Days 6-7 - Santorini & Milos

Day 6 - Santorini

Our last day in Santorini and time for "the big walk."  We had all agreed the night before to a moderately early wake-up so we could do the (“top 10 things to do in Santorini”) walk from Fira to Oia, which is about 10.5km or 6.5ish miles.  The goal was to head out early to avoid the heat of the day and make it back to our hotel in time to make our Ferry.  We packed everything, checked out of our hotel, and began the hike.  We started in Imerovigli rather than Fira since we knew there was an entry point near the Skaros Rock path near our hotel, which (thankfully) cut about a mile off the hike. 

The first part of the hike was wonderful.  It was on the West side of the island and so we walked completely in shade, and it was all through the white cliffside hotels which are just beautiful. Maybe not if you are staying in them since each one has a “private” pool which a million people are walking by; but they are nice.  

We are aiming for the white at the very end on the left of the picture

Still happy

Fira/Imerovigli and Oia are all located on the highest parts of the island, which means that to get from one to the other, you must walk down to the road and then back up again.  That part of the hike, while very beautiful from a caldera perspective, was also in the sun and hot hot hot and on a steep rocky path. 

Up up up

Down down down

Up up up

Interspersed along the path were various churches – all white or white with blue domes.  I’m not sure if they are actively used – generally they seem small and hard to get to, but they are everywhere.  At one of the churches, we bumped into a guy walking in the other direction and noticed a 2016 Cubs World Series tattoo on his arm.  We high fived Chicago, celebrated his and his in-laws wedding anniversaries (they were all home sleeping), and carried on.  I love these little interactions when we travel – I always stop to chat with people if they are willing to chat back.  We’ve met some interesting characters along the way!

Church in the middle of nowhere

By about the 2.5 hour mark, I could tell Lauren & Damon were “done” with the hike – the distance, the terrain, and the heat.  Not much we could do about it, but eventually (5.6 miles and 3 hours later), we started weaving through the white cliffside hotels of Oia.  

Ammoudi Bay and our cliff jumping rock in upper left!

Oia was significantly more crowded than Imerovigli.  Most certainly the heaviest tourist area we had seen so far.  We happened into what I assume is the main tourist drag – a fully marble walkway, narrow, with only one line of traffic in either direction, and restaurants and shops lining both sides.  We picked one of the first caldera facing cafes we came across and settled in for cold drinks and lunch. 

Before leaving Oia, we wanted to see the famous three blue domed churches.  Now the funny thing is, there are blue dome churches EVERYWHERE.  Why these three are so special is something I have yet to research.  In any case, we were pretty sure we knew where they were because we could see a group of tourists all leaning over a railing taking pictures – a sure sign there is something to see.  We tried to head toward said railing, but you can’t really see where you are going – there are tons of people and tiny little pathways that may or may not lead to anything.  We found one little pathway and realized we made it just to the other side of the three domes and despite Damon being thoroughly annoyed with the slow-moving single-laned crowds, we made him back track to try to find the right path.  We tried one more and had gone too far back and there was a building in the way.  I had used up Damon’s patience and we were at our deadline for heading back to the hotel, so while we DID in fact see the three blue domed churches, we saw them from the less spectacular back side.  Typical for us.

Backside of the three famous blue domed churches

We made our way to the bus station to catch a taxi back to our hotel, spent about an hour chilling by the pool waiting on our taxi, and then went back to the main port to catch a Speedjet Ferry to our next island, Milos.  The Ferry was not what I was expecting – the last time I took a Ferry to Greece was in 1988.  It was a huge, slow moving boat with tons of outdoor space, lounge chairs, etc.  Things have changed – we were on a “Speedjet” high speed Ferry.  The inside looked like an airplane and they just loaded us like cargo with a seating free-for-all.  We left our luggage outside on the back of the boat so not surprisingly, we picked up our bags covered in salt.  Despite the strange boarding process, all in all, it was quite comfortable, and we were in Milos in about 2 hours.

We had a ride waiting to take us to our hotel, which was about 2 minutes away. Our hotel is an awesome little apartment/suite with two bedrooms and a full kitchen.  We unpacked and walked back to town and had a great dinner on the water.  Milos is significantly smaller that Santorini, from what we can see.  Smaller, slow moving, and no crowds.  We like it.  After dinner, we went back to our hotel for another good sleep.

Daddy daughter dinner

Postscript – at some point during the day, we learned about the earthquake in Crete and realized that what Damon & Lauren felt yesterday in Santorini, was, in fact, an earthquake.  I’m a little bummed because I felt nothing, and it was my very first quake.  Oh well.

