Fall Break in Greece

  Athens, Attica, Greece
Saturday, October 25, 2008

Fall Break Trip to Greece:
 
Saturday October 25th: Athens
        On Saturday we left for our fall break trip to Greece! We had to first take a train to Milan and then fly out of Milan to Athens because it is harder to get cheap flights out of Florence.  So we took a three hour train to Milan and then a two hour flight to Athens.  When we got in we took a bus and checked into our hostel.  The man at the hostel was very nice and he gave us "the suite" for the night.  It was our own room and bathroom and it was really cute.  The man at the hostel recommended a place for dinner that was only five euro each.  It was a very cute authentic Greek restaurant.  It was interesting because they just brought out a tray and you pointed at what you wanted.  We decided to pick four dishes and split them all.  The dinner was really good but I regretted it later because I did not feel to well.  A day before we left for our trip I was not feeling well and went to the doctor who told me I had strep throat! It was really bad timing but he gave me lots of medication so I decided just to make the best of it and go on the trip anyway.  The antibiotics kind of made my stomach hurt though L  Anyway, after dinner we walked around and looked at the shops in Athens.  They have really nice jewelry there and decided we would shop more when we came back to Athens at the end of our trip.  Then we walked up to this big rock to sit on top of so that we could see the city at night.  When we came back we found out that that rock was right near the acropolis but Athens was really confusing so we could not find it at all the first night!  It was still a pretty view from the rock and it was nice to feel like we saw the city that night.
 
Sunday October 26th: Santorini
            On Sunday we woke up really early and took a taxi to the port.  Our ferry to Santorini was at 7:25 and we had to pick up our tickets at the port so we left around 6 am.  but that was ok because we had plenty of time to sleep on our eight hour ferry! The ferries were really difficult to figure out, a little pricey and unfortunately a lot longer than we would have wanted.  However, it was worth it to travel that far to see the beautiful Greek Islands.  The ferry was a bit uncomfortable because when you get economy class you basically can just sit at the tables in the cafeteria.  They are right by the door, which means they are very cold and the smoking section is nearby.  As one could imagine we were very excited when we made it to Santorini at about 3 pm.  We had to exit through the bottom of the ship and we patiently waited as they let down the bridge and played a cute little song.  It felt like we were inside a giant music box.  We were also excited to get there because our hostel owner, George, had sent us the cutest messages telling us that he would meet us at the port. Here are the messages:
Hello dear Cary. (which is cute because her name is Caryn)

No there is no problem if you want move your reservation to October 26th-27th. 
If you change and you come in 26th send me only your arrival details (name ferry&time) 
so its easy for me wait you there and pick you up. 
Thanks. 
George. 
 
Hello Dear Caryn. 
OK we do like that I Wait you in port 26th at 15:00 to pick you up. 
Thanks. 
George. 
  Sure enough he was there with his smiling face waiting to take us up to our hostel.  One of the best parts about being in Greece was the people.  They are so nice and helpful there and they treat you as if you are part of their family.  It feels like Greece, especially the Islands is this little secret and they are really excited to share it with you.  It is a huge contrast to the way that the Italians in Florence treat us because they are often either annoyed by us or rude.  Anyway George showed us to our room and insisted on carrying all four of our huge backpacks for us! The hostel is called Pension Stella (the name of his wife) and it is just outside Fira, one of the main towns on the Island.  The hostel has a cute little pool and an adorable décor.

Stella Pension Hostel

Again, we had our own room and bathroom for only 12 euro a night! George got us coffee (juice for me) and bread and got us started on planning our time there.  He pointed us to the travel agent to book a tour to the volcano for the next day while he made arrangements for us to book ATV's the next day as well.  Then he drove us to the bus station to take the bus to see the sunset in Oia.
            Oia also spelled Ia and pronounced that way is the place that officially has the most beautiful sunset in the world.  It is at the end of the Island and we lucked out that we made it in time to see it the first night!  We were also lucky that since we were there outside of season there were not too many people there.  We saw postcards that showed the town being covered with people and felt special that we shared the sunset only with a few other travels.

Santorini

The sunset was gorgeous and we walked out to a fortress on the edge to see it closer and watch the beautiful colors in the sky.

