Santorini, Greece

We headed out bright and early for our flight to Santorini from Athens (which lasted a whopping 30 minutes!).  There was the option to arrive by Ferry, but from Athens it would take 10 hours on the regular ferry and 5 hours on the fast one.  I had no intention of spending 5-10 hours on a boat with the three kids… we are adventurous, but that is where I draw the line. 

We arrived at the small but GORGEOUS island and found the guy holding a paper with our name on it. Bingo, Lets go.

We went through many winding roads…and got to the town of Imerovigli where we were staying.  He got us as close as he could to the hotel and dumped us off, literally. We paid him, took our luggage out and he drove off. Uhhhh Hmmm.  Thankfully there were signs nearby with the name of our place, Vallais Villas. 

The guy, Lukas – not sure if he was owner/manager or both, but he was super accommodating and allowed us to check in early

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GASP! the views!!!!!!

The villas are built into the mountainside and very cave-like.  Off to the right is a little kitchenette. First doorway was bathroom, second was the kids bedroom… was literally a cave (they loved it) and ours / Julia's was directly to the back.  They provided a pack-n-play which was so nice!

We were starrrrrrving since it was lunchtime so we dropped the bags off and went on a hike towards Fira, the main town in Santorini.  This is where the cruise ships drop off, we enjoyed seeing them pass by!

Off we go on our walk/hike… supposedly there is some easy path that takes 20 minutes from Imerovigli to Fira. we. were. not. on. it.  We walked, and walked… keep in mind I’ve got baby J strapped to me… after about 45 minutes we were ready to throw in the towel and asked every person we saw where the closest restaurant was… nothing, nada, zilch. During the off season everything shuts down (except in Fira where the boats come in)… so we kept walking.. up and down lots of stairs – it seemed like we walked miles.   The kids did not complain once… only me. LOL.

The views would literally take your breath away. STUNNING!

These places are for real.  private infinity pool overlooking the sea… wow. I saw many during my search of places to stay online, but since it was too chilly for swimming there was no point.. I opted for the one that had the hot tub.

Yes, Fira. we made it. FOOD!

Literally the first restaurant we saw we stopped.  I enjoyed a much deserved Mythos and got my regular item I ate every single place we went to.. Greek Salad! OOh. I have even recreated this at home since we’ve been back.  Luckily I can find a creamy feta here just like they have in Greece.  America got the feta cheese thing all wrong.  It is not even remotely similar to what we know feta to be from The States.

   

Knowing now how hard it would be to find food, we asked the waiter if we could order food to go (that way we could put it in the fridge and have it for dinner tonight)…. one problem: they had no take-away containers… so we found ourselves in search for food once again… For a minute I started to wonder how we were going to eat with literally no restaurants open in our small town. We walked for a bit and saw another place in the town square that was open… YES!

We got back to the villa for some R&R and all jumped into the hot tub

I cannot tell you how much fun the kids had. 

A little later, as if we didn’t do enough hiking, Audrey and Charles set out to go to the top of the mountain that was just at the bottom view of our hotel.  Lukas mentioned there was a path around the backside of the mountain..

I’m not a worry-er at all. I just don’t waste energy on worrying about stuff… but this had my mama ears perked up the whole time they were gone since I could not see them and it did not look very easy.. I trust that Charles would never put Audrey in danger, but at the same time I couldn’t help but think.. what if they fell?!

They did it! I’m not sure how, since my legs still felt like jelly from our journey to find lunch.. but they made it. 

This must be Audrey’s Greek pose. She threw those arms up in nearly every picture.  Go ahead girl!

Here is our makeshift re-heating of dinner:  (I asked them to pack the sauce and pasta separately).  Worked pretty good.

We finished dinner, grabbed some blankets from inside and watched the most remarkable sunset I’ve ever seen.

the pictures just don’t do it justice… Being here was just so surreal!

total peace.

