Santorini

Happy Friday! Here are the pics from Santorini....so pretty!

From Athens, we took a highspeed ferry to the island of Santorini. It was still a 4 hour ride, but much better than the 9 hour ferry! Daniel's travel extravaganza had to end in Athens, so he flew back to London while we floated our way to the island. 

We were really surprised with how nice the ferry was. It was very spacious and even had a little store in it. 

We were able to walk around, but unfortunately could only go outside when the boat was stopped. We had one stop before Santorini, so we went outside to take pics of the lil island. 

Once we arrived to Santorini, we had to pick up our awesome clown car. It's a good thing Daniel wasn't with us- there's no way he could have fit! And the roads were so narrow, I don't think we would have been able to drive a larger car! Our host rented our car for us, and it was only 25 euros a day! We were so happy we had a car. Santorini is a small island, but too large to walk everywhere. We literally saw the whole island with a car! 

Considering there were NO street signs, NO addresses, NO maps, we found our flat relatively quickly! We stayed in the village of Pygros, and I think we were really happy we stayed there versus the more popular Fira or Oia. There were enough restaurants and shops to keep us busy, but it had a very local feel.

    

Our house was crazy nice. Like, it could have been on MTV cribs. It was a newly restored house meant to look like a cave house, and it just felt so...Greek! 

This is from our rooftop terrace. We could see the WHOLE north side of the island. It was truly incredible. 

The sunsets were worthy of applause. We had a great view from our hot tub (that we could never manage to get hot!). Side note- Santorini was warm during the day, but downright chilly at night! 

Donkey tours are a thing in the main villages, but in Pygros, they were just a part of the culture. This (barefoot) man was moving rocks up and down the windy streets in Pygros. We glared at us when we took his picture. 

There were SO many beaches, and all of them beautiful. The majority of them were black sand/ stone beaches. And that sand was scorching! But the water was cool enough to keep us from getting too hot (and it was crystal clear).

There was also a red beach there. But it was a hike down, so we just took a picture then left! 

And ohhhh the wineries. They were just great. The first one we went to was family owned and over a century old. Those barrels were I believe 80 years old. And to try wine, it was only 90 cents! This one was our favorite.

You stomp on the grapes where the table is, then is flows out into the well. It gets filtered through the woven basket. And if we would have come later in the year, we could have stopped by and helped them stomp! I have a new dream: to work at a winery in Santorini. 

Grapes were all over Santorini- they grew wildly. I tried one, but it was super sour. Give it a couple of months, and I'm sure it would have been delicious! 

This picture cracks me up. Nanette is REALLY contemplating the complexities of her Visanto (a really delicious sweet wine only in Santorini) and I....I don't even know what I'm doing.  Nearly every place we went to for a drink or to wine taste would give us a snack to go with it, which is really surprising when you think about how inexpensive a drink was. I believe it was 4 euros a glass of wine at this place, and it came with greek yogurt with a fruit compote over it and bread. Yum! 

This winery was probably our second favorite. It was also family run and nearly 200 years old! The grounds were stunning as well. 

They gave us 7 full glasses of wine to all try as a group. And guess what- I'm the only one who really likes wine. So I had A LOT of wine at 11 in the morning. 

This winery also sundried their own tomatoes and then make it into tomato sauce. They let us try some, along with their home grown cucumber (sweeter than the variety we are used to- almost tasted like honey dew). All of the wineries were just so quaint and accommodating to us! 

And if you are like me and need more than just a sip of wine, you go to the grocery store and fill up a 1.5 liter plastic water bottle with your cheap wine- straight from the barrel! Every large grocery store had something like this. We REALLY need to bring this concept to Texas. 

As I said previously, the restaurants and bars really treat their patrons with utmost respect. They are all family run- the papa is at the door greeting customers, the children are your waiters, and the momma is the cook! At this restaurant, they brought us a whole bottle of some sort of liquor they made themselves to start us off, and then when we were done, brought us ANOTHER bottle of the liquor, along with brownies. That stuff was strong and pretty gross. But we didn't want to be rude! So we mixed it with diet coke that Nanette had stashed away in her purse. Towards the end of the meal, we were taking shot left and right of this liquor. I am cracking up just thinking about it!

