Hello from Greece! I'd say hello in Greek but my keyboard doesn't have the weird ass keys required. After a delicious 5 nights in Lagos where I last left you, a couple nights in Seville, 3 nights in Granada and a night in Gerona.. Plus one night in 2 Greek airports, we have arrived at the most famous Greek Island, Santorini.
We'll do a quick look back into our last week and a bit in Spain and Portugal. Lagos was perfect as I mentioned once or twice...okay maybe 10 times, in the last blog. We relaxed and regrouped by the beach after a heavy couple months of sightseeing cities. Then we bus'd our way to Seville in Spain, where we welcomed tapas back with open arms, and visited (for all of you season 5 game of thrones fans) the Alcazar! Aka city of Dorne, house of Martell. It was a beautiful palace with pretty gardens to walk through..and best of all, we felt like we were in the middle of G.O.T. Cooooooooooooool!
So we ate good food, drank wine, walked through a palace and met a crazy Spanish guy who we are 99.99999% sure tried to to break into our locker and steal our goods.. Lucky he not so smart. but he did break toms lock which he was least impressed with.
Then we caught another bus to Granada. Famous for tapas.. The Alhambra and surrounded by the Sierra Nevada (and here I thought that was American). So.. We ate good food.. We visited the Alhambra and we gazed at the stunning Sierra Navada. The Alhambra was amazing, a beautiful palace and gardens with incredible detail.. The men who built it must be seriously patient! See photos for the actual details. The town is filled with crazy hippies who live in caves at the back of the main town..question for you all.. Do hippies work? Or do they just grow arm hair, dread their locks and play the guitar? That's all we saw them do.
We then caught a bus, and 2 trains to arrive in Gerona.. A small town that connects the cheap Airline, Ryan Air... Where your luggage costs more to fly than your body itself.Gerona was just a stop over for the night to get us to the airport the next day, but this little place was gorgeous with small cobbled streets, teeny trinket shops, a massive cathedral and a big old wall. We wished we had longer to explore this place, maybe one day! And so the adventure to Greece began. We caught a bus to the airport.. Waited 2 hours for our flight.. 2.5 hours later we arrived in Thessaliniki, where we waited 5.5 hours for our next flight.. Then we got a half hour flight to Athens..by the time you get into the air, you start descending! Then we slept in shit chairs for 3 hours until our next flight at 5am to Santorini. Yes, yes we did feel like shit after all of that. The brain does not function well after 18+ hours of travel and roughly 3 hours sleep.
But Greece. Ohh Greece! I feel like I'm home. Jess and Luke used to always say I was adopted from Hawaii..but I actually think they meant Greece. The people.. The food.. The land.. The hotel.. The wine.. The food.. The food.. The food... Did I mention the food? Oh, and the food? We arrived at our hotel at 6am, way to early for check in but the lady who owns the place, got our room ready as soon as the last lady check out, so she let us sleep by the pool, then by 9am we tucked into bed in our little Greek studio apartment. From bed we moved to the pool. From the pool, we moved to the 24 hour bakery. Then we moved back to the pool. Then we go for a drink. Then we have dinner. Then we sleep. And repeat.
Santorini is beautiful, famous for its sunsets, cliffs and black beaches filled with white houses and steep stairs. We chose a quieter area over Fira and Oia, called Perissa. It's the black beach down the bottom of Santorini wiTh the Volcano sitting to the left of us. We hired a quad bike for our time here to see the main cities up south and get around quicker to dinner which is a 5 minute walk, 1 minute ride.. What can I say, the faster I get to food and wine, the better. I'm yet to have a bad mojito, and our meals have been absolutely delicious. Because we chose a quieter area, we don't have to pay a fortune for meals and drinks, we get to eat and drink overlooking the ocean and it feels much more relaxing than crazy Fira (the main town). We rode the bike into Fira today, about 20 minutes, and although beautiful to see, it was covered in tourists, which can take away from the town itself, so we're pretty chuffed with our little town we chose. We eat Gyros (the G is silent) for lunch every day, it's a pita with pork or chicken, lettuce, tomato and tzaziki and best of all.. Hot chips.. Mm mm..and only €2.5! It's impossible to eat anything else for lunch, these are too good to say no to!
We have 2 more nights here before we head off to Naxos for 5 nights, the biggest Of the Cyclades. The beaches are meant to be stunning, and less touristy then the other islands so we're looking forward to that. We may, or may not, have also gotten another hotel with a pool.. Treating ourselves all out for Greece. Holidays are tough. Then it's Athens for a 2 day tour to Delphi and Metoera before we head back to explore Athens! Not much else to say here..
Oh, except that Tom insists I tell you all, that I was bitten by a vicious Greek horse. Baha, now I know why dad never let me have a horse. It was standing there all pretty with its mane flowing in the wind, and i walked up to it and it let me pat it's head for a minute, completely gained my trust then it BIT MY BOOB!! I almost lost a boob. I have the bite to prove it. Dirty, filthy stinking horse.. I'll never trust a horse again.
That is all,
Love Greece xoxox
