Travel Log: Living the Dream… in STRIKE! (Day 4)

Previous Day (Meteora)

Destination: Greece
Duration: 9 Days 7 Nights (Oct 18~Oct 26, 2011)

Day 4: Athens -> Santorini

Breakfast was again at Novotel and we noticed there were a total of 4 yoghurt flavors – there was BANANA!!! *delighted* Of course I couldn’t start my day without my daily dose of cheese and ham as well. :p

The Yoghurts!

Enjoying Breakfast

Ham & Cheese... and sauted mushroom!!!

We got transferred to the Athens International Airport for our flight to Santorini with Olympic airline. In the bus, we were told that Reliance had decided to bear the EUR60/pax themselves as a good faith for their customers. Wow! I was really impressed – now this was what you called great customer service! EUR60/pax might not cost much but imagine they had to bear it for 21 people. I also heard rumor that the reason Reliance had decided to do this was because some of the tour members had called back to Malaysia and screwed them senseless! Hahaa.. now I guess opposition party did serve its purpose!

Leaving Novotel

Waiting for Boarding

Here is the plane!

It was a very short flight of almost 30 mins and we were served with juice and pack of snacks. The snacks were yummy!

Some Juice and Snack

This is Nice!

We managed to see some other islands during the flight and reached Santorini in a flash. For your information, Santorini is one of the more popular (or romantic if you prefer) island in the south of Aegean Sea. Well, Aegean Sea is of course another so-called most romantic sea in the world – which I totally missed out the connection other than its romantic Chinese translation name. In fact, I couldn’t find any romantic Romeo & Juliet myth on Aegean Sea at all. The only myth I could find was like this:-

"Unidentified Island" from taken Plane

King Minos of Crete demanded sacrifices of 7 Athenian boys and 7 Athenian girls every 9 years to be devoured by Minotaur in the labyrinth. Thiseas decided to slaughter the Minotaur to save his people. He promised his father King Aegeas that he would hoist black sail if he died trying or white sail if he succeed. In his journey he fell in love with Ariadne – daughter of King Minos who helped him in his mission to kill the Minotaur and find his way back from the labyrinth.

Thiseas & Ariadne escaped and embarked for the return journey. However, Thiseas then abandoned Ariadne when they stopped in the island of Naxos and she laid a curse on him. Thiseas continued his journey but forgot to raise the while sails. When King Aegeas saw the black sail, he thought his son dead and jumped off the cliffs into the sea and killed himself thus the name of Aegean Sea.

The Sea that King Aegeas Jumped into...

So how was it romantic? I had no idea! A guy betrayed a girl and she cursed him and the father killed himself.. I won’t say it as romantic. :p

As for Santorini (previously known as Thera), the myth was saying it might be the lost city of Atlantis as the ancient city fell into the sea due to the collapse of the caldera just like Santorini. The island is basically the remnant of a volcanic cone whose top was blown off.

Stepping on Santorini!!!

Anyhow, we checked into the El Greco Hotel – a splendid little hotel with low rising typical Santorini villa. It looked really beautiful and unique. A fun fact from our tour guide – the reason that Greek painted their house blue and white was because during the Turkish invasion, Greek was not allowed to fly the Greek flag of blue and white. Thus they kind of rebelled by painting their houses blue and white instead. Cute huh? Should we start painting our houses red, white, blue and yellow? Hhahaa….

Our hotel had a total of 4 swimming pools and a public Jacuzzi which I did not use in my entire stay (shame!). Another fun fact was that the tap water in Santorini tasted and smelled like sea! I was then informed that the water was extracted from sea and de-salted for daily uses – but you mustn’t drink it! We had to buy bottled water as the tap water was not edible.

The El Greco Hotel

Panoramic View from Hotel

The Room Interior

All Blue & White...

Our Room Entrance

Our tour guide took us for a short walk to our lunch restaurant as our hotel was 10-15mins away from the center of Fira (the main capital of Santorini). The scenery that we saw in our walk was simply breathtaking with the caldera (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caldera). Hey, there was even a Carrefour along the way. Oh ya... Santorini was basically full of “reflexology path”!!! Their road was mostly made with uneven rock so thicker shoe base was definitely a plus if you did not wish to have painful feet. :p

Panoramic View of the Caldera during Short Walk

Here is Carrefour!

Look at the Endless Reflexology Path!!!

Lunch was at the Taverna El Greco and we were 1^st served with bread, Greek salad and tomato fritters (I like this!). They also provided us some thick dip kind of thing which we had no idea what to do with it. Luckily our tour guide was there and told us to eat it with bread before we further embarrassed ourselves. *blush* I almost fainted when I saw the main course – roasted chicken again!

Lunch @ Taverna El Greco

Bread

Greek Salad

Olive Oil & Vinegar at your Disposal

Tomato Fritters

The "infamous" Dip!

Roasted Chicken Again?!

During the lunch, we also planned an extra boat trip in Santorini for tomorrow as we basically had 2 more days to kill. The ground tour agent quoted us for EUR55/pax for a 4-5 hours boat trip around Santorini. The boat trip would depart from Athinios Port then bring us to Pelea Kameni, Thirassia, Oia port before heading back to Athinios Port again. Since all other tour members had no plan in hand, they all accepted the proposal.

