Keeping Up With The Kerns: September 2011

I know it has been forever ago since we came back from vacation (sad!) But I’ve been super slack on my blog and still have not written about Santorini or Athens. I have a ton of other stuff I need to catch you up on but I can’t leave such a fun trip out of my blog so here you go….

We flew from Rome to Santorini. This was my favorite stop out of the whole trip. We were there 3 nights and 4 days but I literally could have stayed forever. This will probably be a long post because we packed so much into our time in Santorini and had such a great time so there is a lot to write about.

We stayed in the town of Oia at a small boutique hotel, Art Maisons, and we rented the Volcano Villa. The hotel, location and our view were absolutely perfect. All rooms had some sort of ‘theme’ with a balcony or terrace with amazing views. They handled everything from making all of our dinner, car and activity arrangements, to setting up a delicious breakfast on our balcony every morning to making us take shots with them before settling our bill at check-out haha!

our room

cave bed

our balcony

Matt hanging out on the balcony

Balcony view

Before the trip I was very back and forth about what area to stay in Santorini (between Oia or Fira). We spent a lot of time in both areas and both are great. Fira is a bigger town with a huge downtown and a generally more crowded area. It has a pretty big club scene, lots and lots of shopping, restaurants etc. Oia is a much smaller and quiet town, no cars or mopeds are allowed. The only real mode of transportation in Oia are donkeys, and they are everywhere- walking people, luggage, groceries etc. all around town. Oia is not nearly as crowed as Fira (except at sunset when everyone gathers there for the view!) But it does have one long street that is the main area of town with many shops, restaurants and bars that stay open very late. Ultimately, I am very glad we chose Oia. When you see pictures of Santorini and you see the all white buildings with the blue roofs those are usually taken in Oia. It is such a beautiful town and I think it definitely has the most picturesque views in Santorini. If When we return to Santorini, we would definitely stay here again.

Oia

Donkey's walking around in Oia

I knew before I arrived in Santorini that it was an infamous place for sunsets but I did not realize how BIG of a deal it actually was. The sun sets at about 7:30 PM every night. Around 6:45 PM people would start to stake out their spots. One of the reasons we chose the hotel was did was that it has known to have amazing sunset views. We made sure we were always back to our hotel everyday in time for sunset. We had the BEST view from our balcony. We would relax, have some wine and enjoy the sunset. You could see so many people lined up on the stairs all over Oia looking for a great spot to watch it. Before I experienced it, I did not understand the big deal (after living in Clemson we have been spoiled w/ beautiful sunsets!) but the sunsets did not disappoint! The sun would set right over the Caldera and fall behind it with all of the beautiful colors shining. Once it was totally out of site everyone would start cheering, screaming and clapping- it was such a cool experience. Here are some pictures but they do not do it justice…

Sunset from our balcony you can see some people watching from the stairs right outside our room

Sun setting behind the Caldera

Just after sunset

We were lucky enough to catch our last Santorini sunset in a plane on the way to Athens

Here’s how our trip went down:

Day 1:

Santorini Wine Tour- this tour went to 3 wineries in Santorini. I thought it would just be a fun casual tour to travel around the island and drink wine but it was so much more than that. It was so educational and we learned so much about wine in general (esp. the local Santorini white wine). We also were able to buy lots of wine to enjoy for the next 4 days of our stay there.

Our hotel was right in the middle of Oia so we walked around the town and got acquainted with everything. At this point, I had been in Italy for over 15 days and had not had any red meat, only pasta (which was incredible don’t get me wrong but you can only have so much). So for dinner on our first night in Greece I had steak and it was amazing!

on the stairs in front of our room

Day 2:

We rented a smart car convertible and explored the whole island…we had SO much fun on this day. If you are ever in Santorini even for just the day and can only do one thing this is a MUST.

driver...

navigator...

We stopped in the towns of Firostefani, Fira, Perissa, Athinios Port and Prygos.

In Fira, Firostefani and Athinios Port we just walked around, shopped and took photos.

Firostefani

at one point when we got lost

Athinios Port

Pesissa is the black sand beach in Santorini. We went there and had lunch at a beach-side restaurant then just relaxed on the beach for a few hours.

In Pyrgos we stopped at the beautiful Santo Winery for a quick tasting. There was a couple from Ireland getting married there, I’m sure you can see why, it was in such a beautiful location…

We decided to take advantage while we still had our rental car and go to Fira for the night. Fira was pretty hoppin’ at night. We went to dinner, walked around and did some shopping then went and to one of their clubs called, Koo Club. It was a great time!

dinner in Fira

Day 3:

Santorini Boat Tour- There are many boat tours in Santorini, after a lot of research (I’m such a nerd) we chose the Dreamcatcher and I am so glad we did! There were only about 15 people our tour and it was a great group. We stopped at the Red Beach for a swim, then on to the ~~hot springs~~ not so hot springs for another swim stop, the last stop was snorkeling in Amoundi Bay. The staff on the boat was so entertaining and one of them was born in Greece but went to culinary school in Texas. He gave us a quick Greek cooking lesson before serving the lunch he had prepared….yum! The lunch was all traditional Greek food and I will admit at first I was less than excited to try it. Usually you would think lunch on a snorkeling tour would be a boxed sandwich lunch or something like that but it was SO good! The tour ended in Amoundi Bay (which is a port in Oia). The walkway right outside of our hotel room always had donkeys walking up and down them from the ports. So we decided to leave the group and take a donkey back to our room instead of the bus. The donkeys dropped us off right outside of our room…what a cool way to end our tour!

Red Sand Beach

Greek Food lunch...yum!

Our last night in Santorini we had dinner at a restaurant called Santorini Mou. I had read about it on trip advisor, it is more of a local place and I am so glad we went. Matt and I both say it is probably our most memorable part of our whole trip. While the food was great, it was the atmosphere that made it so special. We felt like locals and old friends of everyone there by the time we left. It was all outdoor seating and there was a band playing traditional Greek music at a front table. The singer of the band was also the owner of the restaurant, Mihalis. His wife was always walking around the restaurant with free trays of different shots for everyone, handing them out to all of the tables. There were many locals there as well as tourists. They locals you could tell were all regulars. Whenever the band would play one of their favorite songs they would all get up and dance. They even broke plates during some of their songs! Our waitress asked us if we were there for an occasion and we told her it was an early anniversary trip for us. When she told the owner he pulled up chairs for us at his table with his band and sang us an anniversary song. Then they brought out a bottle of champagne and we all drank it together. Our waitress took our picture and had us sign their “Anniversary Book.” They have thousands of photos us all over the restaurant of all of their customers and celebrities that have eaten there etc. The owner gave us one of their CD’s as a parting gift. I would definitely recommend this restaurant, it felt like such an authentic Greek experience.