Travel

Could it be? Could it really be my Santorini post I’ve been promising?! Why yes it is!

Prepare yourself folks, lots of stupidly pretty scenery ahead~

But, before you’re blown away, lets first start with Dustin and I getting there. That was a scary situation lemme tell you- the flight from Athens to Santorini was garbage!  We flew through Ellinair. They left 50 minutes late for a flight that was only supposed to take 45 minutes and the landing was scary af.  Also, forewarning, the Santorini airport is comically small and very dirty but don’t let that discourage you because there is magic outside of that one crummy spot. As far as airlines to use while avoiding Ellinair, we’d recommend Ryanair based on what others used that we met along the way!

As far as transportation we didn’t really have a set plan, after all this entire trip was last minute. So we visited the Hertz to just see about prices versus taking the bus and taxi’n around and the cost seemed fair ~$375 total usd for the entirety of our stay in Santorini, about 3.5 days so opted for the cutest option available:

Convertible Fiat!

While it had zero “get up” as Dustin would call it, it was blast riding through the windy roads  with the top down and Greek music turned up loud! Turns out it was definitely the best decision for being mobile because the other alternatives were dirt bikes or ATVS both of which were slow and annoying as crap to get behind plus they don’t have coverage for the chilly nights/dust/blazing sun or much storage. We saw a lot of miserable looking couples who probably regretted it but if you were to rent for just short distances that’d be fun, just not idea for zipping all over the island in our opinions.  In addition we heard the taxi’s were very pricey.  So, adorable little convertible is a win!

Because the trip was last minute I had a hard time finding Airbnbs that were for all three nights. Instead I went with the same rental company but three different cave homes. When we arrived into the town we were staying in, Oia, the porter showed us to the home and it was amazing, like so amazing I was confused because it wasn’t what I booked, it was way better!  I thought, ‘did he show us to someone else’s mansion by accident? Should I say something?’ And then after the grand tour he said “you were upgraded to this home because there was a cancellation and this was going to sit empty anyways.”

UM, HELL YES:

This thing could have slept 7 adults comfortably! It was huge. Joked about calling up our friends and telling’em “hey come over, we have so much extra room!”

I had to take a few to run around and admire all the decor and furnishings, squealing around every corner!

After I admired every square inch, we got changed for an adventure.

We knew we wanted to hit up Amoudi Bay’s cliff jumping and restaurants overlooking the water, however, I asked if we could have one chill day because my knees were killing me from all the Athens adventuring.   Somehow (still not sure about this one) there was miscommunication and we ended up starting the journey down the 300 stairs…

These are not the Amoudi steps but right before I realized there was no turning back we snapped a pic of pre-sweaty me. Took a hot second to get a pic where my hat wasn’t trying to blow off and my cover-up wasn’t over my head but we got it! The shoes I’m wearing here were bought our last night in Athens and worn every single second there after until they got so gross here in the states they’re waiting for a cleaning. LOVE THEM SO MUCH! These are the ones from the previous post I mentioned I tried to track down to store away for the future but they were all gone.

Bussola, please remake the Nashville gladiators!
Thanks,
Nashville’s #1 fan

Instead of getting bent out of shape about needing some lounging and instead getting an intense workout, I made the most of it and got silly on Snap and also joked with passerbyers who were barely making it back up!

After making it down the stairs you then walk through the strip of restaurants then down and around the island to the other side.  Not sure if it was the time of year but it was insanely windy!

We set our stuff behind a rock, got in the chilly water and swam to the above island that has the cliff everyone jumps off. Swim was a breeze, if you can handle swimming against a current, but I will say getting up that thing wasn’t the easiest. There are a few path options but the easiest wasn’t the rope people were using it was actually the pure rock path.

Couple things to note: water is always cold so a rash guard would definitely come in handy, bring water shoes or something like that for the sharp rocks, we loved having our dry bag within our regular bag, point  your toes when entering water-otherwise it hurts the arches of your feet and lastly: DO IT! 

I jumped off twice and was good but my fellow water baby hubs wanted to get in a few more so I watched from the other island and documented.

photo by friend made over drinks, Nicole Sweet

After all the stairs, swimming and jumping it was snack time!

We went down to one of the water front joints and ordered some of the octopus and some drinks.

This is how the octopus comes out. First they hang it in the sun and let it dry out then they marinate and throw on the grill. Very good! During our time at Amoudi Fish Tavern we met two friendly Americans, Nicole and Lawrence. She’s a photographer and he’s a pro basketball trainer. We chatted and hung with them for about an hour and later invited up to hang. With the crappy service and Oia being confusing it sadly didn’t happen but it was fun visiting while we did.

