Good morning/afternoon/evening.
Picking up where I left off from my last blog; if you do Sail Croatia- maybe don’t fly directly to the Greek Islands, or anywhere for that matter, the next day. You’ll hardcore hate your life. As we did.
Our first couple of days in Santorini were unfortunately not highlights of the trip, thanks to the splendid two day hangover and Croatian Cough we picked up. I mean, to be fair, there’s worse places in the world than a sun lounge on Perissa beach to spend your day when sick as a dog, but it could have been a lot nicer if not ill. The 2€ gyros (delightful invention of kebabs with meat and chips) helped us through the difficult times.
We eventually perked up a couple of days later and were well and truly ready to see what Santorini had on offer.
Everyone had told us to hire some ATV’s to see all of Santorini, and they could not have been more right. We spent two days riding around the island with the perfect scenery accompanying us everywhere we went. The photo below is essentially what we had to look at when driving between towns. Just revolting really.
On the first ATV day, we drove from Perissa (where we stayed and where they had the best damn gyros Greece had to offer) to the Red Beach, to Thira and finally to Oia, where we had the most perfect sunset view as we enjoyed dinner. Oia is the super aesthetic part of the island, so obviously it was incredible to see. We visited it both days and couldn’t get enough of the stunning cliff views.
On our second day, we booked in for a volcano and hot springs afternoon. Walking on the volcano was awesome because it was active, and you could feel how hot the earth was underground through little cracks in the ground. Santorini used be a lot bigger before the volcano went nuts and erupted a few times way back when… I’m obviously really good with facts and remember all the names, dates and important information told to us on our tours.
Anyway after the volcano we headed to the hot springs. I wish we were told before we were about to jump in to not wear light coloured bathers. My swimmers turned brown and were sadly a bin job. RIP. That aside, the springs were cool but not as hot as we were expecting, and you had to swim back through regular ocean anyway to get back to the boat, so that was chilly.
After the tour we went to Oia one more time to be fancy, had a drink there, then enjoyed a perfect dinner of gyros and salad in our room back in Perissa!
From Santorini it was onto Ios, aka party town.
We stayed at Far Out Beach Club, the centre of party town. Unfortunately (or fortunately if you’re not a big party gal, like myself) we arrived at the end of the season, so the place wasn’t pumping as much as it usually is. This just meant we had more opportunity to actually enjoy the island, the private beach, and the beach club.
Ios is the ideal place to RELAX, drink and party. I’ve never felt as relaxed as I have when staying in Ios. The Greeks there were also so welcoming and nice and it was pretty much impossible to have a bad time. Two of our friends from Sail, Dane and Bryce, joined us on our second day in Ios and added to the good times.
As I mentioned, it was the end of season, so yes it was quiet most of the time, and the wet t-shirt comp on our second day there was cancelled (v happy about that, didn’t need that) but, the staff who had spent their summers working on the island threw a massive staff party at Far Out on our third day, and we got to join in. It was sick, and the DJ legitimately mixed the Harry Potter soundtrack into one of his songs, so naturally I lost my mind.
The next morning was spent at Harmony for brunch for the third day in a row (excellent acai bowls if you’re into that kind of thing, pictured above) with our kiwi friends, and then just like that our time on the Greek Islands sadly came to an end.
I could probably do another blog about how HORRENDOUS our afternoon/evening/next morning was getting from Ios to Budapest VIA Santorini and Rome, but no one needs that kind of negativity in their life. Just know that Santorini ‘airport’ is an absolute shimozzle (maybe correct spelling, who knows?) with zero communication, zero facilities and the worst track record for getting flights to leave on time ever, and there is only one waiting gate for all passengers that is nowhere near big enough, and the power went out three times… so just save yourself a shitload of pain, and fly from Athens. Ferry to Athens. Fly from Athens. ATHENS.
Bye bye!
Love,
Kelly x
