Massive effort to get from Rome to Santorini in a day! We left fairly early to get to the plane to Athens then after the flight we just made it onto a bus direct to Pireaus port where we were catching the ferry to Santorini. All going well until the bus dropped us at the wrong port terminal, we made an attempt to walk from terminal E8 to E1. After about 20 minutes of lugging our bags along the port we'd only made E3, but a bus stop came along so we thought we'd take that. By this time there was only 30 minutes until the ferry left and we got impatient waiting or the bus to leave and thought we'd leg it. We made it to about E5 before the bus caught us and was nice enough to pick us up. We were exhausted and embarrassed but we made the ferry!
Got into Santorini at about midnight and caught the bus into Fira (or Thira) city and tried to walk to our hotel, unfortunately Google Maps didn't have the best coverage of Fira and we got horribly lost. Luckily though we found a late night gyro shop open and the lady, after a few phone calls, gave us some directions which weren't very good but put as in the right area of town and Bec with some keen eyesight spotted our very romantic B&B.
The island itself was super beautiful. It's very much what you imagine the Greek Islands to be. The city of Fira on Santorini island is set on the cliffs and overlooks the Agean sea and a volcano...ridiculously scenic.
We cruised around Fira for the first few days doing not a lot more than sightseeing, shopping and eating more gyros than was thought physically possible. The food on the island was awesome, we tried the Greek salads and the fresh olives and they were some of the freshest and tastiest produce we'd ever eaten.
On the third day we finally got a proper hot day and caught the first bus to Perissa for the beach. It wasn't the nicest beach I've ever seen but it was heaven to finally get back into the water and catch a bit of sun. The weather wasn't great while we were there but still fairly warm, however this nullified the famous sunsets right up until the last evening.
Finally a clear evening and we took full advantage of it by going along the cliffs and got hundreds (no exaggeration) of photos. It was very beautiful and a great way to remember the island in leaving.
We ferried back to Athens to next day and into the hotel at about 1am, which was fine at the time but after talking to some of the people who lived in Athens said the area we walked through at night was the most dangerous place in the city and not to be walked through after dark. I thought the prostitutes and drug dealers were quite pleasant really.
We said farewell to Melissa and sent her off on her 24hr travel back home while we went out to enjoy the city. Athens really wasn't anything special but they had great markets and that pretty much took our entire day up. Bec finally bought herself some gypsy pants and won't quit talking about how comfortable and cool they are.
Next on to Jordan. We're very excited because it's a little off the usual tourist trail but should be incredible
