Athens and Santorini - Fira, Greece
Fira, Greece
After a recovery day in Split, Jess (Fisher) and I flew to Athens, a day before Gee and Laura, because we'd been unable to get on the same flight. We made it into our hostel near the Acropolis late, showered and crashed for the day. In the morning, we had brekkie at the hostel, then left to be tourists for the day. Jess was keen to see the Acropolis, and I had no idea what i wanted, so I followed her. First stop was the Acropolis Museum, which was actually fairly boring, but did give us a bit of an idea of what to expect from the real thing. Then we marched back out into the 40degree heat, and climbed the hill up to the ruins. Of course we had to pay to get in, but it was definitely worth it. Up the top where the Parthenon is, we had a 360degree view of the entire city. The ruins themselves were amazing, but still covered in scaffolding while they repair crumbling bits and make sure people don't die under falling stones. We wandered around the top for about an hour, taking photos, then climbed down the other side. We got a bit lost, but eventually found ourselves back on the pedestrian road near our hostel. My stomach was growling ridiculously loud, so Jess took the hint that it was lunch time, and we found an extremely cheap cafe. We spent the arvo chilling, then got directions to an amazing rooftop bar from the hostel receptionist, which gave us an incredible view of the Acropolis at sunset. We had a cheap dinner and took ourselves home to bed. Laura and Gee were supposed to have arrived at 10ish, like we had, but they'd emailed to say their flight had been delayed from Milan, so they didn't arrive at the hostel until 4am, and we had to be up 6 to get to the ferry. So they were absolutely exhausted. We got on the boat, gave Gee a Temazepam because she was still really unwell, and she slept most of the 8 hours to Santorini. When we finally arrived in Fira town, I took Gee straight to hospital where she got more antibiotics, bullied a taxi into taking us to our apartment, and finally settled at about 7pm, all very tired and cranky. The next morning, we wandered up to the town, did a bit of shopping, and hired ourselves 2 quad bikes! So much fun! We'd booked a table at Tropical Bar in town to watch the sunset, so after an early dinner we hiked back up the hill and had some amazing cocktails while we watched and even more amazing sunset. Laura and Jess went for frozen yoghurt and I walked home with Gee for another big sleep. In the morning Laura dropped Jess at the bus stop so she could get a ferry to Ios to catch up with other friends from Tassie. The rest of us jumped back on our quads and drove to Kamari beach, where we snuck into the private hotel section and claimed some sun beds and umbrellas for free. We were there for ages, the water was incredible and no one asked us to move. Planes landing in Santorini airport flew just over our heads but other than that it was very peaceful. That arvo a bloke we'd met on Yacht Week, Ben, was arriving. Him and Laura had hit it off, so he followed us to Greece to see her again (awww, sweet). While Laura got herself beautiful for him, Gee and I got back on our bikes and drove to the other end of the island to check our Oia. We booked a table for dinner later in the week and bought some local jewellery. On the way home we managed to get our bike (which we'd named Roberto) up to 57kms/hour! By the time we got back, Ben had arrived, so we cracked the gin and cooked up some chicken wraps for dinner. Later on, we walked up into town to check out the bars. We found a strip of clubs, where guys were standing out the front shoving cards into our hands and rattling off their drink discounts to make us come in. I collected about 15 cards. We bounced between a Scottish bar, the Highlander, and an Irish pub, Murphys. The boys at the door came to know Gee and I in particular. We didnt have a very late night, but we'd done some good recon for Saturday night! Our expedition the next day took us all the way up the other end of the island to Red Beach, which was beautiful, but with no shade and sitting on dark rocks, we cooked. We had a cheap lunch at a little cafe up the hill, and stole their salt and pepper as a thank you (we needed some!). On the way home, we tried to find the Santo winery, but found ourselves driving up and down roads very lost, by the time we got home it was quite late in the afternoon. So we queued for the shower, had a few drinks and made ourselves beautiful, then walked up the hill into Fira to find a restaurant recommended by some other Tassie friends who'd been there the week before. It was delicious! And so cheap! We had a few bottles of wine, way too much food, and then wandered up to the party zone. For the rest of the night we bounced between the Highlander, Murphys, Town Club and a few others with strange names. At Town club, a bloke wearing a security headpiece at the door ask me where I was from, and when I said Sydney, Australia, he told me that he works in security and bar management in Santorini for European summer, then moves to Sydney for our summer, and does the same thing at Marquee Club in Star City. His name was Chris, and we all exchanged info so we could catch up for a beer in the homeland! He bought us a lot of free shots and got us drink discounts, so after Ben and Laura went home, Gee and I stuck around, danced on the bar and made friends with the entire club (or so we thought). Eventually we walked ourselves home at some silly hour. Great night. In the morning it was Laura, surprisingly, who felt the worst of all of us. We jumped back on our bikes and hooned back down to Kamari beach for a hangover swim, and unfortunately the hotel staff spotted us and made us pay for the beach beds. But it was better than lying on hot, black stones! That night we went back to the same restaurant because it was so delicious, and the waiters all recognised us. Then we went back to the Tropical Bar to watch the volcano fireworks. We had the best table in the place, and met a few more Aussies. The fireworks were to mark the anniversary of the volcano erupting, and they were designed to resemble a real explosion. They were amazing! Afterwards, we paid another visit to a few of the same clubs from the night before, and all the door boys recognised us. None of us were keen to back up again, so we were home and tucked up in bed by midnight! Jess got back from Ios the next morning, and Laura picked her up from the bus on one of our trusty quad bikes. We couldn't all fit in our little apartment anymore, so Laura and Ben found their own room up the road, and we organised to meet at our place that night to drive to Oia for the dinner that Gee and I had booked. From our roof-top restaurant we had an amazing view of the famous Oia sunsets. After dinner and ice creams we drove home (in the dark - scary on bikes!) to bed! On our last day in Santorini, Jess, Gee and I went back to our favourite beach, Kamari. Despite making friends with the hotel lifeguard, we still had to pay for our beach chairs. We had a beautiful swim in the crystal clear water, read our books, and eventually headed back into town. There we had to say a sad goodbye to our quad bikes and walk home. I cooked up a massive stir fry with every vegetable under the sun, and of course we had to drink all the remaining alcohol, since we were leaving the next day. Once the fridge was empty we hiked back up the hill to town and hit the bars again! We ran into Chris at Town Club and he sorted us out for drinks, Gee made friends with a bunch of 19yr old locals and we danced our last night away in style. Everyone was very dusty in the morning, we had to be out by 10.30. Our host Chris who'd been amazing all week, came up to say goodbye, and gave each of us a little glass Santorini paperweight as a present! Bless his cotton socks. We thanked him profusely and promised to write a rave review on Airbnb for him, then got in our taxi down to the pier. Thankfully we were on the High Speed ferry back to Athens, so it only took 4 hours, and we all slept most of the way. It was late afternoon by the time we got back to our hostel, so we all showered quickly, and then Jess and I took everyone to the rooftop bar, where we had some Pimms and delicious nuts and watched the sunset. It was a perfect way to end an amazing week!