A Basic Map of Santorini

Random House @Fira

After lunch, we headed out to our complimentary half day tour of Pyrgos and Megalochori in Santorini. Before reaching these two places, the bus headed out to the south of Santorini and took us to the top of some highland to have a panoramic view of Santorini. One thing to note was that road was so darn narrow with a twist and turn uphill climb. If you looked down from the bus window, you could only see cliff! Some of our tour members who sat near the front actually screamed when the bus made a sharp turn – guess they thought the bus was going to go off the cliff. Now that would’ve been a disaster. :p Anyway, our bus driver proved to be a professional and took us to the lookout location safety amid of some heart attack and screams. The view from the top was incredible. You would see the two different views where one facing the caldera and another facing out to the endless Aegean Sea.

Panoramic View Out to the Endless Sea

Panoramic View Out to theCaldera

We then headed out to Pyrgos – a small village built on top of a hill in the middle of Santorini. The village was mainly formed by traditional houses built all around the Venetian castle with small streets followed the shape of the hill. There were hundreds of tunnels & small streets there like a labyrinth. There were also lots of stairs as the village was basically built around a hill. As this was the first time we really walked around a village in Santorini, we were so excited and in awe with the white and blue houses. When you walked pass the tunnels, you actually felt cold even though the sun was smoldering outside. Guess the houses were built to keep the heat out.

Random House @Pyrgos

Climbing up!

In a Tunnel

Reflexology Path Again!!!

Panoramic View from Pyrgos

There were also a lot of churches there but unfortunately we were simply too excited to keep track of the names. But all of them were equally stunning in their own way. If you climbed up high enough, you would reach the ruin of the Venetian castle. I felt kind of bad for those living there as they got tourist everyday running up and down taking pictures of their houses. :p

"Unidentified Church" *facepalm*

Another One!

More!

A Picture is much Obliged!

Nice Craft!

More Bell Tower!

Church Again!

Doggie @Pyrgos

We continued our trip to the village of Megalochori and the tour guide introduced us to the vineyard just in front of the village. A cute puppy just had to show up and cuddle all of us. Greek dogs were friendly! We walked pass the main street of the Megalochori and the first difference that we noticed was the church’s dome here was white instead of blue in Pyrgos. From what I read, Megalochori offered more traditional historical homes and mansions with high walls, inner courtyards and solid wooden door entrances, built for privacy and for safety. It was very different from Pyrgos but with a charm of its own.

Vineyard at Megalochori

Hello Puppy!

Random Walkway

The City Square Bell Tower

Look Historical huh?

Let's Pose for Photos!

Look at the painting under the arch!

More Doggie, he doesn't look pleased. :p

Panoramic View @Megalochoric

The bus then took us to Perivolos Beach to look at their black sands and to have a chance to touch the Aegean Sea. My shoes were totally soaked at the end. The sea was so calm at this hour and it was so clear, blue and non-sticky. Remember whenever we touched sea water and we felt so sticky until we wanted to wash our hand? This totally did not apply for Aegean Sea! The sand was no normal sand but black volcanic pebbles as well. It was so unlike Langkawi’s black sand.

Touching the Aegean Sea!

Look at How Clear It is!

The "Sand"...

Our last stop of the tour was a wine tasting session at SantoWines. The winery was situated on the edge of caldera near Athinios and it was a very popular tourist attraction in Santorini. One of the uniqueness of Santorini vineyards was that they did not water the grapes, they cultivated the grapes with trapped humidity and morning dew produced by evaporation of the sea. The SantoWines girl told us about their processes of wine making and such before began our wine tasting session.

Santo Wines Entrance

Some Wines

View @SantoWines

The view of our wine tasting table there was incredible – it faced the caldera with the sun slowly setting. They gave us 3 different types of wines – white, red and Vinsanto (a kind of dessert wines – it was simply too sweet for me). With the wines and the view, it was simply one of the best places in the world! When people told you Santorini was famous for their purple sunset, they did not lie – the sunset really was purple! We felt so blessed to be able to encounter this. =)

The Sun is Setting..

The Wines...

Panoramic View @ SantoWines

The Sun is getting Lower..

and Lower...

and Even Lower..

How Could i Miss a Photo with the Sun?

The Color is Turning...

Is that PURPLE?!

Yes, It's PURPLE!

It's going into the sea!

Goodbye Apollo, till next day!

After we used up almost our entire camera memory card for the half day trip, we were fetched to our hotel again. Since dinner was on our own, we walked to the town of Fira for some food hunting. We were lucky to spot Lucky Souvlakis which was rated highly in tripadvisor for their Greek gyros. It was not like we could miss the shop as it was on the main street directly opposite the main bus station. For your information, gyros were Greece’s Ramli Burger – their local favourite fast food. Basically, it was fried pita bread with thinly sliced roasted pork, onion, tomato, vegetables, French fries (!!!) and sour sauce. It only cost EUR2.30 per gyro in Lucky Souvlakis and it was well worth every penny! The combination that I described earlier might sound gross to you but it was the BEST Greek food I’d tasted in my entire Greece trip! If you go Santorini, you just have to try this! I ate this 3 times during my stay in Santorini. When I left Santorini, I was so sad because I might not have the chance to taste this Lucky gyro again. *sob* Yes, I know I’m hopeless…

The Shop with the BEST gyros in Greece!

I want somemore!!!

After our dinner, we paid Carrefour a visit and bought a big bottle of mineral water which only cost 40cents and then off to explore Fira in the dark – most of the shops were closed by that time though. We ended up back to the hotel to plan for tomorrow’s trip. That was when I realized that I was so wrong to think that would be nothing to do on an island – there were plenty of places to visit and time was not enough!

Walking in the dark

Churches @Fira

Next Day (Santorini - Island Hopping Tour & Skaros)

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