the road, the landscape changed into a sort of flat plateau, which I wasn’t expecting. Sure there were lots of steep valleys around, but the top of the island was basically flat and there were vineyards and orchards
We arrived at our hotel around 3pm, a beautiful hotel built into the cliff face.
We were shown around all the facilities here, at the restaurant a young man from Melbourne, Alex ran us through all the food things, he has been here for 1 month has 5 months to go. Alex is a most delightful person, he came and checked in on us before he left for the day. And we organised to have dinner at the lovely area outside our room.
Our room is built into the cliff, think cave, no, a Hobbit home. 🤣 It is very spacious with our own umbrella, sun lounges, table and chairs. It is adjacent to the pool and very close to the restaurant. We just hope there isn’t too much noise, but we don’t have the many steps that you would normally have to contend with in a place like this, cliff face and everything!!
We had welcome drinks (sparkling white wine with a dash of rum) outside in our little area, looking out over the bay formed by the caldera. Wow, what a location!
Our view of the buildings of Santorini is very white, the only flashes of blue is on the domes of two churches, I was expecting a sea of blue and white from all the descriptions I had heard. We unpacked and settled in to a quiet afternoon/ evening. I think we will be very comfortable here.
We are had an early dinner, around 6pm, which means off the lunch menu. We are shared a Greek Salad and calamari. It was delicious, and we are enjoying eating healthy.
After dinner we had a look at a couple of maps of the area and made a few plans for tomorrow. Speaking of which, tomorrow we do a small boat “sunset cruise”, so we will explore the villages near our hotel in the morning/ early afternoon. But more on that tomorrow.
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