Our little creature lover, Audrey noticed the extremely high snail population climing around the white stone walls and started a collection.  Before going to sleep she realized that they might escape during the night so she created a fence out of coloring books.. hey, it worked!

Day one was done.

Each morning they would deliver our breakfast to the patio… we patiently watched the clock since the earliest you could get it was 8:30… anyone with small kids knows you’ve been up for hours by then. Ha.! It was totally worth the wait.  The most amazing, but very simple French toast we’ve ever had.  They used a long loaf of delicious local bread that was covered in sesame seeds, cut it into thick slices (at least an inch), dipped it in only egg & milk (yes I asked them how they made it).. nothing fancy... super simple and then cooked it in a skillet with a little butter.. then topped it with honey. Ooey gooey goodness.  Something about those sesame seeds with the honey. To die for, I tell ya.

This picture below should be next to the definition of serenity:

As a parent, I just love that she notices beauty in things. She takes the time to stop and soak it all in… I could not get enough of it either!!  We were on cloud 9 the whole time we were there. 

That afternoon Charles went to the corner market and got some staple items to keep in the room since the food thing proved to be problematic the first day.  For a guy that has not seen the inside of a grocery store in about 8 years, he did great! We had everything we needed to make it thru the next 2 days.

So Day 2 is here and there are a few things we wanted to do, so Charles arranged with Lukas for us to rent a car and drive around for the remainder of our trip.  He had it delivered to our hotel that morning.. so accommodating!  We packed lunches, loaded up and off we went with our open ended agenda.

It was really fun to drive around the city ourselves and just go at our own pace, discovering little things along the way.  Hard to describe why, but this day was probably the best day on our entire trip.  Everything was jiving, the weather was gorgeous, there was no rush to get somewhere, kids were good, and we just let the day unfold as it may.

First stop, the Black Beach: Perissa

We brought the slingshots to throw some rocks into the sea…

We just relaxed and took our time – had a picnic on the beach of sandwiches and chips and looked for cool rocks.

It was beautiful here – I’m not quite sure how they walk on the black sand during the summer, since it was early April and our feet were literally burning… it was not even hot outside… The weather was just perfect.

Next stop: Akrotiri, The Red Beach!

It was actually wayyyy over there under the tall cliff and you had to hike over the rocks to get there. If it were just me and Charles, okay, no problem, but I could not see my feet with Julia in the carrier and I was not going to risk slipping and falling.

Charles and the kids were not satisfied with their experience of the red beach so they went down a little further to collect some souvenir sand… I could hardly see them, but once again I knew they’d be safe with daddy

We left the red beach and hit a museum very close by.  This place was recently discovered by archaeologists when they dug under the volcanic ash.  They found an entire city with 3 story buildings, clay pots with wheat and barley still in them and artwork from 3,000 BC. (Some believe that this was the lost city of Atlantis)  Fascinating to see and just as we walked in the camera battery died. womp womp.

We finished up there and then hung out at the small snack bar outside the museum and talked to a couple for a long time, tried a local coffee they call Frappe- we had been seeing them everywhere!  It is basically iced espresso at the bottom and frothed milk on the top and it was just slightly sweet. Very good!   (pulled this pic off the internet).

We drove back to our hotel and relaxed as we prepared for another Santorini sunset… Charles volunteered to go to the grocery again (what?!) and came back with some great appetizers to go with our wine.. Julia was napping, kids were playing nicely inside, we played music and enjoyed the view… it was as if the universe aligned… it was perfect.

Being silly

Charles and Audrey left for a little dinner date, I stayed back with Will and Julia since I filled up on all those tasty appetizers. Will and I snuggled up ready to see the sunset…

Me and my baby girl:

Sunset #2 did not disappoint… Charles and Audrey made it back just in the nick of time!

Getting ready for bed… in the cave room.

Good Morning Santorini! Our last day of vacation.. sniff, sniff.

This day we hurried to Fira to get tickets for a boat ride to the volcano and hot springs.  We took the cable cars down the cliff to the port.. the kids thought this was pretty cool.

