Following Crete, it was time to vamanos for Santorini – my first excursion to a Greek island other than Crete (not counting an afternoon trip with Will in a rented plane many years ago). Now that I’ve done some island hopping, I can’t figure out why I didn’t do it before. It’s so easy – like taking a ferry to Sausalito, but seeing as the tickets are priced in Euros I had to take out a second loan on my car to pay for the ticket.
Shameless sunset teaser shot of Santorini… While I wasn’t thoroughly impressed with Santorini as a relaxation destination, the views and photographic opportunities were truly amazing!
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My Santorini adventure kicked off with a late-evening bus trip to from Chania to Heraklion – a city regarded as one where you should spend as little time as possible. Had it been possible to take a morning bus to connect directly to my ferry, I would have – but it wasn’t!
I had hoped that Heraklion would offer a copious selection of pensions and rooms for rent (as had Chania). Sadly, this wasn’t the case, and I spent two hours lugging my suitcase (yes, I’m a dork and can’t hang with the true backpackers) around the city. Failing to find a suitable (read: cheap) room for rent, I finally turned up on the doorstep of the seediest hotel I remembered seeing while walking – very probably not coincidentally located adjacent to the bus station. This had the annoying side-property of taking me full-circle after 2 hours of walking Heraklion. Nevertheless, I think I can actually recommend the “Hotel Kris” (yes, it was calling my name) as a decent value. That said, I barely remember it!
Fast-forward to happier times: My primary objective the next morning was to catch the Flying Cat 4, a jet-powered catamaran making the trip to Santorini in 1 hour 45 minutes (as opposed to the aptly named “slow boat” which does the same trip in 4.5 hours!). The dock turned out to be – more or less – across the street from the hotel. Score one for Hotel Kris! It’s a good thing, too, as “Vacation Chris” had it embedded firmly in his brain that flip flops constituted appropriate travel footwear.
I cheated. This is the Flying Cat 4 arriving in Santorini as I was waiting to leave the island, but at least you know what the boat looks like now. That’s something, right? ;)
Arriving in Santorini was quite the shock after quiet, relaxing Crete.. Frequent visitors to my blog know that I’m quite the lazyhappy-go-lucky traveler when it comes to planning. (Case in point: cracking the Lonely Planet Peru book while waiting in Dallas for our flight to Lima) Given this, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that I was totally unaware that:
- Santorini’s topography and history are heavily influenced by the fact that it essentially exploded upon becoming an active volcano.
- Santorini is an unabashed tourist trap.
Before you go and get all huffy puffy (if you happen to be a Santorini fan), I will allow that Santorini was beautiful in virtually every way: landscape, beaches, water, topography, sunset, and of course the people. It was also unbelievably crowded, full of Americans (which goes a long way towards spoiling that we’re-not-in-Kansas-anymore feeling), and soooo much more spendy than Crete. Most of my criticism is aimed squarely at Fira/Thira – and to be fair, on my last day I discovered a little beach town that I loved and would absolutely return to – but overall, it made me happy that my tourist dollarsEuropean monopoly dollars (thank you, George “Weak Dollar” Bush!) have historically been spent in Crete.
After all this complaining, why did I go in the first place? I had to separate groups of friends traveling on the island at the same time and couldn’t resist the opportunity to see some peeps and a new place at the same time. I met up with Mary, Amy and Vanessa immediately upon arrival (accidentally at a street corner!), and shortly thereafter my bags were stowed and we were off to the beach:
Red Rock Beach, on the coast (duh!) of Santorini. I’m not much of a beach connoisseur, but it seemed nice enough to me!
One almost-missing-the-last-bus-to-town-for-two-hours mishap later (an international roaming cell phone to cell phone call was made consisting of words such as “We’re holding the bus. RUN!!!!”), we were back in Thira and ready for the evening. The approximate plan: poolside sunset and wine, pre-dinner wine, dinner and wine, and post-dinner wine. The results:
Pool? Check. Wine? Check. Sunset… coming!
There it is! Sunset? One big, loud, CHECK! Side-note: some dude from Belgium found this picture on Flickr and left a comment linking to his Flickr picture of the same sunset on the same day, same time, and same island. You go, Web 2.0!