Oia Sunset

After the sun finished setting the people at the restaurant started applause it was really funny.  After seeing the most beautiful sunset in the world we were hungry for dinner.  We walked around the town a little bit and then took a bus back to the town of Fira to have dinner. 
            For dinner we went to a place called Nikolas.  We had read about it and were told it is one of the best Greek restaurants on the Island.  Our experience with the restaurant was quite the opposite.  The shrimp scampi that I ordered was a lot different than one that you would order in the states.  There were four large shrimps in it that looked like they were still alive.  Needless, to say there eyes that stared up at me did not help the meal.  My roommates got fish that made there stomachs not so happy that night either.  However, we made the best of it and afterwards went to a little place to try baklava, a Greek dessert.  And then a funny thing happened.  The waiter at first thought we were weird for only ordering one baklava to share.  Then Caryn went up to ask him how we should get home.  George told us to ask people where the police station was when we needed directions because it is right across the street.  However, when Caryn asked him this he thought it was quite strange.  She told him it was because "our friend was in trouble!"  This made it worse because he was probably confused as to why we would stop to eat baklava before helping our friend haha.  She later explained that she did not want to tell the man where we lived but it was still one of the funniest memories from the trip!  After making it home we took a rest and went back in the town to check out the night life.  It was pretty calm mostly because we were there out of season but we hung out for a little while anyway.  An annoying man tried to talk to us for a while and claimed he was from Santorini.  We were confused by this because all of the Greek people we had met were so nice.  Another guy explained to us that he was not Greek and that the creepy ones are not from there they just pretend to be to talk to girls!
 
Monday October, 27th: Santorini
            Monday was our full day in Santorini and probably the best day of our trip.  We only had a half day the next day so we decided that we would do all the things that we wanted to in one day.  We started off with our tour of the Volcano.  George drove us to the old port to meet our tour (he was so nice).  Once you get to the port you have to take a cable car down to the water.  Santorini is an Island that is up on the cliffs so you always have to go down to get to the water.  The view was beautiful and the ride was a little scary but fun. Once we got to the port we saw our tour waiting for us in a pirate ship! We did not really research our tour so there were lot of surprises along the way and the pirate ship was one of them.

Pirate Tour Ship

Our pirate ship took us to the Island that is the volcano.  It was nice because we got a view of the whole Island of Santorini as we left it.  The water was a little rocky so we got a little splashed along the way.  The volcano island consisted of all rocks.  We toured around the volcano with our guide for about an hour.

At the Volcano

We saw some craters and even saw sulfur coming out of one of the holes in the volcano.  Afterwards we got back into our pirate ship to go to the hot springs.
            The hot springs was another surprise of the tour.  We saw a picture and had expected the boat to take us to the volcanic island and then they would lead us to this hole in the ground filled with warm bubbling water, almost like a hot tub.  However, this is not what happened.  Suddenly the boat stopped and the tour guide explained that the boat could not go any further because it was too shallow and that we would have to swim to the hot springs! Since we were already pretty cold, stripping down to our bathing suits on the boat and swimming in the cold water seemed like a crazy idea.  These Australians who were on the boat with us jumped in right away and it was a funny sight because I kept yelling to them asking if it was too cold and if we should go in. They said it was ok and we decided just to go for it.

Swimming to the hot springs

I was the first one to jump off and I got a bit of a cold shock but it was nothing like other water I have swam in, like Lake Tahoe.  After a while the water became browner and warmed up a bit.  The water was not a whole lot warmer but it was a cool experience and we were told that the mud would exfoliate our skin.  We stayed there for a few minutes.  We looked up on the mountain and saw a chicken and a couple goats.  It was so cute! There was also a beautiful church at the edge of Island and it was interesting to see, since from what we could tell no one lived on the Island.  We then swam back through the cold water to the ship.  We were cold when we got back but were proud of ourselves for making the journey and were glad we had done.
            When our boat made it back to the port it was time to ride donkeys back up the cliff.  Someone had warned me not to do this and it did look a little scary but we were determined to ride a donkey while in Greece so we did it anyway.  Right as we got off the ship there was a man yelling DONKEY RIDE DONKEY.  So we followed him and ran up to the donkey area.  Immediately they were saying "four, ok four" and I was hoisted onto the donkey.  I have ridden a horse before and I expected to have time to put my feet in the straps and that maybe the men would lead me up the cliff but this is not what happened.

