Days 4 - 5: Santorini!

Our journey to Santorini began with a 40 min cab ride back to the airport, through dry skies of course, as we were leaving...haha. We grabbed two Meal Deals from the airport BK and paid only $35 for them. Gotta love American fast food abroad at airports...the prices are double the norm and it's pretty crazy folks are willing to pay that. We caught a 1-hr Turkish Air flight from Istanbul to Athens, then during our layover, quickly located the bag storage so we could leave all our Turkish gifts and not lug them to Santorini. We had a 3.5 hr wait until we neede to catch a shuttle bus to the runway to board our flight to Santorini (note: anytime you have to catch a shuttle bus to the runway, it's because you are likely flying a budget airline, or are at a very overcrowded airport). Our tiny little propellar flight was only about 2/3 full, which allowed us to spread out a bit for our short, scenic flight over a few Greek Isles (mostly brown, barren, dirt-covered). Pretty nevertheless, but I think the oft lush Hawaiian Isles might have them beat. ;-)

We landed at the tiniest airport ever (made the one in Kona seem like a massive international airport), and quickly made our way over to pick up our rental car.  I was a little nervous about our next hotel, as it was a bit more remote away from Fira/Oia (the main tourist hubs) in Megalachurri. 

The hotel was perched quite precariously on a steep hillside, overlooking the caldera and sea, and capitalized on the architecture style back in the day (carved out limestone cave dwellings to beat the summer heat). To get to each room involved little winding bridges and paths...which meant each room felt fairly private. 

This was the pathway to our room...

And this was the view from our balcony...

This was the pool view (too chilly for swimming for these Hawaiians), but very pretty

Our room went back deep! It was one of the larger rooms I've ever stayed in...with a full sitting area, a hot tub and the shower 

We were tired from a long day of travel, and opted to order in dinner crash early instead of a late afternoon visit to Thira/Fira. But the next AM, we were up bright and early to have breakfast overlooking the caldera, and the drive the 4-5 min over to Thira/Fira.

We eventually found the main walkway through the tiny village (smaller than expected, and much more zig zagging/confusing to navigate as nearly every small path led to a small little rental). Many of the businesses had closed for the season (which we expected and appreciated, as we hate crowds), so we had largely uncrowded strolls in every direction.

Although the meandering was not easy (hilly, stairs, unmarked, locked gates), you couldn't really get lost with the mountain and the sea to help you get your bearings.

We saw olive trees growing all over the place...pretty cool!

We eventually drove the winding 6-7 miles down to Oia, which was a smaller area to wander, but equally scenic.

I regret that we didn't wander down further to the pier area, but it wasn't very easy to navigate the winding pathways and we sometimes didn't veer much off the beaten path.