Mediterranean Cruise - Port 4
Santorini, Greece
October 10, 2011
I had heard so much about Santorini and was really looking forward to our day at this port! Unfortunately, we had rainy, cold weather, but we made the best of it by eating and shopping a lot!
Brian and I had a leisurely morning on the ship and rode a tender to the island, where we could choose to do one of the following:
1) Ride stinky, wet donkeys up a steep hill in the rain
2) Walk up a steep, muddy steep hill covered in donkey poop
3) Pay to ride a gondola
Drum roll....we'll take what's behind door number 3!
When we reached the top, we found several walkways that looked just like this:
So we started to wander from alleyway to alleyway to find stores that struck our interest. There was lots of great shopping in Santorini! I quickly figured out that I had not dressed warm enough for our day on the island, so my shopping priority was to find warmer pants. I quickly found some cute ones on sale and was a happy camper.
We love what we found in this store!
We quickly figured out that if you went into restaurants in certain areas, you could get some great views!!
I want the place with the swimming pool : )
As I came to realize that sun was not going to be in the cards for us today, my goal quickly became to experience some delicious traditional Greek food and drinks.
This place was a great start : ) YUM - gyros!!
Rejuvenated from gyro deliciousness, Brian and I continued our walk.
We ran into Janet and Stefan again and had a lot of fun shopping for jewelry. Turns out Santorini has some pretty expensive stuff. We were tempted but did not cave. Instead, we went for happy hour at this pub!
Where there were funny sayings like this on the walls...hahaha
I still felt like our Santorini experience was lacking something, so we asked a couple of shop keepers where they like to eat, which is how we landed here!
It was a tiny restaurant tucked into a strange part of town, but we LOVED it. We ordered a bunch of traditional Greek appetizers and some delicious wine. It was the perfect end to our rainy, cold day in Santorini.
The cruise ship was having the typical cruise luau party at sunset, but we figured we'd get a MUCH better view of the sunset from the top of Santorini. So we staked out a spot on a westward facing balcony and waited for the magic. While waiting, the donkeys made their way home after a long day of work, hauling cheap tourists up a muddy hill. Poor donkeys...I don't look very sympathetic though.
Gorgeous sunset!
As we rode back to the ship in a tender, this was our view
Despite the bad weather, we had a great time in Santorini and accomplished our dietary goals!
