Island Paradise - Santorini...
Wonderful Santorini... Well, as I'm sure you can tell, I absolutely hated Santorini - it was such a hardship to go there :)
We were met at the ferry (at something like 6am), by the hostel owner, Stalio. Anna had gotten organised and booked a place to stay, so the rest of us decided to tag along. Very glad we did, cos Stalio's place is very cool, especially for €10 a night. Headed down to the beach to watch the beautiful sunrise, and then after a snooze, did not a lot for the rest of the day (sunbaking on the black beach mainly), got rained on (apparently the first rain in 8 months), then sat on the beach for a few hours talking. A good day all up, nice and relaxing - just what I needed after a bad nights sleep.
One of the other good things about the place we stayed was the bacon and eggs I had for breaky! Scrumptious. (if you ever end up in Santorini, definitely go to Stalio's place.)
Feeling adventurous, we hired a few scooters between us, and headed off to explore the island. Very cool way to explore a place like that, even if we had to go 2 to a bike. Much preferred driving to being the passenger (there's a surprise 
). We managed to find:
- the red beach (pretty cool)
- the lighthouse (great views back on the island, with the volcano and stuff)
- managed to miss the white beach (well, seen white beaches before anyway)
- Pyrgos (which had a cool old castle, with heaps of winding alleyways)
- the highest hill on the island (which had a monastery, but it had been taken over by the military, and you couldn't take photos there
) - Oia (an extremely picturesque village - photo opportunity overload!) for the sunset and dinner.
Even though the bike wouldn't start when we wanted to go back, and when we finally got it going (after phoning for help), it was freezing without a jacket, it was still a great day.
On our last day in Santorini, Amy and I climbed up the mountain/hill, and saw the ruins of ancient Thera (Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and a few others as well). We also went to a church that was in an extremely inaccessible spot in an indent on the side of the mountain - would've been a real pain to build. Cool though.
And just to round it off, we sat on the beach some more. All in all, a great place to be. Its definitely on the list of places to go next summer. As it was off season, lots of places were closed, and very few people there. Also, the dive shop was closed, so I couldn't go scuba diving . I think in about September, it'll be great - no hordes of tourists, but enough to ensure everything is still open.
I believe that leaves us on the 30th of October. The next installment... Paros Island!