Santorini, Greece is a fun and beautiful island in the southern Aegean Sea. With its iconic architecture and decor, it's a fascinating place to visit. Santorini was the first stop that and I made on our little adventure through the area.
I had been traveling through Europe for about 4 months when came out and met up with me. I had made plans to meet the members of my family in different places to travel with them individually. After 2 weeks of travel with my dad in Hungary, Slovenia, and Croatia, it was time to meet with my brother in Greece!
had a harrowing journey to get to Europe from the USA. After many hours of travel, 5 layovers, and one emergency landing, he finally got to the hotel and was able to relax. We promptly went out and found beer at a restaurant across the street from our hotel.
My journey from Budapest wasn't as rough as my brother's, but I was still tired from the trip. After we had some beer and food, we turned in for the night.
The next day we went to the main city on the island. It was a little bit far from where our hotel was located so we took a bus.
The city is built on a hillside that overlooks a bright blue sea. The sky was perfectly clear and the weather was very hot. We stopped at a restaurant for food and refreshment.
If I recall correctly, the food wasn't particularly noteworthy other than its high price. You definitely pay a premium for the view, but it's worth doing it at least once.
After our lunch, and I went out exploring to see what we could discover.
The little streets and walkways are a joy to explore. The architecture and color scheme is so iconic and ancient feeling. There's an magical feeling that settles on you when walking down these streets.
The strangely beautiful clock/bell towers were a real fascination for me. The design seems pretty simple, but the combination of the bold lines and bright colors results in something incredible.
The city has lots of little paths and streets to explore. There are also several churches that you can go into.
After exploring the city for a few hours, we headed back to our hotel.
Our hotel was located on the southern part of the island, away from the main city. Due to our lack of private transportation, we mostly stayed on our part of the island and didn't go back to the city.
Originally, our plan was to only spend 1 or 2 nights on Santorini, then take a ferry to another Greek island. What we didn't know was that the ferry only runs a few times per week. We ended up stuck on Santorini for 4 days.
We didn't do a whole lot in the way of tourist attractions. Mostly we walked to a cool beach area and found places to hang out. At night there was live music and during the day, there were relaxing bars and restaurants with nice views.
The food and drinks were much more affordable on this side of the island. Plus neither myself or my brother are super enthusiastic about doing a whole lot of activities. Sometimes hanging out and simply soaking up the atmosphere is the most enjoyable activity of all.
We did find a really cool church or monastery to take photos of.
We also went on a snorkeling trip one day.
The guy who took us snorkeling did a lot of deep free dives. He explained ear equalization and this snorkeling trip was the first time that I equalized my ears while diving deep in the water. It was a trick that would come in handy when I took scuba diving lessons in Thailand.
Other than that, we spent a fair amount of time hanging out at our hotel (pictured above). The room was great and the pool was excellent.
I brought dominoes with me and we played quite a few games of that. We also enjoyed some Santo Nuts! They were peanuts covered in candy and sesame seeds.
After four days, it was time to catch a ferry to Turkey. Someone from the hotel was nice enough to drive us to port in the middle of the night. We boarded the ship and cruised through the night to a new country and a new adventure! Stay tuned for tomorrow's post to see what we did next!