Donkey Ride Donkey

As soon as I got on the donkey it took off.  Again I was first so I was quite surprised by this!  I was a little afraid too because the stairs upon the cliff that the donkey had to climb were very steep and he liked to stay close to the edge of the stairs the entire way.  Caryn was next on the donkey and her donkey and mine must have been friends because they stayed close to each other almost the whole way, which was fun.  Sara and Carly were behind almost the whole time because they had to walk up to different donkeys who did not run off like mine but who had to be coerced into moving.  Carly (the shortest of the four of us at 5'2'') had the biggest donkey and it was quite a funny site!  My donkey was a lot smaller and very cute and I liked to pet him and touch his ears.  Riding his donkey is surprisingly comfortable and I would say even better than riding a horse.  My donkey was very good to me and it was hard to say goodbye.

I loved him!

            After our volcano, hot springs and donkey adventure we sat down for lunch.  Then we headed back to the place near our hostel to rent ATV's! We were told that they were 30 euro a person but hoped that if we shared two we could maybe pay 15.  The owner laughed at us and said it was only 15 euro a bike and that 30 was outrageous.  So it was 7.50 euro a person for a whole 24 hours! It is just funny because in the U.S. you would pay even more than 30 dollars for something like this and you would maybe get a few hours.  I was glad we decided to share bikes because I was a little scared and Sara drove first.  All we had to do was fill up the tank and then we were free to drive anywhere on the Island.  It was a very freeing experience and we felt cool having our own "rides."  We went down to see the beach near us first.  It was dark by now but it was fun to see it and the bar/restaurants along the beach (which were pretty dead because of the offseason.)   We also saw a lot of stray dogs there.  All of the places we went in Greece had a lot of stray dogs and cats.  We were pretty tired so we decided to drive our rides to the market and cook at our hostel and take a break.  On the way back it was my turn to drive! It was a bit scary because it was dark and there were cars on the rode but I was proud of myself for doing it and it was fun!
            We pretty much just relaxed the rest of the night.  After we regained a little energy from our adventurous day we drove the ATV's around a bit in search of dessert in coffee and then called it a night.
 
Tuesday October 28th: Santorini
            Our ferry on Tuesday was that afternoon so we decided just to drive our ATV's around and see some more of the Island in the morning.

ATV and I'M driving

We drove it to another beach that was closer.  The beach was beautiful and it was fun because we were the only ones there! It definitely was not beach weather because it was a bit cold and windy but it was a sunny day so that was nice.  Next we headed to ancient Thira.  Along the way Carly and Caryn's ATV broke down and the guy had to come pick them up.  They decided to get a new bike and go in town to see the parade that George's sun was in for a World War II holiday in Greece.  Sara and I wanted to see some more of the Island so we continued on.  We stopped at looked at this adorable blue and white church.  I love how almost all of the building are painted this way it adds to the ambiance of the Island.  Then we tried to find Ancient Thira but found out that we had to drive up this huge hill to get there.  We started but had to turn around because we didn't think our ATV could handle it.
            After we returned our bikes for the day we sat at a restaurant on our street and had crepes for lunch.  Crepes are a new thing that I have experienced in Europe that are really good!  Then we grabbed our bags and George drove us to the port.  It was sad to say goodbye to George and he told us that if we did not like Ios that we could just come back and he would pick us up and take us back to the hostel.  He was such a nice man who would always say "oh my beautiful girls, my girls" whenever he saw us!
            Our ferry to Ios was less than an hour, which felt even shorter in comparison to our 8 hour ferry a few days before. 
 
Ios:
            Once we reached Ios, George #2 (his name was hard to pronounce so we referred to him as this because he was very nice and accommodating like George #1) picked up us and four other study abroad students from the port.  Ios is more what I thought Santorini would look like.  It is a lot smaller and there is more land than there is town space.  Plus, the houses are almost completely all white with blue, while in Santorini there was more variation.  Our hostel was on a hill above the main town. 

Ios

As usual we made it in perfect timing to see the sunset and the view from our hostel was beautiful.  We got to gaze at the town amidst the pink and orange sunset it was amazing.  

I love sunsets

We got two rooms this time and we each had our own bathroom which would have been a great set-up if we had hot water! We were relieved that we were only staying there for one night for this reason.
            On our way in George #2 pointed out some of the things we could see on the island.  First we went to go see the old amphitheatre.  We were not quite sure where it was but just started walking up the hill.  Then this man pointed out the window and shouted directions to us.  We were not sure what he was talking about but followed his directions, which of course led us straight to the amphitheatre! It was so cute, he must have known since we were tourists that we would be looking for it.  The amphitheatre was pretty big and had a nice view of the beach that we visited the next day.  I ran down to the stage area and started talking and was taken aback by how loud my voice was.  It was a really cool experience. 
            Afterwards we walked into the main town and checked out what was there.  Ios known for being a party Island (this is not the reason we went there) so there was a row of bars and clubs.  However, it was off season so they were mostly closed.  There was also a really cute church and a cupcake store.  We decided to have dinner at George #2's restaurant called "The Mills" because it is right next to the windmills (a trademark of the Greek islands).  

