[Travel] Europe Trip 2016 Part 1 - Santorini - 3 Days 2 Nights Itinerary

Who doesn’t know about this beautiful island? Santorini.. is an island at Greece dominated with white and blue colour. To be able to come here is like a dream comes true..

At first, we planned to visit Santorini for 3 days and 2 nights, but in the end we went there for 2 days and 2 night only, lost 1 day due to bad weather condition (too windy) didn’t allow us to land after spent almost 3 hours flight from Rome. We had to reroute back to Rome and spent a night at Rome airport hotel (Hilton Hotel) and waiting our next day flight.
It was such an unpleasant experience, our flight scheduled on 6.30pm in the evening then the flight delayed for an hour, we only managed to take off at 7.30pm. Then after almost 11pm above Santorini sky, they tried to land but the plane shaking and bumpy. Our captain said we might face delay landing, then everybody on plane started panicking and questioning, in the end after much consideration they have to announce that the plane unable to do landing due to bad weather condition.
I will share another story about delay during our recent trip to Europe on different post. That was due to Paris air controller strike on our flight from Amsterdam to Barcelona. Just think that this Vueling airline is really unlucky, or we both is also unlucky, always caught on the bad delay situation.

Anyway, enjoy my photographic capture at Santorini island. 🙂

DAY 1 – FIRA

When we reached Santorini during end of March is still consider end of winter season, so the island is very windy. Seriously, i feel so scared to the wind over there, which i feel can blow people away (if you are too skinny), for myself, i couldn’t even walk properly.
The temperature itself not so cold, but it’s still below 20 degrees Celcius, within 10-16 degrees. But with the wind you can feel even much colder.

As you can see, my camera is shaking..

But, beautiful view welcomed us, so happy finally reached this beautiful island.

First, we checked in at our hotel: Kafieris Apartement on Cliff facing Caldera Sea.

The room is pretty decent, but the balcony view is amazing.

Basically Santorini is a very small island, from one end to another end is just an hour driving. We decided to rent a car because it’s easier to move around as we don’t have much time there. Our first night we spent at Fira (center of Santorini island) which is a town area there, you can find lots of foods and market there. And our last night we spent at Oia (top end of Santorini island) which is more to sightseeing spots.

While we stay at Fira, we can enjoy Oia view from far, the distance is approximately about 4km.

Unique pavement and flower everywhere..

Walking around sightseeing.

Dreammm…. 🙂

Spent our sunset viewing moment at Fira.

Further down you can see the top of Skaros, you can hike there too.

Dramatic sunset viewing ever..

For foods, we had a nice dinner at Salt and Pepper at Fira, the lady owner of restaurant is very friendly.

Complimentary bread, salt, pepper and olive oil.

The restaurant feel very homey with warm lighting, such a humble restaurant.

But trust me, lots of people comes here and couldn’t get a table, when we were having our dinner there at least there are 10 different groups unable to get their table there. So if you come with big group please do reservation. The lady told us that every night she always face the same problem, full house but still have big groups coming in to her restaurant.

I ordered pasta Carbonara with bits of ham and mushroom. So creamy! I just need comforting food on windy night.

And hubby ordered grilled pork chop.

This dinner place is pretty near to our hotel, it’s about min 15mins walking distance.

Salt & Pepper
Main Road : From Fira to Firostefani, Fira 84700, Greece
Phone: +30 2286 022747

Salt and Pepper Santorini (facebook page)

DAY 2 – FIRA, RED BEACH, ANCIENT AKROTIRI, LIGHTHOUSE, ALEXANDER’S BOUTIQUE HOTEL, RUIN OF CASTLE, SUNSET POINT

Days were running so fast when you are on holiday, don’t you agree?

Yup, it’s our second day at Santorini alrd.

Volcano island view from our apartement balcony. You can have a day trip over there by boat if you have a lot of time allowance on this island, but again it’s subject to weather condition.

The balcony of our apartment…

Can see Skaros from here.

Breakfast with view, indeed!

The breakfast freshly prepared, so yummy!

Bread, butter, jams, ham, cheese, homemade cake, coffee, tea and orange juice. Featuring new baby, Furla Metropolis Mini which i bought at Barcelona.

The view during breakfast.

In front of hotel while waiting hubby to try the car from the rental guy.

Kafieris Apartments – on the Cliff
Main Street, Fira, Santorini, Greece 84700

We rent a car for a day only (24 hours) for only EUR 35 (automatic car), depend on what kind of car you rent. Oh you can rent ATV too for EUR 25 or manual car for EUR 30.

We love the flexibility by renting a car, so you can stop whenever you want if you find nice spots to take photos. Everywhere very photo worthy, lol! Seldom see public transport there, so i think waiting public bus like taking forever.

If you wish to see more things and you have only short time like us, rent a car is adviseable.

The car that we rent, small van 4 seater in white colour.

