Day 1 – May 17, 2011

We arrived at Santorini at 2am. Our lovely host from Villa Rose picked us up and drove us to our apartment rental. I was amazed at the cliffs and view even in the dark because I could picture how beautiful it would look during the day. We rested up and started the day with ATV rentals.

It was so much fun driving around on ATVs, a little dangerous with the other cars on the road but very thrilling. We headed towards the beaches making pit stops to enjoy the views along the way. The first beach was Kamari Beach which was a pebble black beach. The water was clear and crisp.

Soon after, we were headed to Perissa Beach but we got lost along the way and headed up a high mountain ending with a dead end.  Along the way, Andrew’s ATV wasn’t starting but after Mike worked him magic, it worked again.

Regardless the detour was definitely worth it because of the view.

After getting lost a couple of times, we finally made it to Perissa Beach, Black Sand beach we had a wonderful Greek late lunch at Yazz.

Soon after, we went to find the ‘Red Beach’. Along the way, we got lost… we were lost many times actually. But this time, we stopped suddenly to ask somewhere where we were and Andrew was following me so close that when I stopped be crashed into our ATV! Yes. It hurted but we/ATV was unharmed. Do you see his shadow in this pic?

We got there nearing Sunset and it was the most beautiful beach in my opinion to the others.  The cliffs were red and the rock formations were amazing.

We left shortly to rush back to return the ATVs by 9:00pm, however we made one last pit stop on the way back to watch the sunset.

Boy was it chilly riding back in shorts. We touched the pool water at Villa Rose and we were like, oh it so warm! Let’s go for a dip… bad idea… We went in and we were freezing but we had fun shooting water at Dru where he screamed like a girl. Haha.

We headed to Fira for grub and ended up at a pizza place where we had souvaki… damnit this place sucked and my kebab was lamb! Blech! I wanted to pick up the Twix gelato but the place was closed after dinner so I said tomorrow!

Day 2 – May 18, 2011

Today, we bought an excursion to go to Santorini’s Volcano, Hot Springs, Thirissa Island and Oia. This volcano is active and the last time it erupted with was in the 1950s.  The tour guide told us that Santorini used to be one round circle island from Oia, continuing to Thirassa Island and Small White Island. However, when the Volcano exploded hundreds of thousands of years ago, it broke up the island and year by year it shifted apart.

We hiked up to the crater of the island where the blue sea and the black rock made it picturesque.

Next our tour stopped at Thirassa Island for lunch and exploring. We had  a quick lunch to explored the beach front for a bit. We had the option of riding a donkey up to the top, which we didn’t do because we ran out of time, but I would recommended riding the donkey up and exploring what else is up there.

The last stop was Oia to watch the famous sunset. This was my favourite village and definately the most beautiful. We arrived at Port and we were ready to ride a Donkey up to the top. It was a wild shaky ride. Michelle’s donkey poo’d right next to me… and then kept smacking/tickling my leg with its tail. Dru and Mike’s donkeys were racing each other and kept over taking each other.  Fun experience but poor donkeys do this all day long.

The small narrow streets and architecture of Oia was just like how the postcards show it to be.

We had dinner at Kyprida, where I got fresh sea bass baked in the oven with lemon. It was very good. Mike also decided to jump out of the window of the restaurant onto a roof to take photos when the owner (who we never saw before) came into our dining area and spotted mike, closed that window and then yelled at him. Talk about bad timing…

It was time to watch the sunset so we explored to find the best spot and we did… which was crowded with people already. We found a spot and met a really nice professional photographer couple next to us. It was gorgeous and very romantic.

We headed back to Fira to explore the capital city for a bit more before we headed back to our apartment. Fira’s streets were very small but lively and I loved it too, reminded me of Venice in a way.  I went back to the gelato place to ok for the twix gelato only to find they don’t have it today… so I settle for White chocolate coconut, which tasted like Revello from Ferraro.