Windmill :-)

George #2 was really nice to us and after dinner he gave us free dessert and gave us and the other study abroad students staying at our hostel (they had gone there for dinner too) this drink that he made himself.  We all said "yamas" (which means cheers) and tried it together.  It tasted really good and had cinnamon in it.  One of the girls in the other group said it tasted like Christmas.  After dinner the other group and the four of us decided we wanted to go out even though the Island was basically dead.  We figured we only had one night there so we might as well.  We made the best of it and went to one of the only club/bars that were open and danced the night away.  It was pretty much just the eight of us, a few locals who kind of stayed to the side, and the bartenders.  We had a lot of fun though anyway. 

The four of us in Ios :-)

They played really fun music, for example Greece Lightening, and showed us some fun dances.  We even got this older Greek man to show us some of his moves.  We had a really fun time.
 
Wednesday, October 29th:
            We got up at a decent time because we wanted to see some more of the Island before leaving for our ferry around one.  We wanted to have breakfast at our hostel but did not see anyone there at first.  We kept walking and found the waiter from the restaurant from the night before and we think he was sawing a table! He called George #2 (who was at the restaurant) and he came and made us omelets.  He put the omelet on top of a piece of toast and it was quite delicious.  After breakfast we paid 15 euro for our stay and the breakfast and loaded our stuff in the van.  George #2 said we could leave our stuff there and he would just meet us at the port with it.  So we went back into town first to see it during the day and then walked down to the beach.  It was kind of a far walk but it was a pretty beach and it was nice to see a different part of the Island.  We then took a 9 hour ferry back to Athens.  This was a really long ferry and it took up most of the day because we did not get to Athens until about 12 at night.  We checked back into the first hostel when we got in and went to bed.
 
Thursday, October 30th
            On Thursday we had until it was time to take the bus to the airport around 5 to explore Athens.  We found a public bus that was only five euro that would take us to all of the sights.  However, there was a metro strike that day so because of all the traffic that created the bus did not end up being on time.  However we did see the Temple of Olympian Zeus, which was right near our hostel and the Acropolis and the Parthenon so we felt like we saw the major sights.  
           

Temple of Olympian Zeus

The temple of Olympian Zeus has an archway and then some really old columns.  One of the columns had fallen over which was interesting because you could see how they had built each section of the column since they had broken apart.  Near the temple you could see rocks lined up where houses and baths had been.  I always love to see these things and think about how old the civilizations that inhabited them are.
            

at the acropolis

The acropolis was an incredible thing to see and it felt so real to be standing in front it.  All of my roommates had studied at one time or another and they were so amazed to actually be standing in front of it. We saw the Parthenon which is the main building and some of the other buildings and stairways.  I learned that when the columns are thicker they are male columns and when they are female columns they are thinner because that means they are more feminine.  The acropolis is on a hill so you get a pretty good 360 view Athens from up above.  We sat on the hill for a while and looked at the view. 
            After the Acropolis we waited for the bus and then gave up and walked to get lunch.  We had an amazing last Greek meal.  Sara and I both got pizza with feta on it and were very satisfied.  For our last few hours we looked in all of the little shops to find jewelry and presents.  The Greek jewelry is really special because it has old symbols on it.  I got a ring that means eternity and some other gifts.
            The rest of our journey was long and tiring.  We had to take a bus to the airport.  Then take the plane that was about 40 minutes late, making the rest of our trip tighter for time.  Then a bus to the train stations and two trains that got us back to Florence at 7 in the morning.  Although the traveling was long it was well worth it to get to go to such a beautiful place and have so many great experiences.  We just feel so lucky to have had this experience together and have spent the last few days staring at pictures and talking about all of the amazing things that we did. We are very thankful.
 
I hope you enjoyed my long recap of the trip and here are the links to the photos if you want to see more!
Athens:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2074098&l=3ee18&id=35805139
Santorini:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2074101&l=acb5b&id=35805139
Rest of Santorini and then Ios:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2074106&l=47173&id=35805139