Day 7 – Milos

Hard to believe we’ve been at this for a week!  Following a quick breakfast in our room, we walked back to the port for our pick-up for a full day cruise around the island.  We had received a note from the tour company warning us that due to unusually high winds, we would not be able to hit all the hotspots and we would be limited to the Southern side of the island.  Much like Santorini, Milos is sort of crescent shaped and it is surprisingly about the same size, if not even a little bit bigger, but with a significantly smaller permanent population.  We were hoping that the winds would not be too bad on the back side.  I don’t know much about Milos at this point – we are renting a car and touring around, so more details to come.

The shuttle dropped us at a beach where our sailboat was docked.  We motored over in a dinghy and our guide let me “drive” it all the way to the ship – woot woot.  Our ship was at max capacity with ten passengers.  Two other Americans, two French, two from Denmark and one from London.  We headed out once everyone was on board.  Almost immediately, we were hit with crazy winds.  

Too windy for the sails

Interestingly (and thankfully), the way the winds came off the island, there were no big waves, just crazy strong wind.  We made our first stop at a beach and were given the option to jump off the boat and swim around – only half the people did it.  The other half, including us, decided it was way to windy and cold to swim to shore.  That being said, we did find time to laze about the boat and enjoy the sun!

Natural born yachter

Boater babes

We cruised for another hour or two and the wind was rough.  The sun was out but the wind on top of an occasional splash made hanging out on the front of our sailboat hard to take.  Eventually, most of us made our way to the back of the boat where it was somewhat protected.  I think everyone was a little bit bummed since we had all signed up for this amazing 9-hour experience.  But then… we found our way into a tiny little cove called Kleftiko.  Kleftiko is a protected cove, it has clear crystal blue water, and a bunch of little caves.  We tied up with two other sailboats from the same company and we all had the opportunity to snorkel around while half the group went in the dinghy to tour the caves.  Our group was swim/snorkel first.  The water was pleasant, there was no wind, and wow was it clear.  We played for a little while and then got back on the boat to relax in the sun and dry off.

Actual water color in the sun!

Chillin

Soon, it was our group’s turn to take the dinghy ride through the caves.  Apparently, the caves were used by pirates back in the day – they were certainly small enough for little boats and we were able to get out and swim in some of them.  

The water was just ridiculously clear.  At one point, we were given the option for another cliff jump with three jump levels – one was about 5’, one was about 18’ and the highest was about 24’.  We had to scramble up (barefoot) these really sharp rocks.  Damon jumped from level 1 – TWICE!  Lauren jumped from level 2, and of course since our tour guide told me he didn’t think I would ever do it, I jumped from the highest level – slightly more graceful this time around, but I forgot to plug my nose and pretty much had saltwater in my brain.

Level 3!

Level 2

During one cave stop, our tour guide, familiar with “the ‘gram”, had Lauren pose for about 500 pictures which he fully directed.  Damon and I videotaped the entire process.  Directions were “lean back” “lean forward” “play with your hair” “look to the side” “look up”  “look down” “get on the rock” “get off the rock”… you get the picture. 

Behind the scenes

The 'gram pic

We visited a few more caves and then had the option to swim about 100 meters back to the boat, which Damon & I did, earning us a much-deserved huge Greek lunch.  We hung out on the boat for a bit longer since it was really the only stop we could make with the winds blowing full force, but even being limited to the one stop, the day was amazing.  Pretty much everyone was hunkered down at the back of the boat on the way back, but we had a good little group and we all had an amazing time.

We shuttled home, took showers, and then walked to a local taverna for dinner.  The food here has been amazing and the wine flows freely at darn near every meal.  Can’t complain about that!

Random thoughts... there are cats roaming the streets everywhere.  We’ve been to other countries where dogs run the roads, but here, it is cats.  They just sort of lazily roam around and they are not at all afraid of people – always looking for food handouts, but never in an annoying or aggressive way.  They snake around your legs at restaurants since nearly all seating is outdoors.  They generally seem clean which is good, because Lauren is a little bit obsessed with all of them!  I will say that some of them have very interesting markings since I’m guessing they are all “mutt” cats.  No dogs, on the other hand – we’ve seen a few roaming the streets, but the crazy thing about the dogs is that they all belong to someone.  Every dog we’ve seen on the street has a collar and tags.  It seems that people chain their dogs up outside (not a fan), but then at night, they let the dogs just roam and assume that they will eventually come home.  This theory was proved out in Santorini when we bumped into the dog that had been chained up next door to our hotel on two different nights – just out for a casual stroll. 

And that closes out another fantastic day in Greece.