GREECE DAY 3 – ARRIVING IN BLISS

Wake, pack, into a waiting cab to the airport.  The cabby is proud of hie big Mercedes and chats us up the whole ride.  He mentions a good bakery at the airport for some spinach pie and strong coffee, the official breakfast of Greece.  The Aegean flight is a slingshot, by the time it gets to altitude, it’s already time for descent.  The Sixt desk is a disaster, but we end up with a nice Audi A3 instead of the Renault Clio we were expecting.  Driving to the hotel, we realized our upgrade is a mixed blessing.  These are some of the craziest drivers on some of the narrowest streets filled with everything from motor coach busses, to Mercedes Sprinter vans to Smart Cars and countless oblivious pedestrians.  On the roads here, smaller is better.

A bit about Santorini.  Santorini is one of the Cyclades islands in the Aegean Sea about 120 miles from the Greek mainland.  Its entire history involves being formed and reformed by volcanic eruptions, including the biggest, baddest eruption in recorded history around 3600 years ago.  That event left a huge caldera, or volcanic crater, behind.  That caldera is now completely underwater and, along with the smaller islands, essentially forms a massive harbor.  The harbor is on the west side of Santorini, the side most developed with houses dug right into the pumice stone, primarily white and usually with bright blue roofs or accents.  Between the beautiful architecture, great climate, stunning sunsets, wonderful food and kind people, it’s no wonder that this has become the top island holiday destination in the world.  

(click on the pictures to see full size images)

It’s a half-hour, nail-biting drive to one of the highest points on the island where we find Absolute Bliss, our hotel who apparently specializes in setting your expectations too high.  One look at the view from check-in and we have to adjust our expectations up yet again.  We’re shown to our room, down 78 steps, and WOWWIE!  Crazy even by our standards.  The outside is what Instagram was designed for.  Sweeping views of Santorini’s legendary caldera from our private pool.  A private balcony overlooking our private pool with even better views of the caldera.  The room itself it carved right into the mountainside and is complete with living room (with a view) two-person hot tub (with a view) steam room and huge bathroom complex, all surrounding a king size canopy bed strewn with flower pedals and wrapped hard candies for our arrival.  Expectations be damned, this place is amazing.

Checked in, time for lunch.  Because everything is built into the side of a mountain, the road, with its bars and shops and restaurants, is at the top, and you walk down steps to all the living accommodations.  Which means back up those 78 steep steps every time we go out.  We’re both mouth breathing by the time we get back to the lobby.  Lunch is a little open-air café serving a menu of traditional Greek fare with plenty of the fresh local seafood.  The vibe of the place is very laid back, island time with a Lake Como ease about it, chill, and we need a minute (and a beer) to adjust our pace.  It's a place that needs a big-floppy-hat-that-makes-a-statement, and fortunately, right next door, is a big-floppy-hat-that-makes-a-statement store.

 

It’s hot, 90F and humid and plenty of bright sunshine.  We cool down in our pool, kept refreshingly cool by the frequent addition of fresh water.  We take in the scenery, really take the time to enjoy this place.

 Refreshed and napped, we head back up the 78 steps for our trek to Oia (pronounced EE-a), the town on the northern end of the island.  The first two thirds of the drive is picturesque seaside twisty road, the kind of drive that should have its own soundtrack.  The minute we pull into Oia, everything changes.  Twice as many cars as road, all trying to pass by each other at the same time.  GPS is hopeless for us driving all the way to the restaurant, so we dump the car in a semi-legal parking spot and set out on foot.  Maps seems happier with walking directions, winding us through the narrow, shop lined walkways carved into the side of the mountain.  When the line of shops end, we see Dimitris, the Amoudi Bay waterfront restaurant holding tonight’s reservation.  It’s just 312 steep, rocky, uneven, donkey-dung laden steps down from where we are standing.  We know it’s 312 steps because someone, at some point, painted the step number on the riser of each step.  We know it’s donkey dung because there’s a long line of donkey’s, complete with a team of donkey wranglers.  we’ve hiked worse, we got this.  

At the bottom there’s half a dozen seaside restaurants, and you have to walk through each one to get to the next.  Dimitri’s is the last one in the line, and our table for Santorini’s famous sunset is right on the water.  I mean RIGHT on the water.  I mean if Mandy got out of the left side of her chair, it’s a three-foot drop into the drink, no railing, just edge.  Dinner starts with fried feta, lightly breaded, salty and savory with black and white sesame seeds and honey.  Tomato fritters are next crispy on the outside, sweet and tangy on the inside (I always order anything that ends in fritter!)  Mandy’s timing is rarely an accident, and tonight was well planned for sunset over the sea.  Throughout appetizers, the sunset cruises sailed into the bay laden with sunset cruisers.  Sunset never gets old, and sunset over this water makes you feel happy to be alive.

After the big event, our entrée arrives.  It seems Dimitri’s timing is no accident, either.  We share the local red snapper, cooked 5 feet away on an ancient charcoal pit, split and treated to olive oil, garlic and salt, finished with a big squeeze of fresh lemon.  Plenty of the local house white rounds out our feast. 

Full and happy, we face 312 challenges to get back to the car.  Entrepreneurship is based on opportunity, and here at the bottom is another long line of donkeys.  I ask a one-word question.  “Baby?”  Mandy answers “we already know it’ll be a better story with the donkeys”. The pictures tell the story better than I ever could.

Only slightly traumatized, and still in surprisingly good humor, Mandy dismounts the donkey when the wrangler says “come here, lady” and somehow she ends up on him, then lowered to the ground.  Back in the car, we take the less busy low road, the one right along the beach, home.  Closing the night on our balcony, we watch as clouds pass right by, or, more accurately, right through us.