Greece wanderings: Santorini and Athens

A little bit of background

This post explores our Greece wanderings as part of the Great Girls' Adventure my daughter (E) and I experienced in 2015 to Türkiye, Greece and Romania when E was 14. We visited the much Instagrammed Santorini after our adventure in Türkiye. Santorini was a complete change in scenery after five days in Istanbul! Our Santorini sojourn was only three nights and two days, but this was enough time to experience the island's beauty. We then flew to Athens and spent a couple of days in the city before heading to our last stop, Romania.

I've posted my reflections on our experience of Greece at the end. My reflections on what the Great Girls' Adventure meant to me are at the end of my post on our Romanian wanderings.

Travelling to Santorini from Istanbul

Our Istanbul hotel arranged a mini bus to take us to the airport for the 10.30am flight to Santorini via Athens. Not too early a start then! After checking in with Aegean Airlines, we bought some breakfast (croissants for E and yoghurt and muesli for me), one of our last purchases with Turkish lira. Unfortunately it was going to be a whole day of travel: two hours to Athens from Istanbul, then a four-hour wait at the Athens airport, then the 45 minute flight to Santorini. That's just how Aegean does it. It was a connecting flight so at least we didn't have to collect our baggage in Athens and check in again.

I was quite impressed with Aegean Airlines! We had no travel dramas at all over the course of the day. We also flew with them from Athens to Bucharest the following week. Everything ran smoothly both times. I would definitely fly with them again.

It was an easy two-hour flight to Athens after the long haul from Australia. It was nice to have a good lunch on the plane - a hot filo pastry roll with feta cheese and a fig bar. How Greek! We were even given a chocolate cookie and a drink on the Santorini leg despite barely being up in the air for 20 minutes before we landed.

The airport in Santorini is tiny and very 'island-y'. Well, it was in 2015, anyway. The airport doesn't feel like an airport at all, kind of like the smaller airports in Hawaii I'd experienced. Because we'd already entered Greece in Athens, we just got straight off the plane, walked across the tarmac and collected our luggage.

We had booked an airport transfer and so we hopped into a mini bus with a bunch of other people, and bumped and swerved our way up to Oia (pronounced "ee-a") and to our accommodation. I chose Oia rather than the more popular Fira as our base as Oia is the best vantage point for the famous Santorini sunset.

Image taken from the airport website.

I have to admit, I was a bit shocked when we first left the airport. I was looking for the beautiful white buildings and sparkling blue ocean that you see in the bazillions of photos of Santorini on Instagram. All I could see was a reddish-brown, arid landscape that was quite rocky, with hardly a white or blue building in sight. It wasn't at all what I'd been expecting.

Oia

Our accommodation wasn't on the Instagrammable side of Oia but it was way cool. We stayed in Ambelia Traditional Villas, a series of cave-like houses. I wasn't prepared to pay an exorbitant price for a place with views as expensive accommodation isn't my jam. The villas weren't too pricey and we enjoyed our stay there.

It was lovely and quiet at the villas and so nice to be in a larger space after the tiny room in Istanbul, even if we didn't have the traditional Santorini views . Our host gave us slightly creepy vibes, to be honest, but he was super helpful, even doing a load of washing for us for no charge. It was pretty laid back place, as there was no office, just a counter near the pool where breakfast was served each morning. We were a good 15 minute walk from Oia but there was a small supermarket close by and the bus stop into Fira was also close. There were lots of stairs and rocky paths to reach the main road from the villas, but that really only mattered when we came to leave and had to drag our suitcases up to the waiting area for the airport transfer.

I mean, look at the place! Awesome, right?

We still had enough time left on our first evening to do a little pre-exploration of Oia village. It had been a long day of travel and we were still processing our Türkiye experience, but we found what we'd come to see. Simply stunning. (We even saw a wedding💞.)

We did miss the chance to walk down to the end of the village and view the sunset on that first evening, but we took some nice shots as you can see above, before buying some bread, jam, fruit and yoghurt and heading back to our room for a light dinner.

