Santorini

Alex and I recently returned from a 9 day trip to Greece. Although it was very difficult leaving the boys for that amount of time, we somehow managed to enjoy ourselves. Our first night was spent on our overnight flight (yuck), but the next three nights were spent on the amazingly beautiful island of Santorini. We stayed at the Aspa Villas in Oía. Originally, their cave houses were booked when we made our reservations, but when we got there, they had a cancellation and moved us to a cave house for our 2nd and 3rd night for no additional charge. Here’s a picture of the view from our cave house:

 
Our first day in Oía, we walked around the village taking in our beautiful surroundings.
 

 

 
As you can see, the village is up on a cliff. If you want to get down to the bay, you have to take the nearly 300 very steep steps down. You can see the steps in this picture:
 

 
We managed to walk down the steps, but opted for a donkey ride on the way back up.
 

 
The next day we decided to rent a car and drive around the entire island. Many people were renting mopeds and ATVs, but after seeing the crazy drivers and narrow, windy roads we thought a car felt a little safer, or at least easier for other drivers to see. The island is only about 35 square miles, so it doesn’t take long to get from one end to the other (unless you take all of the wrong roads like us). At the other end of the island—opposite from Oía—there is a lighthouse and more beautiful views of the Aegean Sea. Here I am, a little carsick, sitting on some rocks near the lighthouse:
 

 
We managed to find our way to the red beach that we had read about. It takes a little walking and some hiking to get to it. Here is a shot of the beach from up on the hill before our hike down:
 

 
After leaving the beach, we made our way back to Oía, both of us exhausted and me a little more carsick. Since Oía is known for its sunsets and this was our last night there, we decided we should watch the sunset with everyone else in the village. Here is a picture of the old castle walls filled with sunset watchers:
 

 
We were sad to leave Santorini, but the following morning we had to catch our flight to Athens where we stayed for the remainder of our trip. Details and pictures of that part of our trip will be in my next post.

I highly recommend Santorini to anyone planning to visit one of the Greek islands. Of course I’m sure the other islands are just as amazing. Does anyone have a favorite Greek island? Is so, which one and why is it your favorite?