While walking down all the steps we saw a few people riding donkeys back up and then saw them chilling around the bottom and put two-and-two together, they were for rent! These guys were brilliant. 5 euros each got you back to the top! You and your achy knees could rest while listening to the jingle bells and watch your man pretend to be a Greek cowboy! Best money spent on the whole trip.

After donkey ride it was back to the cave!

Hit up a local market along the way, picked up some regular and spicy olives and margarita ingredients. We danced and goofed off and hung out in just about everywhere, except that “jacuzzi” which was just cold fresh water ha!

Just like in Athens, with the changing colors of the sun, the bright white buildings changed shades with every minute of the sunset.

Judge away, I did! Even though I thought he looked sexy staring off into the Mediterranean Sea. This is not typical but he does enjoy the occasional foreign smoke.

Glad I’ll never have to forget this moment :)

If you’ve ever done any looking into Santorini you’ve probably heard of the epic sunsets. Well, lemme tell you, it’s no myth! People are intense about catching them front row too. The first night we watched with a crowd right outside of our home getting more creative with spots the following nights. Here’s two snap shots from Dustin’s phone:

After sun was down it was back to playing in our cave mansion!

Just look at the view from the couch!

For real, all the above wasn’t even in a full day! We really know how to pack it in on trips :)

Up next: Rest of Santorini!

Hope you enjoyed the short but fun recap of day one! Now onto day two.

Started with a crazy spread of food at our hotel’s complimentary breakfast; I’m talking every carb on the planet, olives, sweets, seriously name it and it was there! No complaints from these breakfast loving folks :) After loading up and getting in as much caffeine as possible it was time to explore some old stuff.

First stop was just around the corner from our hotel, Temple of Olympian Zeus.

We opted for the ticket that was more money that included seven locations but since we only made it to two of them, didn’t really pay off but it wasn’t that expensive overall. Keep in mind the hours of the sites because we didn’t and they close earlier than you’d think.  If you do miss them being open, they are close to paths and behind rod iron fences so you can still see them.  More info here.

Temple of Zeus | Athens, Greece

It was hot as hell so we had to hide in shade in-between photos and guard our face and eyes from the dust but we really enjoyed seeing something so old that’s still standing, well, most of it’s still standing.

After the temple we spontaneously decided to hit up the National Garden.  On the way, walking down a very busy street we spotted these underground remains that were discovered while they were digging to make an air vent for the train in the early 2000’s. So crazy! Just digging along a city street and you find the above, I’m sure it was annoying for workers to have to go around but how fascinating. Glad they kept them intact.

Another unplanned visit was the Panathenaic Stadium where the first modern olympics was held. We just so happened to walk by so we took a closer look and I gave a shout out to my buddy that helped me plan the trip, well if you want to be exact, shoutout was given to his alter ego-Philotheos!

Outside of the stadium we found an olive tree that appeared to have ripe olives, watch video to see if we were correct…

If you can’t tell, we were easily distracted *per usual* which is something I love about traveling with Dustin. He’s always up for a change of plans or just living spontaneously! Earlier in the day we saw this turtle just trucking along a hill and then right outside the gardens we heard rustling around in some leaves to discover the following dude trying to get up a curb into a bush. We gave him a lift but before I gave him a personality via Snap:

National Garden | Athens, Greece

The gardens…what to say about the gardens. Well, there were tall trees! Even some palm trees. But overall sorta disappointing.  Of course we made the most it, documenting silly pics and videos, but I’d say unless you just wanted a pretty walk, don’t bother for exotic plant sightings. I suppose I’m a little snobby about this because it’s something I’ve always done having a dad that’s plant obsessed and Atlanta having a beautiful botanical garden. The moment that I was like “meh” was when we tracked down my favorite tree exhibit, the ginkgo, and discovering there was one sad tree, ha!

But it got better, or worse(?), when we stumbled upon the saddest zoo ever. See Zoologist Dustin debuting the star of the zoo:

One pin for real had goats and rabbits free range living together! It was sad and silly all at the same time. After being landed on by one too many flies, we bounced out:

Never a good thing when you see a fly on a foreign bird that then lands on you…

So it was off to the First Cemetery of Athens.

Why did we visit a cemetery? Cause we always do on trips to old cities! New Orleans, Savannah, even walk around the Oakland Cemetery here in Atlanta from time to time. There’s a certain kind of beauty about them.

Beauty in the previous generations of families being remembered by a display of their favorite keepsakes, poems, scripture, plants. I especially like when plants are incorporated because to me, it’s like a part of them keeps growing.  It’s a place for family and friends to go and remember them while they shared time together on earth. Something about cemeteries to me is just, peaceful.