Travel tip: I would still recommend staying in Oia even though it's the less glamorous part of Santorini. The buildings are just as beautiful as Fira. It's a bit quieter and more laid back in Oia, when you are not competing with hordes of other people to see the sun set, that is. There are lots of interesting shops to browse through, although everything is super expensive.

Santorini is a pretty small island and easy to get around on the bus so it doesn't really matter where you stay. Just remember, though, that you cannot climb around the beautiful buildings that you see on Instagram along the edge of the caldera and see them up close unless you are staying in posh accommodation. There's a public walkway along the top of the caldera and all our photos are taken from there. But still and all, you get the vibe even from the cheap seats!

The next evening we braved the crowds to see the sun set. As mentioned, the best place for the Santorini sun set experience is Oia. It's bit of a walk all the way through the village to the very end to get the best view.

Travel tip: My advice is to stake your claim early (which we did) about an hour before any sun-setting action begins. Our host at the villa told us it's completely mad in the high season, which I can totally imagine.

There's nothing much to say about the magical sunset other than to let the pictures tell the story. Below are the highlights. At this point in my world wanderings I'd seen magnificent sun sets in the Sahara desert and in Hawaii and also at Cottesloe Beach in Perth, Western Australia. I can't pick a favourite as they are all spectacular. The Santorini sunset is magnificent for its surrounds just as much as the sun setting itself.

It's so easy to be so engrossed in the beautiful sunset that you forget you're there with a bajillion other people. Turning around to head back, we were confronted by a sea of people crammed into a tiny space, all jostling to get back to their hotels or go for dinner. We did the latter. I had a traditional dish of Greek vegetables with yoghurt and E had pasta. This was our only second 'proper' dinner of our trip and our 'good meal' in Santorini in a beautiful restaurant overlooking the water. The restaurants were all busy and we had to wait a bit for a table, but it was totally worth it. I'd count the Santorini sunset as one of the most memorable travel experiences I have ever had.

The Red Beach

Our wander around the Red Beach the next day came by chance, the result of totally winging it. We found the island bus at a stop near our villa in Oia and we got on it, hoping to get to Fira. We ended up staying on the bus as it drove through Fira until the end of the route at the Red Beach. I have no idea how that darn bus makes it around the island as it's a normal-sized proper bus, not a mini bus, and the roads are so narrow and winding. At the time, travelling the length of the entire island was around €3. Both both locals and tourists seem to use the bus. It's only a 40-minute ride from top to bottom!

The map below gives you an idea of the lay of the land. The airport and Fira, the main and most popular town, are both kind of in the middle of the island, as the map pins show. Oia is at the top and the Red Beach we discovered at the bottom. The islands near Santorini that I've circled on the map are the ones we visited on our second day. See more below on that part of our sojourn.

Source of map: https://www.tripsavvy.com/santorini-map-and-travel-guide-4135202

The bus stops at the bottom of the island on the other side of the cove to the Red Beach, as shown in the top right-hand shot below. The White Beach is only accessible by boat but you can walk (or take a boat) to the Red Beach and that's what we decided to do. The top left shot of me is where we took a rest on an amazing set of stairs on our way to the beach. The shot underneath that one shows the rather narrow path to get to the beach. The main shot in the collage is the view coming around the cove and the first glimpses of the beach. There's a bit of climbing and walking on kind of unstable ground but it's worth it.

The Red Beach is very rocky and not the least bit sandy like the beaches where we live in Queensland, but look at the beautiful water. It was so calm and peaceful, once we traversed the slightly dangerous paths to get there 😊.

Travel tip: Santorini isn't really about sitting on the beach, not if you're from Australia anyway. There are other islands in the group that have nicer beaches. Santorini is for the buildings that you see on Instagram. As my post has explained, the blue and white buildings featured heavily on Instagram are in the towns of Oia and Fira and only in small clusters. Mostly, Santorini looks like the show below.

Fira

After the red of the red beach came the white and blues of Fira. Strictly speaking, I think it's the Aegean Sea that surrounds Santorini, as part of the overall body of water that is the Mediterranean. Whatever it is called, the blue water is absolutely beautiful. Fira looks exactly as I expected it to be. We had beautiful weather for our wanderings, too, as luck would have it.

It was hot that day and we went on the lookout for frozen yoghurt. The stuff we found was amazingly good, as per the above shot.

