Greece Part III: Santorini

3/7/15

Day 51 

*spoiler alert: I crammed a million and one pictures into this post because I'm hoping quantity will make up for quality. My apologies.*

We still had a lot left to see in Santorini, and luckily we had a car so we had no excuses not to wake up early to drive around, even though it was heavily raining. (If you look closely though the wet windshield, you can see a blue church)

We drove to the mountain but realized the view was completely hidden by low clouds blanketing the whole island.

We could barely see a few feet in front of our faces, much less all the way down to the sea. Without even getting out of the car, we turned around. By the time we got back down near the bottom, the fog had started to lift and we had this view:

In the fog though, we all decided that it looked a lot like we would imagine Ireland, not Santorini!

We returned to Fira to look for the blue houses by the Old Port. Instead, we found donkeys! And we were suddenly glad the tours weren't running where you can ride the donkeys up and down the hill- the donkeys were struggling enough without us on their backs. It would have been a repeat of the camel disaster!

We walked along the ridge of the cliff of stores and restaurants and houses to what I'm assuming is Imerovigli.

It was one of those times that whenever you move a fraction of an inch you feel the need to take another picture because it was just such a stunning view.

We spotted the tiniest bit of blue in the distance and tried to get closer.

It turned out to be impossible to get a good shot, even though we circled the area for awhile and found another small, darker blue dome too. But everything seemed like it was gated off so we turned back toward town. On our way, we almost got run over by a pack of donkeys and then we did get to see one tiny blue-domed church up close. It was pretty anticlimactic.

Defeated, we got lunch at a place George had recommended called Lucky's. It more than deserved the recommendation!

The gyro was the best I've had so far and the guy and his mom working there were friendly and adorable. His mom "spoke little English" but she still asked us if the food was good and, acting as official DJ, put on some Greek pop music and danced to it for us. Greek music sounded Arabic at first. I really wish I'd had phone service because I would've broken out Shazam. 

Then, for the first time since I've been here, we just completely ran out of energy and stuff to do. We'd already checked out of our hotel so we sat in the car and napped while it rained outside. It was nice to finally get a chance to relax for the first time in weeks. 

It cleared up enough after an hour for us to go back to walking around and shopping before we had to catch our flight to Athens. We were still on the souvenir hunt because everything was so cheap and so pretty. I got more yogurt and honey because I was craving it. The guy was so nice that he gave my friend a fork and knife even though she was eating baklava from another store. Greek people are great. 

A little before we had to leave for the airport, we tried to find a place to park the rental car and there weren't any available spaces near the hotel. We drove a little further than usual and had to park in a parking lot next to a church AND GUESS WHAT? The church had a blue dome, but more importantly, we turned around and saw blue churches EVERYWHERE. (Even though you couldn't really see them in pictures)

Also this part of the church was pretty:

With T-30 minutes to go, my roommate turned into a professional driver and we whipped around sharp turns on tiny roads until we had a better view of the churches. Unfortunately, we missed the best view of them on the cliff overlooking the ocean in Oia. And There were plenty to admire on our long drives. I even walked right past a big church near the beach without taking a decent picture. 

And worst of all, if we had just walked for a few more minutes on our expedition earlier, we would have found them here. So the pictures still didn't turn out great, but we did finally get to see the blue domes in person! It was a happy accident that there wasn't enough parking by the hotel. 

Of course, on the drive to the airport, there were so many blue churches that I lost count. We'd originally come to Santorini just to see the blue churches and then forgot to look until we had less than a half an hour left. Oops. 

The airport was so tiny that when we drove up, everyone on our flight was waiting outside because it was closed. I think there might even only be one flight a day! 

Santorini was expensive to get to and not at the top of its game in winter, but I'm still really glad we went. I just now need to come back to see it during the summer in its prime! It's been added to the list of places I need to see again.

Random observations:

Like in the Munich airport, there was a room just for people to go smoke! America would never do that.

Also, like in Morocco, the buses had their destinations in both languages. This time it was Greek and English.

Back in Athens, we took the bus from the airport again and since we asked about a student discount, the ticket was only 2.50€! But my excitement was short lived because then I had the sad realization that I'd forgotten my sunglasses in the car door. Now I have to decide if I want to re-buy them. They did get stuck in my hair a lot and made the world seem orange which was annoying... But I could make my decision later. First, I had to navigate us from the bus stop to the hotel which was an adventure and a half. I'm not sure my cortisol will ever recover, but we did eventually make it to our hotel that was supposedly "in the city center". (It wasn't, by the way) 

3 guesses on what I had for dinner? Gyro? Yeah :) And then we stocked up on baked goods for dessert and breakfast from a huge bakery next door. Walking back to the hotel, we saw another delicious looking bakery and got more sugar there too. ...no self control...