The boats were very pirate like.. ARRR!

Me and all my chickens:

First time to be this close to the water.. deep turquoise blue.. gorgeous!

The volcano was wild looking.. the lava rocks were so harsh and jagged.

Part of the plan of this tour was that you go to the top of the volcano..  once again, if there was not a baby strapped to me I would have been happy to do it, but since I was wearing the baby, no way – I waited at the base with Julia for the rest of the peeps to hike it.  Charles said it was hard, but he wouldn’t let the kids quit.. at one point he was carrying a back pack and both kids… it was SO HOT on the volcano too, I might add.  I was so thankful to not be the dad. LOL.

Everyone finished up and piled back on the boat, we chugged about 37 bottles of water and rested inside since it was nice and cool.

the final stop was the hot springs.. I was really surprised at how many people jumped in (they were prepared and wearing swimsuits) and swam around in the sea.  They said the water was COLD.  

Audrey so desperately tried to make me feel bad for not letting her swim – I had no intention of getting in the water and purposefully did not pack swimsuits for anyone… I honestly did not think people would be swimming and after it was all said and done she understood why she couldn’t go – they were allowed to be in the water for a total of 15-20 minutes and then were called to be back on the boat etc. etc.. I reminded her it was salt water and then she was cool with it.

I took this when she was ‘longing’ to get in.. love this picture!

My handsome hunk trying to catch a breeze, poor guy!

The boat ride excursion took about an hour and a half and then we were brought back to the port.  From there you have a choice of two ways to get back to the top, ride a donkey.. yes, seriously. or take the cable car.  The kids disagreed on our means of transportation and I’ll give you a wild guess who chose what…  Yes, Audrey wanted to ride the donkey and Will was NOT interested. Fine with me – I rode the cable car with him and Julia up to the top.  One problem, the ending locations were different and not close to one another.   After a little communication mix up and passing each other up on different streets we finally found each other.   We walked around for a bit searching for a Christmas ornament (we get one every place we travel to) and then for some Gelato (for them) and Greek Frozen Yogurt (for me). 

We were all whooped and had some rest and relaxation in the hot tub… all five of us and then headed out for our last dinner in Santorini.

 

Since this was now a weekend we noticed that one restaurant was open in our town – Anogi… I thought it was Anoti at first by looking at the sign, but thank goodness I was in a sorority and knew that greek alphabet.  LOL. that is “Gamma.”  Everything about this place was charming… from the mini pitcher they placed on our table of wine, to the big bowl of liquid soap in the bathroom.  Lots of little quirks made this place really interesting.

Surprisingly this meal was the best we had all week.. the food was Extraordinary!

This guy looks totally creepy in the picture, but he was the most hospitable, kind man.  He accommodated our off-the-menu requests for Will, brought the kids a complimentary dessert for eating good and then ANOTHER dessert when they inhaled the first one within 30 seconds

He called it “mosaic” – I have never eaten anything like it so I do no know what it is made of, but it was delish!

Our trip was complete, we watched the last sunset, got Lukas to take a family picture of us all and then got our bags organized and ready for our travel day back home.

The morning we left the breakfast was Greek Yogurt with chopped fruit and honey. OH HAPPY DAY.  This stuff was so good y’all. NOTHING at all like the greek yogurt I’ve had in the past.  Sorry, USA you got this one wrong too. Check out the whipped consistency – super creamy and dense,  not at all like the bitter, chalky stuff they market Greek yogurt to be in the states.

The weather was so bad this morning, super cold and super windy – we  honestly did not think the plane would take off and neither did our cab driver.  We were a bit nervous since we had THREE flights and short connections, but knew what will be, will be.  Thankfully it was just delayed slightly and then off we went. 

Our trip was SO AMAZING as you can see.  We enjoyed it more than words can say.  It was a special time for our family, we made lasting memories, saw some great things… it was good for the soul. One of the BEST trips we’ve taken.