See what I mean! I will never get over the beauty of that water. The blue is simply stunning and I have never seen anything like it. It's also made more spectacular by the whites and blues of Fira's buildings.

We pretty much walked the entire length of the top of the caldera after the bus dropped us off, from the bottom of Fira to the settlements beyond it, where all you can see is white buildings. It's not long distance-wise, but it's uphill and quite exhausting. As I mentioned earlier you can't get down into the heart of the houses on the side of the caldera unless you live or are staying there, but it's still pretty awesome just wandering around the village. There are so many gorgeous buildings and cobbled steps and laneways and different views to take in.

Now we can really say that we have seen the white and blues of Santorini in all its Instagrammed glory. It really is a unique place and even though our pictures are stunning, they still don't quite capture the real-life beauty of the buildings and the water.

The Poseidon adventure

We decided to do a boat trip on our second day in Santorini. We found a tour place in Oia village and had no trouble booking the trip for the next day. It wasn't expensive considering all that we did. We had a fabulous day out on that trip and wonderful weather. There were so many people from different countries on the boat. Just sitting near us on the boat, we could hear British accents and people speaking in Afrikaans, French and Russian. A South African couple spoke to us on the boat and told us they were trying to decide if we were mother and daughter. When we responded, they commented on how amazing it was for E to have such a wonderful adventure with her mother 💓.

The logistics of our Gallipoli trip had nothing on the crazy boat stuff that was happening on the waters between the island and the volcano that day. The day started off with a bang, too, as the guy who picked us up from Oia in a mini van reversed down a massive hill. That's some crazy driving skills.

Luckily for me, the sea was a flat as a tack. I am a terrible sailor and finding out our boat was called the Poseidon did not help! It was kind of cool, though, like a pirate ship but with a motor. The views of the caldera from the boat were amazing and gave us a whole new perspective on the island. The water was so clear!

There's an active volcano on an island just off Santorini. E wasn't keen on the climb (evidenced by her face in the top left-hand picture), but it was nothing compared to the hikes we did in Hawaii. The views were so worth it and stomping around on a volcano is way cool.

This is Thirassia, where we stopped for lunch. There's nothing much there, just a tiny cove and beautiful water. Lunch was so fresh and delicious and we had a nice time eating our post-meal ice creams while dipping our feet into the clear waters afterwards.

On the way back we got off the boat at Fira rather than our starting point at Oia so we could ride the cable car up from the port to Fira village. My face shows you what I think of heights but the views were so lovely, especially in the late afternoon.

To relax after all the sun and the walking, and to end our Santorini adventure in style, we did this: fish feet treatment! It felt great, by the way, just a little weird at first, sort of prickly as the fish start nibbling on your skin.

Santorini reflections

I'm glad we included Santorini in our itinerary but I don't think you need a lot of time there to experience the place. Just make sure you see the sun set in Oia! The white buildings and the clear, blue sea certainly are stunning. We live with nice weather in Australia and easy access to some of the best beaches in the world, so I wouldn't go to Santorini for all that, but I can see the appeal for some. The beaches in Santorini aren't beaches, they're coves, but if you want to relax and you can afford to stay in a villa in Fira with views, then definitely do it. If you can't afford luxury accommodation, go anyway, as the scenery and the sunsets are totally worth it, no matter where you stay.

From Santorini to Athens

I booked with Ryanair from Santorini to Athens. Our flight was early (8.20am) as we only had two days in Athens. I would have been better off paying more to fly with Aegean, as there was a flight with them leaving at a similar time. As noted above, I would fly again with Aegean without hesitation as our experience with that airline was positive.

I've booked twice since this trip with Ryanair and only one of those trips went off without a hitch. This was my first Ryanair experience and it wasn't great. To be fair, I should have read the fine print more carefully and that's on me. At least I had read the Ryanair text that came the night before the flight about checking in online and downloading our boarding passes; otherwise I would have been hit with a €20 each charge. That's right, €20 to access your boarding pass!

Travel tip: Check that the cost of the flight includes the baggage if you are travelling with a low-cost airline. I hadn't realised that I'd only paid for the flights, not checked baggage allowance. In Australia flights always include checked baggage.

