Santorini + The Bonus Round
Greece — this is where our honeymoon story ends. I had heard when trip planning that Santorini is considered by some to be the most romantic city in Europe. That, combined with the fact that Santorini had been on my travel bucket list for years, made this white-washed island the last stop on our month-long adventure.
The first thing both Sean and I noticed as our plane touched down on the island was that Santorini is a desert! When I had pictured Greece prior to my arrival, it wasn’t as if I was expecting lush forests and green meadows, but I definitely wasn’t expecting a brown and barren landscape. The island gets intense heat in the summer months and I suppose that combined with the strong north winds meant that September in Santorini is pretty dead.
The one thing growing in abundance on the island is wine, mostly white wine including their very own Assyrtico. The local reds, we learned very quickly, are quite terrible and not worth trying. We did do a wine tour one day (are you surprised?) and learned a lot about the Santorini wine industry. They train their grape vines to grow in what looks like little birds nests in order to protect the grapes from the heat and the wind. So, instead of tall, orderly rows of vines like we see in North America, their wine farms look like low wild bushes growing in disarray in the dry soil. It’s a very clever solution to a complex problem!
On our first day on the island we arrived at our hotel a bit too early to check into our room so we decided to kill some time doing the 2 hour hike from Imerovigli to Oia. Luckily, it was quite a windy day which may be the only reason we made it because it was sure hot out and there was no shade anywhere (owing to the lack of trees, see above). I do recommend anyone staying in Santorini do the hike as it does afford some gorgeous views of the caldera.
Oia is the iconic city that is the backdrop for almost every postcard from Santorini. It is where the white washed cave houses built on the mountain slope are located and is considered the most desirable place to stay on the island. However, I can honestly say that I prefer Imerovigli to Oia. In Imerovigli, you still get the white washed cave houses and stunning views of the sunset but what you don’t get is the crowds of people. For someone looking for romance, Imerovigli is just what I needed!
After checking out Oia a bit we decided to walk the ~200 steps down to Amoudi Bay where we heard there were some fantastic fish restaurants. We went to Dimitri’s as it is owned by a family friend and proceeded to eat the most delicious meal of fresh calamari, tzatziki and bread, fried zucchini, and Greek salad alongside the local island beer, Donkey Beer. That was our first meal in Greece and from the first bite, the foodie in me knew she was going to love Greece. The Greek salads were so unbelievably good we couldn’t help but order one at every. single. meal. Walking back up the steps after the meal was a struggle and this is why many people do opt for taking a donkey ride to the top but I couldn’t ethically pay for that (see below) so up we went by foot.
Speaking of Greek food, Sean’s sister gifted us cooking lessons for our wedding (thanks Sis!) and we cashed in on that gift while in Santorini. We will now hopefully be able to recreate some Greek deliciousness in our own kitchen. Our cooking class was with 3 other couples and the eight of us had so much fun together! We learned how to make a few Greek dishes including Santorini salad (similar to Greek salad), glazed pork, and fried tomato fritters. The cooking class was in combo with the wine tour mentioned above and they served us copious amounts of wine so they gave everyone plastic knives which was quite hilarious. In the end, I was quite impressed with the final products and that we made something edible after day drinking all day long.
Another excursion we took one day was a boat trip to the volcano as I really wanted to hike to the top of the crater. The volcano has five craters from previous eruptions and is still considered to be active. There are a lot of monitoring devices at the active crater which descend deep into the earth to hopefully predict the next explosion about 6 months prior to the eruption. The island itself looked like the surface of the moon. It was quite beautiful in a weird way. The tour also stopped by the hot springs by the volcano but Sean and I declined going in as we had heard that the springs aren’t very hot (they’re only a few degrees warmer than the surrounding seawater) and the sulphur will often permanently stain bathing suits.
After the busy day boating around the island, Sean and I took a cab over to the outdoor movie theatre on the eastern side of the island. The theatre is adorable. There are seats set up outside surrounding a screen and you can purchase extremely cheap food and drinks while you watch your flick. We watched Rough Night which was enjoyable enough but the ambiance of the theatre is what I’m going to remember for years to come.
One of Sean and my favourite things to do in Santorini was renting an ATV and ripping around the island. The roads are littered with ATVs as it is how many tourists get around. I couldn’t help but feel like it was real life Mario Kart Racing and I got many urges to throw non-existant shells at the slow ATVs in front of us. Had we known how much fun the ATVs would be, we would have rented one much sooner!
While we had the ATV we made sure to check out at least one beach. Santorini isn’t known for beaches and beach goers often head to the other islands, such as Mykonos, to satisfy their sand cravings. However, there are a few small beaches on the island, the most popular being the black sand beaches on the east side and the red sand beach in the south. We went to the red sand beach as we had heard from one of the couples in our cooking class that it was their favourite. The beach had a cliff face on the back end of it that was made up of red rock that created quite a spectacular site when we got there! We stayed for a bit and sunbathed, relaxed, and read until it came close to sunset…
Sunsets in Santorini. They are something to write home about. I had heard that Santorini has some of the most beautiful sunsets in the world. I never understood what this meant as sunsets happen everywhere. How can one sunset be more beautiful than another? Then I saw one and I understood.
The Santorini sunsets are jaw-dropping gorgeous. The majority of the sunsets we watched from our private balcony at our cave house as it was equipped with everything you need for a perfect sunset: wine, lounge chairs and blankets, a private plunge pool, and privacy. However, for our last night in Santorini we decided to head over to the Akrotiri lighthouse to watch the sunset. Oia is known for sunsets and the lookout point there is supposedly very crowded but what many people don’t realize is that you get the same view from the lighthouse without the crowds! I mean, there were many people there but it was easy to find a secluded spot to sit and watch the sun sink into the ocean. Then something spectacular happened — everyone clapped, as if to say, “Bravo, Mother Nature! Good job!” I couldn’t help but smile at the ridiculousness of it all but in a way, I understood. It was a great way to say bye to Santorini.
So now that I’ve told you all the wonderful things about Santorini, I should also mention that Santorini has a dark side. I noticed that there are a lot of stray dogs wandering around the island. But the weird thing is, some of them were wearing collars? I decided to look into it a little and did not like what I learned. In fact, I spent one night crying my eyes out about how cruel people can be. I’m not going to go into the specifics, but if you are interested in learning more about what I’m talking about and what got me so upset, read about it here. This is also why I never rode a donkey in Santorini.
All in all, we quite enjoyed Santorini and the time came to go home. So we packed up our bags with all the wines and oils we’d accumulated over the course of the month and prepared for the journey home.
You’ve Unlocked the Bonus Round
Our honeymoon had come to an end and we boarded our flight to go home to Vancouver. However, first, we had a long layover in Munich. I planned this so that we could sleep in a comfy bed at the Hilton Airport Hotel but also to break up our flying time so it wouldn’t be such a long day. This layover turned into one of the luckiest fluke decisions of the trip because a little festival called Oktoberfest had started the day before! We kept joking that we had unlocked the bonus round of our honeymoon!
When we originally planned our layover, we pictured sleeping in, watching movies and never really leaving the airport. Boy were we wrong! First thing in the morning, we caught the train downtown, and proceeded to enjoy Munich as best as we could in three short hours.
In that time we ate pretzels, visited a 500 year old beer house called Hofbräuhaus and, obviously, visited Oktoberfest. The festival had rides, pretzels everywhere, people dressed up in Lederhosen and dirndls everywhere, and 1L beers being sloshed around at beer houses left, right, and center.
I got enough of a taste of Munich to want to come back again and spend a few days there. Until the next trip…