The shopping was fantastic in Santorini- so many locally made items, and it wasn't too pricey. After a winery, we stumbled across a little leather shop. It's a man and wife business, and the husband was hand making shoes as we walked in. I think we all ended up with leather shoes, belts, or bracelets. 

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I regret not buying one of those wind chimes! ARGGGG! 

There's also an archaeological site on the island. The ruins are from a village that was destroyed by a volcano in 2000 BC! The ash from the volcano preserved the ruins perfectly. Those vases are all still intact- some were found with old food in it. Because they didn't find any people, they believe that the villagers escaped...most likely to have gotten killed by a tsunami that came after the volcano.

    

I really, really loved Santorini. It was the perfect place to go to for relaxation. Although it seems like we did so much, there really wasn't much to do on the island other than layout, shop, and drink wine- my personal paradise!

Also, I was pleasantly surprised with how non-touristy Santorini felt. Don't get me wrong, everyone there treated us so nicely....but the island just had an authentic feel to it, and I was expecting more of a resort island.

And that concluded our Bond family travels! We had an unforgettable 2 weeks together, and I'm thankful we were all able to explore Europe together! OK, next update will be about Prague with my brother....stay tuned!

Athens

Hi everybody! I hope you are ready to sit back and look at my Athens pictures...they turned out amazing! Much better than my normal cell phone pics (these are almost all pictures that David took). 

Athens was not quite what we all expected it to be. Well, Daniel and I went with somewhat low expectations. We'd heard that Athens was a bit rougher than most other cities we'd been to. If you go to Athens, just know it is a modern yet economically disadvantaged city that, yes, has ruins, but also has loads of graffiti, beggars, stray dogs, etc. With that being said, our pictures make it look like a beautiful city, and parts of it were! But I think it was a shock going from beautiful, picturesque Rome to Athens. 

The first day, we checked into our awesome flat (love airbnb!) and then walked up Filopappos Hill to get an incredible view of the acropolis.

There were tons of stray dogs in Athens, yet they all seemed to be taken care of. I later learned that the government vaccinates and I believe neuters the stray dogs in Athens. So at least they are somewhat cared for! They were all really sweet and would follow us around everywhere. I wish I could have brought one home!

The next day, we did the whole Acropolis and all of the ruins that are included with your ticket. Towards the end of the day, we were definitely ruined-out! It all started to look the same. Not to mention, it was pretty hot there!

The acropolis is constantly under construction. In fact, the majority of it is actually a model. Most of the real stones are in the British museum!

At this building, there were tons of security guards and several nicely dressed Chinese people being filmed. We later found out it was the Chinese prime minister! And he was staying at a hotel on our street, so we had lots of police and security guards around our area. 

                    

matching bros in their new jerseys! 

We loved the shopping in Greece- it wasn't too expensive, and it was easy to find souvenirs that weren't generic and tacky. We walked around the little neighborhood of Plaka and the flea market, looking at handmade leather goods, jewelry, and foods to take back with us. 

OH! And Kristen and I got our feet eaten by fish. I felt totally fine about it before getting started, until I had my feet over the water and the lil fishies were swarming the top, jumping out in excitement to gnaw at my feet. And then the feeling of them nibbling was pretty creepy. But after awhile, we got used to it and enjoyed! But no, my feet weren't as smooth as I hoped for them to be. I'll stick with a pumice stone.

More ruins......I think these were the last we saw and I was over it at that point.

We had a really nice restaurant near our flat called Smiles. We ended up eating there two nights in a row! They had the best gyros we had ever had, and it was all really inexpensive. They also had little white rocks that you could decorate while waiting for your food. It was a nice place to sit outside, enjoy the breeze, and watch the world cup.

Really, the food and drinks were very tasty and inexpensive in all of Athens. Like Rome, you could get a liter of wine for 6 euros or less. And I loved the Greek wine (really, I like all wine)! 

A sweet kitty became our friend while eating lunch one day. We quickly learned why you don't feed the stray animals in Athens! Towards the end of our dinner, she was nearly sitting on the table trying to eat off our plates. Yuck! 

We had a great time being together in Athens, but it's definitely not a place I need to go back to. We were there for 3 nights, and by our 2nd full day we were running out of things to do. Next post will most likely be about Santorini....and then I need to write about my brother visiting!