Day 5
The next day, we took the champion jet ferry to Santorini.
It was a quick 2 hour trip, once again, pleasant and enjoyable. But here lies
the turn in the tale. My entire dream of visiting Greece, centred around
Santorini and Mykonos was beautiful beyond my dreams so I had high hopes for
Santorini. But Santorini, turned out to be a disappointment. It was very very
crowded, not as neat as Athens or Mykonos, the cute cobbled streets and the white and
blue homes of Santorini were not half as charming as that of Mykonos and since
the famous black and red beaches and
even the mono lithos beach had industrial affluents being dumped in them, the
beaches were no good either!
We stayed at the Orizontes boutique hotel, once again with a
sea view (the view and the rooms were fantastic but the shower was a horror!)
at Pyrgos. On day 1 we had lunch at the fantastic Metaxi Mas Tavern which
welcomes you with free tequila shots and once you have finished lunch, sees you
off with dessert on the house! Suprisingly reasonable compared to the sky high
prices in Mykonos.
Post luch, we set out to see the famous Oia sunset. We first went to Fira town and took the Santorini cable car. Ridiculously the 15 euro
one way trip lasted less than 10 minutes and gave no special view. The Singapore
cable car, the Capris cable car in Italy and the Panaromic cable cars in
Switzerland will take umbrage if they knew this one called itself a cable car
and charged such prices!
We shook our head, scratched our chins and made our way to
the Fira town bus centre to catch a bus to Oia. On the way, we bought the young
one a traditional greek dress and the leaf crown. Once again, the crowd was
unbelievable and given we had seen the sunsets at Mauritius, Kanyakumari etc,
we were not very impressed. More so, after we had a beyond fantastic view of
the sunset from the decks of our ferry back from Santorini to Athens,
especially as were were travelling towards the sunset and the nicely cool wind
and the gentle rays of the sun provided the appropriate back drop!
We had dinner at Bao Concept in Fira town, which is the
first time I have tasted the Chinese Bao buns! They were soft and lovely and
the restaurant itself was very good. We then took a taxi back to the hotel –
any trip from anywhere to anywhere seemed to cost us 15 euros in Santorini, no
matter what!
Day 6
The next day, we went on a boat trip on the good ship
Albatross to the volcanic Nea Kameini and the Pallea kameini. While dad and
daughter turned away after a half way hike, never the quitter, I went all the
way up to see the volcanic rocks and craters, smugly enjoyed the fantastic view
from the top and on reaching the ship again, promptly demanded to be pampered
the rest of the trip as I could feel every painful twitch and muscle in my calf
that seemed to say – know when to quit silly woman, even your not yet 8 year
old does!
The boat then took us to the hot springs for which one had
to dive from the ship and swim a good distance in not so shallow water. All
three of us opted to stay in the boat and wave gaily at all the other swimmers
wading into the orangish water full of sulphur from the volcanoes!
The ship then made its way to the Thirassia island where
lunch and a gentle swim at the pebble beach ensued. The princess and dad
explored the eels and fishes swimming underwater and did what they usually do
when in any water body – have loads of fun!
We came back to the hotel, quickly dressed ourselves up and
visited the Megalachori traditional village in Pyrgos. At the end of the
village we visited this lovely bakery, cunningly called the ‘Bakery and Pastry
shop’!. The cheeky monkey was dressed as Goddess Athena with the costume bought
in Fira and all eyes were on her! We had lovely pastries and icecreams,
discussed about Bollywood and made our way back stopping at all the lovely blue
domed churches ( that we missed in Oia – which is where all the signature
Santorini phots are taken – due to the mad rush there!) in the village and generally messing about amongst
ourselves.
The best part was K telling the young one the story of
Porous and Alexander and her asking philosophical questions like ‘ Who was the
goodie and who was the baddie and if both were goodies, why did they fight!’
Day 7
We had a very relaxed morning by the pool , packed up and took the 9 hour
ferry back from Santorini to Athens. Though we were booked deck seats again,
given the complete lack of crowd ( was it because of the earthquake the day
before at Kos, we are not sure) we were told there was no need to upgrade and
we were given access to the poshest section of the ship.
We had a lovely time catching up on movies from our ipads,
walking around the deck and taking in the views every now and then and of
course eating in the lovely restaurants. It was a smooth sail and surprisingly
relaxing. We held hands watching the sunset and the hues that the setting sun
infused the clouds with, was sheer poetry by nature.
From the Piraeus port, we went back to our Athens Avenue
hotel to our marble baths and cloud like mattress!
Day 8
After a lovely breakfast
later the next morning, we made our way to the national gardens in Athens. Once
again, clean, beautifully maintained, free and an oasis in the centre of the
city.
Post the mandatory chocolate milkshake and reading of our
kindles, we went to Plaka again for some souvenir shopping for friends and back
to the hotel again to pick up our bags and make our way to the airport.
We came away from this trip with two key take aways. The
Greeks can be abrupt and almost rude in the way they talk but they are actually
very gallant and extremely helpful. And Athens could be a weekend trip and the
rest of the time is better spent in Mykonos. Santorini, is just hype ( purely in
my personal opinion) and the money i sbetter spent on one fo the other quieter
islands.
All in all, this trip was like all the other ones. Full of
suprises, mostly good, some not so good, wonderful memories and overall , yet another
experience to cherish and save for those rainy days that are bound to come J
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