Katerina's Castle Hotel Imerovigli

... time to chat with the locals they told us how lucky we were to be visiting at this time of the year, how much nicer it is when it is quiet. As one shopkeeper told us 'Now you can see the real Santorini’

We had one last stroll around the laneways overlooking the caldera, one last meal at the excellent Pelican cafe and one last ice cream from our favourite sweet shop and one last soak in the Jacuzzi.

Ah Santorini, thank you for sharing your beauty with us.

... boat and dried themselves off and told us about the ‘lukewarm springs’ that included a lot of dubious sludge and more floating rubbish at the shoreline than you could imagine. By this time I was really regretting my decision not to go – it all sounded so much fun! I was so grateful to Heath for being my in loco parentis.

We headed back to Santorini and after docking went to see about the cable car. A sign on the ticket office window told us ...

... walk around it and get out onto the headland to see off in the distance islands dotting the Aegean.

Feeling a bit peckish we headed down to Perissa Beach to see if we could find some lunch. Lucky for us there was a tavern open that had seats right on the beach so we enjoyed the late afternoon sun watching the waves crash on the black pebble beach, eating some typical taverna food. I have to say that we enjoyed the best Greek salad we had eaten in Greece.

After ...

... buildings with stunning caldera backdrops that you will need another memory card. It took us almost an hour to reach the village of Imerovigli, another town perched impossibly on the top of the cliffs. Although there was nothing open in this town except the supermarket, this allowed us to get the water we needed (but not the coffee stop we craved...)

We were told that the walk to Oia is two hours, but the literature (once we read it) said 3 hours. We took more than four ...

29 October - A great mountain once rose from the Ionian Sea here in the Greek Islands. The towering natural landmark would have paled into insignificance the later manmade wonders of the Hellenistic world at Rhodes and Troy. Far south in Northwest Egypt, the Israelites labored over brick making and stone quarrying with no perception of this in the Phoenician and pre-Greek world. Word may have reached nearby Atlantis that steam was joining clouds at the top ...

... top of the mountain when we were on top of it. The tour guide also talked about her parents' experiences the last time it erupted. We were then able to swim in a real volcano hot springs. The water was actually red, warm, and bubbly (I still don't know if the bubbling was caused by the volcano or me). Later, we went to a small island off the coast of Santorini called Thirassia and, lastly, Oia famous for its sunsets. At the end of the day, you would see tourists from the ...

... switchback road from the harbour into the main town of Fira. Oh my god, I couldn't even look out the window, it was a bit like Amalfi Coast all over again! Eventually got to my hostel, really a guesthouse, and oh my god, unbelievable. Driving up to it, and it is gorgeous. Whitewashed with blue window trimmings and blue shutters. My host opened the room for me and it had two twin beds, one with a pink bed cover hanging from the ceiling, my own bathroom, and then she ...

... it. Heheheh...











So many mules, of course there will be so many sh*t too!!! We have to make sure we don't step on any of them!













Finally we are there. Eh? It is the same place where we took our boat ride yesterday!






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Thira, South Aegean, Greece songwillie