Back on the patio, admiring our good [photographic] work, and celebrating with Santorini wine
Honestly, my pictures stop there for the day. The night was pretty much pure madness, which may have had something to do with my boastful I’ve-been-living-in-Germany-and-can-outdrink-you-all claims – Amy took me up on that and matched me drink for drink. Needless to say, the next morning was… rough!
The next day, Mary, Amy and Vanessa left and I spent the day roaming – and, since I so stubbornly refuse to plan ahead, trying to figure out where to rest my head that night. The big discovery that day was Perissa, a totally relaxed little beach town on the other side of the island. If I go back, that’s where I’m staying for at least a day or two!
That night, I met up with Emily and her sister Laura. They’d been doing the beach thing on Santorini, so the previous night’s exploits qualified me (!) as the nightlife guide. Fast forward a lot of beer, Euros, and Shakira (at the Irish bar!?!), and you have the essence of my two nights in Santorini.
I left the way I came: on the Flying Cat 4, and this time at least managed to catch the last bus out of town, avoiding a repeat stay at the Hotel Kris. Arriving after midnight in Chania was another travel learning experience: don’t expect to still be able to find a room, since every Pension closes! I banded together with two folks I met on the bus (a girl from Mexico doing her PhD in Sweden and a girl from Philidelphia whose story I didn’t get) to knock on doors until we finally found a place where someone was awake. At this point, I had already silently hatched a contingency plan at this point to sleep on the beach.
This time around, Chania was a mere stopping-off point on the way to my final destination: Loutro. I’m a relative Loutro newbie, but my Cretan Conference colleagues have been going there for years now. It’s a perfectly idyllic town in a little harbor on the South coast of Crete. There are no roads in or out – you’ve got to take a ferry, or if you’re sure-footed, in-shape, and have a few hours to kill, you can hike to the nearest town.
This, my friends, is the view awaiting visitors to Loutro. This was, give or take, the view from our room.
In fact, here IS the view from our room. See, I wasn’t lying!
I have to admit: I never before appreciated Loutro for what it is: one hell of a relaxation spot. Stress and tension quite perceptibly melted away as I stepped off the ferry, followed shotrly thereafter by the onset of severe regret at not having scheduled more time there! Mary, Amy, and Vanessa were close behind (on the next ferry), and so we all rented rooms together.
It’s a yearly tradition to get a shot of Jenny holding a Cretan kitten!
We had but a single evening to enjoy Loutro, and we did so in fine Loutro tradition: good food, good drinks, and good conversation. There can’t be more than 6 or 7 restaurants to choose from in the village, and they’re all waterfront – and pretty much all delicious.
At the bar…. What else to say?
Mary, Vanessa, and Amy – with most (I’m not kidding) of the village visible in the background
It was SO painful to get back on the ferry to civilization the next morning… But the four of us (myself, plus Mary, Amy, and Vanessa) had no choice, as we all had flights from Chania the next evening (and trying to make that trip same-day is inviting trouble).
So, for the third time this trip, I arrived in Chania, this time ready to play tour guide for the other 3 who hadn't yet seen Chania.
I have to point out this somewhat grotesquely obese dog on the streets of Chania
Grrr! Like a tiger! This was taken at Kou Kou Vayou – an awesome little bar up on the hill overlooking the Chania harbor, and the perfect place for a Chania sunset!
One last picture: this little guy lives on a 10 foot chain, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week outside in Chania. He is so sweet and so smart – I started visiting him at all odd hours of the night throughout my crete trip, and finally had him pretty well trained at the end of the week. I wonder what his owners thought
Cutest. Puppy. Ever. And yes, I use ‘puppy’ figuratively.
That’s it. We spent a few hours the next day wandering around, but by then the inevitable and ever-looming trip to the airport (and then HOME!) was impossible to ignore… It was a smooth trip home, but Germany had rudely decided to do away with summer weather while I was gone.
I could write an entire blog entry on the combination of Germany + summer, but on the off change that you’re still with me down here at the bottom of this entry, never fear: I’ll do so another time. Thanks for reading!