Santorini - The Island of Crowds

We arrived by plane (via Athens) on Friday afternoon and soon found our way to our little bungalow with a view of the back-side (not the much more popular, pricey and crowded) of Santorini stretching away from the small village of Oia. 

After settling in we went for a quick tour of lovely Oia with its marble streets, white washed buildings and amazing views over the Caldera of Santorini (or Thera as it is known in Greek). 

Even with the less chic digs (ie no caldera view), Santorini is still ridiculously expensive! 

As it was our first day and already late, we grabbed a decent if unremarkable dinner of gyros and after touring the main drag of Oia a couple of times (each time taking less than 20 minutes) we retired to our hot-tub to enjoy white wine and TV while looking out over the island to the sea.

The next day (our first full day in Greece) we opted for the renowned hike from Oia to Fira along the Caldera route after a modest breakfast of spanokopita and coffee. 

The hike was more challenging than we had anticipated (or we were still more jet lagged than we thought) and we struggled over the hills a bit. 

When we reached the village of Imervogli, about 7.5km of the 10km to Fira, we opted for a cold beverage (8 euros each for a small bottle of bubbly water!) and then a short diversion to Skaros Rock! 

Skaros was inhabited in ancient times and during the Medieval period housed a ramshackle castle from which the Venetian lords ruled. 

Skaros is to the the left of Lisa in the picture below with the trail leading to it while the village of Oia can be seen behind Lisa and to the right of her in the distance.

The short diversion was fun except that it claimed the life of one of Christos' sandals! 

The strap on his Teva gave up the ghost on a bad rock and so we ended the hike a little early at Imervogli and took the bus back to Oia. 

Still an amazing hike with views like no other. The only negative is that it was much busier than anticipated; foreshadowing our entire Santorini experience! 

That night we dressed up and went for the long climb down the stairs to Amoudi Bay, the fishing port below the village of Oia. 

We had to traverse the entire main drag of Oia, past the ruined castle and down the old main stairs where one can pay a fee to take a donkey to the top. The ancient stairs are made of stone and polished marble and can be a little treacherous in bad shoes. 

Given that it was approaching sunset, Oia was jammed with people, particularly near the ruined castle, trying desperately to get the perfect selfie. It was a slow descent.

Dinner was at the "Ammoudi Fish Tavern" and where we had an amazing tuna tataki and then split a 1.5 pound fish that was delicious. 

All washed down with a decent, albeit expensive, bottle of Greek white wine. Super expensive (our most expensive meal of the trip) but an amazing meal and top notch service.

The entire waterfront is dominated by two or three restaurants and everyone is cheek to jowl but the views of the harbour can be quite amazing and the lively bustle of the scene is invigorating. 

With the night having fallen by the end of the meal, many of the diners preferred to take the long way in a cab back to Oia for 20 euros instead of the stairs straight up but not us! 

We huffed and puffed our way up the stairs, dodging the donkey poop liberally spread on the lower levels, for half an hour before getting back to our hideaway and repeating the previous night's hot tub oriented activities. 

Our second day in Oia was a Sunday and thus somewhat slow. Christos had a visit to the maritime museum and we wandered around Oia a bit but much of the day was spent chilling in our bungalow. Dinner was once more at Ammoudi Bay but at a different restaurant, "Dimitris Ammoudi Tavern". Decent meal but not as good as the previous night albeit 30% cheaper. 

After another evening relaxing in the tub we got some sleep before waking up Monday morning ready for the next destination, Fira, the main town of Santorini. 

While Oia is stunningly beautiful, it is about as far from authentic Greece as one can get and even in mid-May was far too crowded for our liking. 

To top it off, Oia is famous for its beautiful sunsets but for all three of our nights there the sunsets were not what they can be due to the dust and clouds. 

Still worth the visit if one has never been but not worth returning to in our opinion. 

Our VRBO host picked us up around noon and we were settled in to our new digs in Fira, the island's largest town, about 1/2 an hour later. Our accommodation in Fira was quite a bit larger than that in Oia and included both an indoor and outdoor hot-tub! Of course we used both during our stay! 

Unlike our last spot which was literally 20m from the main drag of Oia, this new spot was on the edge of town about a 15 minute walk into the main part of town, all through built up tourist housing which was likely open field when Christos was here in 1984! 

We were in one of a set of three new suites, all quite well designed and built. 

Our view from the interior tub was into a donkey inhabited valley and beyond to the sea and the (what I believe was) island of Anafi.

After settling in, we toured Fira which was even more crowded than Oia and we soon discovered why! 

The cruise ships come to Fira's lower old port and disgorge several hundred (thousand?) tourists into ship's boats who come ashore and swarm up to Fira in the cable car (the cable car line at 5PM to go down to the port was astounding) for a day trip. 

Some make it to Oia or other places but most stay in Fira making the tiny streets thick with people to the point of frustration. 

After an afternoon of dodging tourists and seeing the town we got back to our spot in time to try out the indoor tub prior to dinner at the restaurant "Pelican Kipos" (Kipos being Greek for garden). Our dinner of lamb, fava bean spread and salad was good but the highlight was a bottle of Greco Di Tufo; the same vintage that Lisa keeps our cellar stocked with. 

After dinner we wandered through a much more empty and sedate town enjoying the wind swept views out over the Caldera before making it back to our place to try out the outside tub; it worked quite well!

Our first full day in Fira started with the quest for new shoes for Christos. After visiting several shops (Fira is thick with mid range and fancier boutiques) a pair of Tom's was found and although radically different from the sandals (being instead a closed toe espadrille type shoe) these were soon embraced as being perfect! 

The remainder of the day was spent touring the town, shopping (water, wine and salad/snack material) and relaxing until it was time for dinner at Tholoto where we ordered too much and ended up taking a pork chop home with us after dinner.  

The next day we opted for an adventure ("peripetia" in Greek) and hopped on the bus to Exo Gonia to visit the Santorini Brewery as well as a nearby art-space and the well regarded restaurant "Metaxi Mas". 

The brewery was a fun (short) visit with a couple of brews sampled but nothing purchased as we knew we would be coming back the same way later. 

The visit to the art space was brief as well as we had no reservation and a tour was just arriving (and we did not appear to have money) but rewarding as we saw a set of lovely bronze olive tree statues (by Angelos Panagiotidis) which we did not buy but inspired us. 

We then wandered through the lower outskirts of Exo Gonia eventually leading to a solid but short hike up to and through the village to Metaxi Mas where lunch was simply amazing; Lisa had an arugala salad that made up for all the previous meals with no real salads and Christos had dolmades and other Greek delights.  

We hiked back down the hill, bought some beer at the craft brewery and hopped on the local bus in time to get back to our pad around 5ish. 

We opted for dinner in this night consisting of some items we had picked up in town and the leftovers from the previous night. 

That evening a tiny young mom cat visited us and she received the remains of the pork chop (devouring even the bone splinters) as well as some sliced turkey from a sandwich we had for the next day before departing.

The next morning our host gave us a lift to the new port of Fira where the large ferries arrive and after a slight bit of confusion with our tickets we were safely on board and headed to our next destination, the nearby island of Ios!