First Cemetery of Athens | Athens, Greece

Feet and back were hurting so we sought out a nearby cafe for brews and water. On the way spotted a shop that makes the marble figures for cemeteries.  The doors were wide open, dust flying out and a couple of men were inside hard at work.  Couldn’t help but watch in captivation.

Cafe pitstop | Athens, Greece

Right before our trip Sprint added Greece to their free international plan allowing us to use our phones a lot more than we did in Mexico. Basically we could connect to internet wherever there was WIFI but in addition they had deals with Greece’s phone companies and in some areas we were roaming for free and had decent service. Whenever we had the chance though, we’d (well, I) would ask for the WIFI password.  Ended up becoming a big joke later in the trip.

In route to food we popped into a tiny church in the center of Athen’s downtown.

With several strangers we lit some prayer candles. Raised as a Southern Baptist I had never done this but enjoyed the symbolism.

So we wouldn’t miss the sunset we hightailed it to the Acropolis on the prettiest of paths!

Acropolis | Athens, Greece

Different view of Mars Hill, hello ant people!

It was quite the hike. Lots and lots and lots of stairs and slippery marble but we made it! Toured around the top until the Greek army came and took down the flag-that was special to see. Then we plopped down to say goodbye to the sun.

Acropolis of Athens

We know you’re not supposed to stare at the sun but it was moving so fast and we couldn’t help ourselves! I wish I had saved the video of it disappearing because it was so cool, I said “goodnight sun!” and poof, it went behind the mountains and we hiked back down.

On the way to our hotel to get cleaned up there was a concert about to take place at the amphitheater which is the venue under us in the photo where we are standing on the rock.  We got to hear sound check!

Night two was more Ozou for Dustin, Greek wine for me, shopping around Plaka and enjoying the last few hours in Athens.

Congrats to me for finally getting in the swing of posting about Greece and to all of us for making it to hump day! Santorini is coming up next!

Remember that time I went to Greece and never posted about it? Well I’m fixing that because I’m finally getting around to recapping our trip! Starting with our first day, or half day rather, in Athens~

We landed around noonish and with buying a train pass, waiting for train, riding train while falling asleep in public, walking to hotel we didn’t arrive until about 3 or 4 and immediately took a nap but first looked out our small hotel porch to see this:

We kept saying how this style reminded us of cruise ships, you see it? Very common around all the parts of Greece we went to. I was fond of the colors of this particular building.

For this leg of the trip we didn’t splurge on our room by any means, but instead got something cheap and close to everything.  The Airotel Parthenon was close to everything but I will say, it looked nicer online, ha! Our room smelled of sulfur and it overall felt dirty but the lobby and breakfast that was included was very nice. I wouldn’t say don’t stay there because we were able to walk to all we did and the staff was great but beware, you get what you pay for.

After our power nap we got up and went to get some spiked coffees with no real plan just going where details led us like “pretty flowers! lets walk this way” stopping at the cutest outdoor cafe.

Greek iced coffee with Bailey’s ~ fun energy!

Went a little nuts snapping photos of this cafe, but I was so in love!

I climbed inside a tree to get this pic! Screams Europe right?!

We did a lot of walking from the start, had to pick up some fuel from a street vendor.

This day was very short so after coffee and snacks we hightailed it to Mars Hill to catch the sun setting on the entire city and view of the Parthenon atop Acropolis. You can’t tell from this photo but it was very windy up there and we had to be extra careful walking around all the slippery marble.

I was squealing with delight over the rosy gold glow, it was like Joshua Tree in the sense of it just kept getting better and better!

Ray-Bans, Anthro top, vintage Coach bag, Old Navy sandals and Free People shorts

Some of these were taken with my little Rebel but this last one Dustin took on his phone and I was very impressed! The following day we switched over to the Acropolis side but first getting a different view of it was extra cool.

Once it got dark I stuck with just using Snapchat so no more photos from day .5 but the fun didn’t stop after Mars Hill. Next destination was the historic neighborhood, Plaka. This is where you can do it all -shop, drink, have fish eat the dead skin off your feet, watch street performers, eat, shop some more.  A friend here in Atlanta that’s from Thessaloniki who helped me big time with the trip recommended a spot for dinner he and his family go to every time they are in Athens, Thanasis Kebab.  He said “it’s nothing fancy but I love it” and I would agree, it wasn’t the fanciest but we sat on a cobblestone street lined with other restaurants and lots of foot traffic and enjoyed some Greek beer with the traditional plates and loved it!  We attempted to stay out as long as possible to battle jet lag but that night was pretty brutal for me. Having never traveled with such a big time difference, 7 hours ahead, I laid wide awake most of that night being envious of Dustin soundly sleeping like it was no different.

Have no fear, I totally rallied the next day! Check back tomorrow to see post two from Athens!