When I checked in the night before the flight online and paid for our baggage, I thought the notice about '10kg of free baggage' would cover my daughter (E) as her case was small and light. The free baggage is only for carry-on luggage. Eek. The woman on the check-in counter when we rocked up to the airport was not amused that I had failed to pay for the second case. I was not amused, either, when she took E's passport and sent me off to pay yet another €35 for baggage. I was even less amused when she made E line up on the other side of the departure area with the suitcases, until such time as we had paid the baggage charge. E was only 14 at the time and I was nervous being separated from her while trying to get on a flight in a crowded airport.

I was in anxiety mode by now because it was only a short time before the flight was due to depart. I could see E and could see that the cases hadn't been loaded onto the plane. The line to pay for boarding passes and luggage was long and slow as the Ryanair system at the time at Santorini airport was manual. This meant filling out forms and using the old school credit card machine. I hadn't seen one of those things in years!

I couldn't believe these old things were still in use!

Fortunately, loads of other tourists were in the same situation so they must have been equally as rubbish as me at reading the Ryanair instructions. A group of American travellers were complaining about the system but they told us not to worry, we'd all stick together and ensure we made the flight.

The security area for departing flights is small and couldn't handle all the passengers waiting to depart, so when we finally paid the fees, it was a mad scramble to make the flight and to push past other people waiting for a later flight. What a nightmare.

There were no included refreshments on the flight but at least we made it, got to Athens on time despite leaving late, and discovered that our luggage had in fact been loaded onto the plane. We headed straight to a bakery we spotted in the arrivals area as soon as we had our baggage. It was almost 9.30am, we'd been up since 5am, and were both starving. They sure do bakeries well in Greece so at least we felt better after some fuel!

I had intended to catch the metro to the hotel as I'd researched it beforehand and realised that our hotel was walking distance from the Acropolis station. We could get there by taking one line, changing at the main city station at Syntagma Square, then going one stop on a different line to the Acropolis station. We spotted an express bus to Syntagma Square for €5 each when we came out of the airport and decided to take a chance on it instead of the train, despite not having a clue about where the bus would actually go. Buses in unfamiliar places make me nervous as at least trains stop at each station and it is clear where they are going. I figured we couldn't go wrong if the final stop was the square that I knew was close to our hotel. We got there! Yay! However, due to our appalling map-reading skills, we couldn't work out which direction to walk in to find the hotel. We grabbed a taxi but felt bad for the driver as it turned out to be a €4- less-than-10 minute trip. Oh, well.

Acropolis now

We were staying at the Acropolis View Hotel in Athens which...actually has a view of the Acropolis! Our hotel is on the left side of the road in the shot below (the yellow one with the white balconies). If you look up the street between the two sets of buildings on either side, you can just see the Parthenon on top of the hill! Our room was on the second floor on the other side of the building to the view but we used the 5th floor terrace to see the Parthenon lit up at night (shown below). Awesome. The hotel was great value for money with friendly and helpful staff.

It was really hot in Athens after the pleasant weather in Istanbul and the warmth of Santorini. I imagine it would be unbearable in summer so October was a good time to be there. We had limited time in the city and I was on an 'ancient ruins' mission, so we set off for the Acropolis.

There were lots of people at the Acropolis as expected. The main entrance ticket (when we finally find the ticket booth!) allowed entry into a number of sites within the Acropolis 'complex' but they're really spread out. I wish we'd had a guidebook and suggested walking map to get to each one, as we didn't really know where to go. I was annoyed at myself for being underprepared as that's not how I roll. That said, we found our way around and managed to see the main sites.

The Parthenon is way impressive. It's one of those super famous sites where it seems so surreal to actually be there. It was definitely a "pinch me" moment. There was a bunch of scaffolding on the front part of the structure when we were there, but it was still pretty darn spectacular.

The views of Athens are amazing as the Acropolis is on top of a rather large hill.

Athens is a city of ruins, as you would expect, and bits and pieces are all over the place. The Plaka, the old city of Athens, is a fabulous area to wander around as it's compact, the buildings are gorgeous, and it has a really great vibe. There's so much history in that one area.