Blooming everywhere..

Famous blue dome church, and oh they are everywhere so no worry if you miss one, you always can find them on every place you go.

Stop on few points during our trip from Fira to Akrotiri. The journey itself took about 30-45mins depending on how fast you drive. We drove very careful because hubby not get used to left side driving.
Hubby focused taking scenery photograph.

And we finally reached ruin of Ancient Akrotiri. It is an archaelogical site with a decent facility for visitor. They built decking surrounding the site.

Previously this site is a town.

The wooden roof is amazing, love how they build it.

After Ancient City, we continued our exploration to Red Beach.

They called it Red Beach because the rock colour there are reddish. This area is just an entry towards real Red Beach.

Church at Red Beach.

We have to climb and walking to reach the Red Beach.

The view is amazing!

The sand itself is black colour, typical volcanic area.

Stroll along the beach..

Finish with Red Beach then we continue our journey towards end of the island, The Akrotiri Lighthouse.

We didn’t manage to go to White Beach because local people said it’s only accessible by boat (not sure true or not).

There are few other beaches as well, but when we went there some of them are closed. You may visit Kamara Beach if it’s open.

View from the cliff, we stand at the end of the island.

The Akrotiri Lighthouse, i don’t think this lighthouse is accessible for public.

We continued our journey towards Oia, from one end to another end of the island. We didn’t mind driving with this kind of amazing view.

Things to note: the road is very small and meandering, so driving with care!

Stopped on few nice points to take photographs.

And we saw this flower field somewhere along our way.

Too pretty to miss out, all spots in Santorini are photo worthy.

When we reached Oia, we got lost a bit, didn’t know how to find our hotel, Alexander’s Boutique Hotel.

Passed by few photo worthy spots while looking around for our hotel.

Finally we found the hotel after asking around. The signage is very small and set deeper from road, no wonder so difficult to find.

View from hotel reception area.

The entrance of our Villa.

It’s a cave house.. This is the living room.

Bedroom..

Open sea view from our villa verandah.

Then we walked around towards Sunset Point, which is just a walking distance from our Villa.

Only saw this boutique with branded stuff.

There are a lot of cute cats.

Pottery shop..

Blue dome church.

Ruin of Castle, the point where all people gather to enjoy sunset viewing.

Second day sunset not as fantastic like our first day. But still an experience on this new place.

I love you to the moon and back, hubby.. So grateful to be here with you. 🙂

And finally we had our dinner.

This place recommended by our hotel lady. Thalami restaurant, it’s just walking distance from Sunset View Point.

It’s typical cave house with nautical deco.

We ordered this tomato croquette, it reminds me of Indonesian corn croquette.

I was so hungry because we skipped our lunch, so i ordered big portion meal, meatball with tomato sauce and rice. The rice here is slightly sour. The meat is pretty tender, not sure what kind of meat, lol!

Hubby ordered grilled burger with french fries and salad.

And greek yogurt for dessert, topped with honey and raisin. Greek yogurt there is really fresh.

Thalami
Address: Oia, Greece
Phone: +30 2286 071009
Opening Hours: 12PM–12AM

DAY 3 – BREAKFAST AT ALEXANDER’S BOUTIQUE HOTEL, AIRPORT, BYE SANTORINI!

Breakfast with view AGAIN.. The special breakfast at Alexandra Boutique Hotel is their homemade pastry. There is an additional fee if you prefer the egg sunny side, scrambled, etc, so we prefer just boiled egg.

Hubby didn’t finish the egg yolk, then suddenly came this cutie. Fed him with leftover egg yolk.

Alexander’s Boutique Hotel
Main Street, Oia, Santorini, Greece 84702

From our hotel to airport, at least need half an hour, so we quickly checked out and rushed to airport, as hubby need to return the car after 24 hours.

The walkway canopy at airport is really interesting.

Lots of coniferous tree around the airport entrance, the fruits so cute.

Waiting at airport for our flight back to London.

Bye Santorini! See you again!

One more problem we faced during our trip to Santorini, was the luggage issue with this EZ Jet airline. As you know, they are very strict! My luggage obviously is a cabin luggage and they still not allowed us to go into the plane without paying stupid EUR60 for each luggage. Seriously!!! Our flight back from Santorini to London is not even that expensive. Then my hubby try to fit in all our luggage into their standard measurement (causing my luggage got scratches), voila, able to fit. Then again they looking for another problem, my mini PS11 Proenza bag they said it’s too big to be a hand-carry luggage, so everything have to put inside luggage. Luckily i told them i had my camera inside and very fragile so i can hand-carry my bag into plane, Fiuh!

Hope this info will help, for those who planning to visit to Santorini.

Drafting my trip to Amsterdam now, see you on next post.

XOXO,

YuniQueYuni

[Travel] Europe Trip 2016 Part 1 – Santorini – 3 Days 2 Nights Itinerary

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