Santorini bus tour : ending with Sunset at Oia

The previous post on this series is here..

First.. our own Sangeetha Kaif walking down the famous steps.. 

oh wait? who is that dude? My god, she is married?

now what is that? She has two grown up kids as well? say what?!

Let's just keep the pretty lady in the pic! 

Sunset in Oia was a hit and miss. The clouds moved in. There was going to be no sun visible. The possibility of a glorious sunset like the one we saw at Poseidon's temple.. was not going to happen. It was going to rain possibly for the night and the next. Still golden hour is golden hour and we got amazing family photos.

We had to stand in a long line to get to this famous photo spot, which happens to be someones backyard on the hills in Oia village. This is their walking path! How or why it became a famous photo spot and when, we don't know! All we know is that Hindi actress Katrina Kaif runs around this place in movies .. other famous actresses might have shot in same location as well.. my wife and MIL have the exact details. 

My promise was to find this location and get pictures in that spot at sunset! Mission accomplished to the best of my ability given I cannot control the clouds. Then messed it all up with some indecisiveness. For some strange reason, picked up a faint orange tinge in the clouds and thought, maybe, maybe the sun will peak out and create magic. The rest of the family was pretty sure that everything was done and dusted. The little one was hungry and I made everyone walk back and forth for no reason for a good 15 minutes. 

To top things off, we had to make a dash to the bus stop below the hill before that dude was going to take off!

We did get a few more photos..

We were all happy one moment and pissed off within 20 minutes. Finally we made it to the bus when it was still bright. There were folks who got off in Oia and were not going back to Fira and that confused our guide and driver. So we lost some time in that but eventually the bus made it back to Fira and dropped off people in different hotels on the way. 

The approach road was jammed! So our driver took a roundabout route and eventually got us in. We were starving. The kids had noticed a restaurant called Convivium.. so we went there to the rooftop to get seated. Somehow the staff there didn't think we were their customer material and were hell bent on sending us out. We did not feel welcome and walked out. Very rare for us to walk out of restaurants after sitting down. 

Eventually we wandered back to the main street in Fira and they got something to go at the McDonalds! I ate fries and made Maggi. That was good enough after a long day! Maggi noodles has become comfort food for me and the little one now!

We were just exhausted after that and crashed. We had one more day in Santorini as a local sightseeing day before flying off.. even planning for it was put off till next morning!

A very short video of our time at Oia.

A Bus tour in Parts - Emporio and Perissa Black sand beach

The previous post in this series is here..

After the ruins our next stop was the largest village in the middle of Santorini island called Emporio. It included a small castle, beautiful small walkways (that reminded me of the Galli's of Varanasi) and a village center with a rebuilt Church.

This all blue and white combination gave us the best family pictures on this trip.. 

we had a good laugh over this sign..there was a lot of potential at this place.. but a lot of hard work to be done.. given my history of house remodeling projects, the family kept mocking me for a good 10 minutes..

fortunately we arrived at the next photo spot 

The whole place seemed to be desolate with no inhabitants (a few of these old places are now Airbnb's apparently) but we did not see a single resident in that walk. 

After touring the old Emporio area, we walked back down and headed to Perissa. Saw this "cheese" church on the way down!

There is a beautiful black sand beach here and a lot of eating places around the beach. If you eat in a restaurant, they let you use the beach umbrellas for free (in some cases 10 Euros).

We observed that most of the folks who were waiters and ushers in these restaurants were Syrian. There is some Syria Greek connection we don't know about. These folks were extremely nice and kept making jokes and made us laugh as we tried to decide our lunch location..

it was a bad idea to go into the water after a heavy lunch.. but went into the water with the kids for a good 30 minutes. That was part of the tour and the break. Almost everyone in our group had someone from the family go into the water as the rest of the party sat on the reclining chairs and were taking photos of their feet while sipping drinks!

Jr. ventured into the water with me (as did the little one for some time) and took pics of me doing yoga poses on rocks. One of these is very slippery and I got my legs cut up in a few places.. 

It was a pleasant afternoon, thanks to the clouds!

Post water, we had some yummy ice cream and we drove off to our next stop! 

 

We said bye to Aquarius and started back on the bus tour to the next stop..

saw more churches and blue domed houses on the way..

A short video of this segment of the trip..

The next stop was a drive up the hill to the tallest point on the other side of the island with a lot of weird history!

A bus tour in parts - Akrotiri : Caldera rim view, red sand beach and historic site

The previous post on this series is here..

On our second day in Santorini, we had booked an all day tour of the island. If you have only one day in Santorini, just do this tour. Apparently this is not news. There are cruise ships that dock in Santorini. The tourists get off the ship and go straight to this bus tour.. almost a 1000+ people. Puts a huge surge in the population at breakfast time as some of them try to grab food before getting on the bus.. (same thing happens when you get dropped off!). 

