Santorini Heaven

Blog by Tony (Thursday 8 August, 2019)

We awoke to the usual 4am alarm this morning…so that we had enough time to again pack our suitcases and make our way to the lobby of our hotel to meet with our 5:45am quick shuttle ride to the port of Piraeus where we are to catch our 5hr ferry ride to Santorini.

Our driver was friendly and helpful and recommended that we go and have a coffee whilst we wait to board our ferry. We didn’t take much convincing so we agreed to be dropped off on the corner so that we could easily walk across the road to the bakery/cafe. Upon finding a table outside and looking inside…it was like everyone had the same idea as there was at least 30 people waiting in line which snaked around all 3 corners of the bakery.

It only took 17 minutes for me to be served…which I was expecting to be much longer. Kellie and I enjoyed a cappuccino as well as some cheese pies and a sugary sweet bread scroll 🙂 As it was now past our boarding time we hurried across the road to look for our ferry…which was quite confusing as there was at least 3 ferries of the same name. Waiting in line Kellie suggested I ask the lady staff member working at the front of the line whether we were in the correct line…which we weren’t….so we quickly made our way dragging our luggage dodging people and cars to our ferry.

Like sheep we were herded onto the boat up the ramp and to a long narrow storage about 4 shelves high where we were to store our large luggage. The prominent sign warned passengers that the ferry would not be responsible for any missing or stolen luggage…which made us a little uncomfortable in leaving our luggage there. We decided to go with the flow and leave our luggage where I stored them up high to deter at least any wimpy would be thieves from thinking about taking them.

We made our way to our lounge on the 2nd floor where we were pleasantly surprised with the size of our seats. The one thing that would have made it better was if we were seated near the window. We were close to a door that lead us to the outside deck where we could view each island as we docked for cars and passengers to board and disembark. Paros was the first stop and Iso was the second stop…with Santorini being the final destination.

We had a cafe and toilets nearby…and access to internet so the 5 hours seemed to sneak by as we were at Santorini before we knew it.

An announcement came over the PA asking everyone to make their way to the bottom deck to grab their luggage (and vehicles) ready for disembarking. We were relieved to see that our luggage was still there and quickly grabbed them and got in line to beat the barrage of passengers pushing and shoving to get as close to the exit as they could.

Making our way to the jetty I had wished that I had of booked transport to our hotel as there were hundreds of people wanting transport to their accommodation. So to remove ourselves from the madness we decided to take a seat at one of the many restaurants until things had settled down. Whilst we waited…and as it was bloody hot…we decided to get ourselves some frozen yogurt and ice cream. As Kellie doesn’t like ice cream…and as there was no flavours of frozen yoghurt that I thought she would like…I ended up getting her some mango and strawberry sorbet….and I got some chocolate and pistachio ice cream. I gave Kellie her sorbet…and of course she tells me that she doesn’t like sorbet…and after seeing her take a taste and the ‘cats bum look’ I gave her my ice cream for her sorbet. I loved the sorbet and it appears that Kellie likes ice cream now!

We ended up finding transport to our hotel in a Mercedes people mover which was quite nice…and at 30 euros for the 30+ minute drive to our hotel Gregory at reception said that we had gotten a fair price.

Gregory showed us to our rooms which both had been upgraded. We decided that we like the room that dad was to have best…as it has the best view. After a quick look around the rooms we walked across the street to the local shop which is literally 10secs away to buy some cheese, dip and bickies….as well as a bottle of JD and some bottles of coke.

Another 30 seconds down the road is the local restaurant where we will be looking at having either lunch or dinner at tomorrow. So after sitting on the balcony having some drinks enjoying the view and hot sun on our skin we decided to lay on the bed in the air condition and cool off a bit and wait for the heat to simmer down before heading back to our balcony to watch the famous sun set that we have only been dreaming of until now 🙂

…well….the wait was well worth it (as can be seen by the photos added to our Santorini page)…
Just AMAZING!!!
Heading back to our balcony we saw that everyone else had the same idea and had their cameras/smartphones ready. There were boats of all sizes heading to the point so they too could see the famous sunset. As the sun slowly crept down the colours of the sky changed from beautiful yellows and golds to glowing oranges, pinks and reds. The sun seemed to linger just above the horizon…but no sooner did it touch the horizon and it was gone.

With the finale for the evening over just past 8:00pm we took a few more photos before heading back inside to our room to upload and crop the photos we’d just taken and upload to our site for fond memories and future reminiscing…..