By mid-afternoon our late bakery breakfast had worn off but it was so hot, we didn't feel like much for lunch. Frozen yoghurt it was! This stuff is the best I've ever tasted.

We must have walked a bunch of kilometres that day. It was hot and a massive storm hit around 4pm. Luckily we were on the metro by then as we decided to take the train back to the hotel via the Acropolis station. The weather was so like our home in Brisbane - hot all day and then building up to a storm in the afternoon.

We found a cute café around the corner from the hotel for dinner. I had a slice of filo pastry pie with spinach and feta cheese. Yum. E wanted something sweet so we walked further down the road and found a little shop. It was closed but the owner spotted us as she was sitting out on the street when we were peering through the window. She opened up the shop for us so we felt compelled to buy something. E spied a packet of the soft chocolate chip cookies we'd had on the flight to Santorini so we bought them. We then noticed the souvenir shop next door, and the woman hurriedly opened it up for us as she owned that one, too!

I bought a gorgeous etching of the Parthenon (that is still on my wall today) and E an evil eye necklace charm. We'd seen them everywhere in Türkiye and Greece in various forms. Our purchases seemed to satisfy the shop owner.

Note the cats acting like a boss sitting on the car and the motorbike. We took these photos outside the shop. Like Türkiye, cats are everywhere!

Day 2 in Athens: Shopping and an a museum

On our second day in Athens, we decided to mix it up and do something different than look at ruins. We hadn't had much chance to go shopping at all so we decided to take the metro out to a large shopping mall, appropriately named The Mall Athens. It is out near the Athens Olympic stadium, the view of which you can see in the below collage, taken from the shopping centre.

I am really proud of us for taking the train and finding our way from Acropolis Station although we did have some help from a kindly gentleman on the train platform.

We spent the morning at the mall. It wasn't very busy. It looked like any other shopping mall around the world, just with a bunch of stores we hadn't seen before. We made a purchase each from stores we didn't have in Australia at the time. We tried to find local food for lunch at the shopping centre, like when we did in Türkiye, even if of the food court variety. We went for yiros as we couldn't leave Greece without having tried one. Delicious!

After lunch we headed back into Athens and checked out the Acropolis museum. It was kind of cool - a funky building in the old part of the city, built over the top of an archaeological dig. The museum is really well laid out and the exhibits beautifully displayed, just like in the British Museum, only smaller. We noticed lots of missing bits from some of the exhibits. I imagine they are probably languishing in the British Museum and not where they should be...

Dinner that evening was at a restaurant in the old town recommended by our hotel. It was a good one! We had moussaka and dolmades. Yum. And we had a nice chat with the restaurant owner, a guy originally from Lebanon.

We enjoyed our stroll back to the hotel after dinner. The paved road that leads from Acropolis station and the museum to our hotel (running alongside the Acropolis) was just lovely. I found lots of cool doors to photograph to add to my collection, even though I embarrassed E in the process. Ha! Not to worry, a woman overheard our conversation about my door obsession and she came over to me and told me she loves doors, too. It was nice to know I am not alone in my weirdness...

Greece reflections

I loved the taste of Greece that we experienced from our Santorini and Athens wanderings. I really enjoyed being in Greece, where there is so much history. The country has a warmth to it that instantly made me feel at home. We found the people to be super friendly and welcoming. Athens has a really nice vibe for a major city - or least the little bits of it that we saw - with lots of gorgeous buildings and paved roads and pathways in the old town. I could wander around for ages, just looking at the buildings. I felt calm and and peace in Greece. It's the perfect place to be for a history nerd like me!

The hotel was probably the best we stayed in during our Great Girls' Adventure, quality-wise, and it certainly had the best breakfast (even though the bed was a bit hard and it was a little noisy at night). We finally had two separate beds (pushed together) after sharing a bed for over a week!

There's much more to see in Greece besides the Acropolis, of course. I'd love to see more in the future and explore the country beyond Athens and visit other Greek islands. Things weren't too expensive given that we were in euro territory, although not cheap like Türkiye or Romania. I'm glad we found time to see Athens alongside our Santorini adventure.

Read on for our wanderings at our final destination: Romania!