So to beat that, we went for an early breakfast and waited for the bus to pick us up. They were on time and off we went. Viator really rocked this tour! Recommend you book this well in advance like we(San) did! She got 110/100 for booking this!!

My own Blue Angels.. they all looked so pretty and happy that I was glad to be at their bidding for anything they asked for..

We started with a ride along the rim to see the caldera to the ancient city of Akrotiri.

This is one of my best clicks of San on this entire trip.. so including it in the blog as it will get printed as part of the blog book.

There were two options given the time we stopped there:

a. walk half a mile to the red sand beach and walk back (part of the path to the beach had caved in and was dangerous) 

b. walk right out of the bus stop and see the excacation site of what was probably Atlantis before the volcano covered it. 

We decided to go to the beach with half the group. The other half of the bus went to the site. There is also a nice cafeteria outside the site and good restrooms. 

It was already hot and bright. So me and Jr. bought blue sunglasses to match everything else..

we learned that all buildings had to be blue and white in Santorini or they are fined!

Spent 15 minutes in the beach which was really nice.

I went from "not getting the memo" to the Bluest guy from head to toe over the two days!

this is the caved in section of the walk.. you have to cross this to go to the beach. if you are not able bodied, don't risk it and block the rest of the folks trying to make it into the beach below and back! 

Even the locals were proud of my blue at this point!

A pretty girl I saw on the beach..

Then we walked back. We still had 30 minutes. So I decided to make a run for it and also see the excavation site while the rest of them walked back. 

The run wearing wet Bata chappals paid off. Rushed to get tickets and walked through the entire site while clicking pictures of the boards and the site and made it back to the bus with 1 minute to spare. The rest of the folks were giving me the look, but once I explained that I saw both.. they were impressed!

The excavation site deserves a post in itself, but given that my blog backlog is growing.. have added a slide show of this massive complex. This is mind blowing. 2 storied buildings which date back 8000 years ago. Someone is doing something wrong in our history books.

Look at the pictures and you will start wondering why our timelines are messed up!

A video clip of this segment of the trip..

After this we were off to our next stop.. this was a 10 hour thing which ended up being much longer including the pickup and drop off. .  

As the day went by it just got better and better..

The magnificent Acropolis

The previous post on this series is here..

Day 2 morning was spent on a city bus tour (which ended up being a repeat for San and me of what we saw on the hop on hop off bus tour the previous day). We have learned to love these Viator tours of cities. The guides are decent, we can leave stuff in the bus as it is safe, we get to meet other folks for the day and have them take your pictures as you take theirs..and also learn about their experiences in the same city if they had reached a day or two earlier. A lot less stress for me as I don't have to drive!

The exception compared to previous day, was we got down to take pictures at a few spots like the stadium where they had the Olympics.

Then we spent the rest of the morning at the Acropolis museum followed by a walk to the top of the Acropolis itself from the museum.

You end up walking on thick glass floors where you can see two or three layers of excavated sites below. In Athens, anywhere you dig, you will find history! This is one amazing place if you love history!

There is a fantastic view of the theater as we walk up. As a FOB grad student, got introduced to Yanni.. folks used to tell me I look like him when there was the long hair phase. Had all his records and had watched him perform live at the Acropolis! walking past this brought back memories of listening to Yanni in Philadelphia!

Here is a tip if you are visiting Athens even in September. Take an umbrella. There is not much vegetation in this place. Only Olive trees grow here and while they may be few hundred years old, they are 8 feet tall, tops, for the most part! Not much in terms of shade, unless you hide behind the statues and pillars here and there!

It is still pretty hot in Athens in September. Take your water bottles with you!

The walk up to the acropolis was crazy. We estimated at least 5000+ people on the steps and another 5000 at the top! Apparently we went off season and usually the wait to go up is 2 hours! We made it in 35 minutes. 

Walking under the majestic gate of the Acropolis was an experience in itself. All those traders that had docked below would have had to walk up the same steps. They must have just been floored by that entrance gate! You have to see it to believe it!

The Acropolis is just magnificent. The scale of it on top of that hill is just amazing. Couldn't help but feel a similarity between the Greeks and Indians when it came to their pride of history, their array of damaged and vandalized monuments by invaders or war, their best stuff all in the British museum!

Given the crowd, taking photos was challenging! We did get a great view of the entire city from the vista point.

Here is photo vs reality.

Greek tour guides take their jobs very seriously. Maybe they are all teachers doing a part time gig was the joke as we walked around. They have pages of notes, then they quiz you after explaining things, and even ask some folks in the group "Now, did you understand that?". Some of the kids in the group were like "if we wanted to be in school, we wouldn't have come on this vacation now, would we?". Enjoyed the history lesson as an adult. 

