We made it to Santorini, Greece!
Trip Start
May 18, 2007
1
52
62
Trip End
Jul 18, 2007
Santorini,
Greece
Saturday, July 7, 2007
We are SO excited that our long "travel day/s" to Greece is almost over and we are a few hours from Santorini!
Nikos from the Hotel Lilia took us to the Port of Piraeus for our 7:10am departure on the Hellanic Seaways "High Speed 5" to take us to Santorini! This boat was amazing and not like any ferry we have seen before! It looked like it was just out of it's packaging, fresh and new, and almost space-ship like! We had 1st class seats which were upstairs and the view from our squeaky clean windows was great! We strongly recommend this ferry line for any excursions in Greece as they were so new and clean! http://www.hellenicseaways.gr/index.asp?a_id=209
We will stay on the Island of Santorini for the next 12 days until we depart for the US
High Speed 5 ferry, Port of Fira in Santorini
. Santorini is on a caldera. There are only two in the whole world (the other one is China). A caldera is an underwater crater and while difficult to explain it is basically a volcano which erupted many years ago and created many islands. Santorini is like an island 1000 meters high. To get to the top you must take a cable car or take a zig zag road which carves through the rock. One side of the island is 1000 meters high and the other side is almost completely flat. We cruised to the Greek Isles watching all the little islands pass by us until we finally arrived in the Port of Santorini! We got off the ferry and were immediately greeted by Artemis, holding a sign with our first names on it. He whisked us off to his van where we waited a few minutes and then we were off, UP, and UP and UP this super windy road, switchbacks like no other, to the top of the island and then off to Artemis Village in Karterados, which is on the back side of the "crescent" shaped island of Santorini.
We arrived at Artemis village, http://www.santorini.org/hotels/artemis/index.php, a quaint little privately owned village containing 20 studios with kitchens, each overlooking the Aegean Sea. It is gorgeous, quiet with no people, yet quite a ways away from anything, which is what we wanted
Our bathroom at Artemis Village
. Even though Artemis will take us anywhere for free, we did not want to count on him to do what we like to do best and that is no schedule and shooting from our hips to explore, so we rented a 4-wheeler for the time we are here. Artemis' wife, Anna, runs the rest of the show here and made one call and in 10 minutes, our 4-wheeler was waiting for us in front of our room. We immediately got on it and cruised around, getting ourselves acquainted with our final island surroundings.
We ate a great Greek food and inexpensive right down the road at a local Greek taverno, and had freshly caught fish and calamari, with Greek salads. The woman running this restaurant is from Germany and came to Santorini years ago on vacation and never went home.
We called it a night early as we had been on quite the journey.
Tomorrow we will load onto our 4-wheeler and see where she takes us!
Today's walk: 4.3 miles
Total for the journey (261 miles, 51 days)
Love,
Laurie and Ryan
Comments
What a sunset!!!!
Hi there, I think, if I had to choose where I wanted to go it would be Croatia and Santorini from your wonderful descriptions. The rock and roll ferry ride was really descriptive too. Look forward to having you home safe and sound, Mom
What a sunset!!!!
Hi there, I think, if I had to choose where I wanted to go it would be Croatia and Santorini from your wonderful descriptions. The rock and roll ferry ride was really descriptive too. Look forward to having you home safe and sound, Mom
Found Paradise
Okay, I've decided, THIS is where I'm going for my 40th birthday! Sammy
Lovely!
Yet another awesome destination...You guys should be travel planners...I love all the blue and white...the shower/toilet orientation is a bit frightening, but love the window...and the doors in the bedroom are great!
Beautiful sunset!!
xo,
g and p