Beautiful, but a bit too touristy...

One of the reasons why I decided to include expensive Greece in my "backpacking" trip was because I've always wanted to see the white-washed buildings and blue-domed churches of Santorini. I've drooled over its picture-perfect postcards and posters for many years. With mom chipping in for 85% of the costs during this portion of my trip, why not?!?!?!

Day 1 - We took the slow ferry from Athens. Although the crossing took over 8 hours, it was cheaper than I expected at 27 euros. Plus, we got to see some other islands (OK, I admit that we only saw the ports, but at least we got a sense of what's on offer there. Nothing much, I have to say. Seemed like just lazy, hot beach towns). AND, we had a very scenic entry into Santorini – little white towns dotting the top of dramatic cliffs. How cool!!! I've never seen anything like it before.
The port was in utter chaos when we docked. Good thing I arranged a pick up beforehand. Otherwise, we'd probably be stuck at the port for a loooooong time...
It was late in the afternoon by the time we got ourselves settled at the guest house. For the remainder of the day, we wandered around Santorini's central town of Fira. The place is a complete tourist town. Nothing but hotels, restaurants, and gift shops! But as we kept walking along the edge of the cliff for a while, we caught site of those blue-domed churches : ) They are so cute!!! (I must say that the dust covering the top bugged me a bit though...) Being orthodox churches, we weren't allowed in with our shorts and tank tops. Boooooooo.
After returning to Fira, we grabbed a kebab (it's amazing how you can get a cheap kebab anywhere in Europe!), and watched the sun setting in the ocean. Beautiful sight.

Day 2 – I never knew this before I got to Santorini, but a volcano & hot spring tour is apparently a MUST-DO tourist activity. We signed up for the morning tour on our second day on the island.
The meeting place was at the bottom of the island...some hundreds of cobble-stoned, donkey poop infested stairs down. There was a cable car option, but mom has a policy of “walk down, ride up”. The walk was extremely stinky due to the donkeys, made worse by the summer heat.
Nothing spectacular about the tour, I must say. A dormant volcano is a dormant volcano. Lots of rocks, soft sand, and bare surfaces. The walk up to the crater was a breeze, though, given that it's basically at sea level.
The hot spring, on the other hand, was quite interesting. There's a small area around a rocky beach that's dirty yellow and lukewarm. Smells a bit rusty too. With all the slimy moss (???) growing on the rocks and floating in the water, it definitely wasn't pleasant. Just took a short dip, and we were both out of there. The worst part of it all was that we had to swim like a 100m to get to the spot...getting to the shore was easy, but I nearly drowned on the way back. Waru is a terrible swimmer, often getting panic attacks when there are waves and her feet cannot reach the bottom. (FYI – she did pass the college swimming test with flying colors though!) Anyways, this ocean hot spring was the first for me, but I don't think I'll ever go back. Unless it's in Japan. In my tiny brain, hot springs = Japan.
After we got back from the tour, we took the bus to Oia on the western (I think) edge of the island. It's where a ton of postcard photos are taken...white buildings, blue domes, and windmills. No doubt the place is gorgeous, but it seemed even more touristy than Fira! Is that possible?!?!?! Nonetheless, I had a fantastic time walking through the town – taking great photos and discovering the yummiest milk pie : )

Day 3 – Beach day. Funny because neither of us are big beach people. But the white, red, and black sand beaches are what Santorini is famous for...who could leave without at least seeing them?!
So, we spent the morning at the red beach, and the afternoon at the black. We didn't even have our bathing suits with us! Basically, there's only 1 bus every 1.5 hours to/from the red beach and it takes about 1 hour each way, so a lot of time was consumed by transportation. More frequent buses run for the black beach, but we had to go all the way back to Fira to catch one.
Observations: Red beach has dark red pebbles. Black beach has black sand. I don't know why, but both were below my beach expectations. I think I prefer white sand beaches...
We didn't have the chance to go to the white beach because we didn't feel like chartering a small boat and getting ripped off in the process.
Quite miraculously, I ran into my college classmate at the black beach!!!

Day 4 – By this time, we'd had enough of Santorini. It is only a small island, you know. We had the whole morning to kill, until our late afternoon ferry to Crete. Not having a plan, mom decided that we should go back to the red beach to pick up some pebbles.
Let me clarify....my mom collects rocks/sand from her travels. She wanted to add the red/brown pebbles of the beach to her collection. Begrudgingly, I followed.
It's OK though. We went back to Oia, too, and she bought me another milk pie : )