On the way down we stopped at a park looking place with a statue of a famous greek singer. That place was nice and cool and it was a welcome break before our bus ride back to Syntagma square. 

A video highlights reel..

Then we had to find lunch. Every place was booked solid with a waiting line to be seated. Stomach acid does not bode well for 50% of the family, so we all scattered and finally found a place to eat! The dry heat had gotten to us all. So after that lunch we decided to take a nap back in the rooom and venture out late evening!

A trip to Greece

The kids are now both in college. We wanted a family trip before they went off, given new schedules. 

So we took two days off post the labor day long weekend and decided to visit Greece. It was a quick trip with tickets on Turkish airlines. San has taken a liking to Turkish airlines after her previous India trip on this airline.. My guess is all those hours of watching Turkish soap operas has had an influence as well. In any case, we flew in and out of SFO to Athens with a stop at Istanbul. Both sets of flights were nice! We actually got vegetarian food pre booked. That helped!

It was a quick trip given the travel time. Two days in Athens, Two days in Santorini and that was it.

Needless to say, there are two opposing points of view in our house. As a child I wanted to see the world but given how we grew up, had to wait for a long time to start traveling. Going to Pallavaram from Mylapore was a vacation trip. Given our kids are growing up way better off, want them to see the world for real, instead of in National Geographic magazine. So we push for all these trips. The kids on the other hand just want to say put in their bedrooms. Sleeping in their "own beds" is something they cherish. Guess college beds are of low quality? The usual feedback is "leave us alone! we just want to relax and rest at home". 

We can be persuasive to say the least. So off we went and packed the trip with non stop activities which invovled a lot of walking on a daily basis to see things on all four days. 

Never got to blog about this trip before given the hectic work schedule that followed right after coming back. Blogging took a break. Given we have already finished our next internaltional trip this week, time to capture what little remains in my memory of that trip in photos, words and videos!

Given the time difference, we pretty much lose a day for traveling in. Once we landed in Athens and got out of the airport, it was almost 8PM. San had done her research and found that a taxi to Syntagma square (where our Air BnB was) would take an hour and the public bus system would take us there for 6 euros a ticket right from the airport. So we walked to the bus stop and took this bus 95, if I remember it right. It took 55 minutes to get to the square. From there we walked with our four carry ons and backpacks (we mandated one carry on per person so there is no waiting at airports, we can all fit in one Uber if necessary.. these are new travel policies that have been implemented and they work for us now!)

We had a nice apartment one block behind the square which had an amazing view of the Acropolis with the night lighting! We pretty much went to bed after the long journey. 

The next morning, we were treated to amazing views from our window!

The girls had booked a "cooking class". I had only vaguely heard about this in passing. So it was a shock to me that the first thing they wanted to attend a full morning class. We were to drop them at 9 AM and pick them up at 1:30 in the afternoon. The place was called "The greek kitchen". We had breakfast in the square on the way at an amazing place called Zoubourlou. The food and service was amazing. Sadly the kids had to rush off to class and San and me packed the rest of the breakfast to go! Strongly recommend this place for an early breakfast. The pancakes they made for me and the hot cocoa were amazing! The family loved the vegetarian pies!

Then the kids walked off to find their place. We tried to use maps to find them so we could get our phone back. Turned out they were already on a walk to the market place with the Chef's to buy the items for the cooking.

We saw a large group of budding chefs including ours and quietly grabbed our phones from them. That is when we realized that the two of us had time to kill by ourselves. My recommendation was to go on a hop on hop off bus tour and we took it. It starts at Syntagma square and has 15 stops on the way. Takes 2 hours and is 20 Euros a person. We sat on the top deck and enjoyed views of all the city sights.

Got myself a new Athens cap! It was already too hot early in the morning!

We did not get off the bus at all. We were going to see some of these places the next day in detail. The headphones they give on the bus didn't have enough volume to understand anything that was being said. So we just watched and took pictures.

At the end of the trip we decided to stop in the old market square in Monastiraki. We also found a pizza and pasta place and had a nice lunch! 

Once the kids had finished their cooking and eating what they cooked (we were not invited, so they got some leftovers packed for San to taste.. it was interesting to see stuff wrapped in grape leaves!). All four of us then went shopping in the square for a short time.

the place is called the Agora flea market.. we loved walking through the shops!

There was a custom T-shirt shop that caught my interest and I got shirt with the Pythogras theorem on it! 

Then it got pretty hot for early September! So we came back to the hotel and got an hours rest before our evening program. 

A video compilation for the first part of day 1..

The good news is that we were all still smiling as we hit the elevator back to the apartment!

Our next action was an all evening to late night tour to the temple of Poseidon. That post follows..