Day Thirty Two: A dream come true...

I woke up early as the sun was poking through the shutters. As I came out of my sleepyness I realized we were in a new place, Santorini, Greece; somewhere I've been wanting to go since I saw the movie Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2005). I think, I literally, jumped out of bed, and ran over to the door to the balcony (ok I can't jump or run, so maybe more figuratively not literally) and pulled the shutters open. Jen was still sleeping and not thrilled at the light I was letting in the room or noises I was making. I quickly went out on the balcony and shut the doors behind me. Although it took all the self control in me not to 'jump' on Jen's bed and say, "wake up, wake up!" What we could not see the night before was amazingly beautiful, the view took my breath away. Then I turned to the right and saw the hillside full of white buildings and houses with burst of color scattered around, just like all the pictures you see of Santorini. I felt like I was dreaming.

Finally Jen got up, and we sat out on the balcony and enjoyed to view together. We called the front desk and ordered our breakfast; which was complementary and you had your choice of having it in the dinning room or on your balcony, any time of day that you wanted. We had eggs and bacon, toast, fruit, coffee and fresh squeezed orange juice.

Our Hotel

Atlantis Hotel was amazing. It was a bit pricey but definitely worth every penny. Many of the hotels in the area are located on the hill side, especially if you want the amazing ocean view; which means maneuvering lots of stairs. Our hotel was one of the only ones on the top of the hill and only had one flight of stairs inside the hotel to our room.

"Atlantis is widely considered a vantage point for travellers visiting Santorini partly due to its unique breathtaking volcano-ocean-caldera view, while being accessible by car when the long and steep stairs are considered almost inevitable for hotels situated on the coveted caldera" (http://www.atlantishotel.gr/location.php).

The private balcony was so relaxing and getting your breakfast delivered whenever you like was like being treated like a queen. It was worth the extra money, especially with my issues with my knee. It was easily accessible and close to all the main shopping and restaurant areas.

The streets of Fira

After breakfast and some relaxing time on the balcony we got dressed and headed out to the streets of Fira to see the little town and do some shopping. Fira is very much a tourist town but I actually enjoyed it, lots of shops with colorful store fronts, and full of anything from expensive jewelry to little nicknacks. I guess I enjoyed shopping so much I forgot to take any pictures, so here's a few of the streets of Fira that I got on the web (credit given below). The streets of Fira can be kind of tricky for those with limited mobility. There are lots of steps everywhere. There are some areas especially right outside of our hotel that would be accessible with a wheel chair but you would not be able to go every where. Although I wouldn't say don't go. Web sites I read about Santorini suggested that if you have limited mobility that you should skip the island. I think that's baloney. If it something you want to do, do your research and find out how you can make it work for you. Things like the Tram and knowing which areas are accessible (i.e. no steps), you could make it work. For me I can handle a little bit of stairs, and our hotel was close enough that we took our time, and rested at our hotel when I needed to. I wouldn't have missed this place for the world, and I'm glad I didn't listen to the websites telling me to not even try.

Courtesy of jldweb, worldtasting, and hawkebackpacking

The Tram

We did some shopping as we made our way to the Tram. The Tram is a cable car lift that takes you from Fira's main streets (top of the island) to the Port (the bottom of the island). You have three options if you would like to visit the Port. There are steps down, one review I read said there were 580 steps. You can walk down these crazy amount of steps and then back up for free. Option number two is to take a donkey ride up or down the 580 steps, I've heard they are uncomfortable and hard to stay on and I'm not sure how much it cost. Option two also makes option one even tricker, reviews I've read have warned about the donkey poop and pee all over the steps, as well as the difficulty of sharing the steps with the donkeys. So you probably guess option three is the way to go; the Tram is 4 Euros per person, per way, so total for Jen and I to ride up and down was 16 euros (looks like they raised their prices to 5 Euros per person per way). Kind of expensive but definitely worth it, and the only option that was feasible for me. This is also one of the reasons we stayed in Fira, over the other popular city on the island, Oia. I was so thankful for the ability to go down to the water, I never would have been able to if it wasn't for the Tram. I've also read that the Tram can be busy if a cruise ship is dropping off cruisers for the day. The Port is where the ships shuttle people to, but when we road the Tram we got on and off with hardly any waiting.

The Port

"Created by the volcano erruption in 1650 B.C., Santorini's Cruise Port port of call is located at the bottom of the Caldera Cliffs in Fira, the capital of Santorini. The port of call doesn't have a cruise terminal. Instead, visitors are tendered ashore by small boats. During high season the island hosts about 80,000 visitors per day, and there can be as many as five cruise ships arriving in the same morning."

Thankfully when we were there at the end of September there was only one or two cruise ships docked, so the port was relatively quite. We also went mid-late morning and most of the cruise ship travelers were already on the island exploring. The port has a couple of restaurants and some cool shops to look around. Jen and I bought matching rings in a little shop and one for my mom and Cally too.

After we did some shopping and got some fresh squeezed juice we headed back up the hill. We walked around some more of the little streets and did some more shopping. We walked by a local restaurant named Nikolas' that Jen remembered from one of the guide books. Nickolas was standing out in front and Jen said hi and then we decided to go in for a glass of their house wine. We got complementary olives with it. When we were leaving Nikolas yelled, "Bye Jinnyfer (greek accent)" and Jen yelled back "Bye Nikolas." He was a very nice, sweet, old greek man, and it was a fun experience.

The sun was starting to set as we walked back to our hotel room to get ready for dinner.

When we got back we rested for a little while. Honestly sitting on our balcony was one of my favorite things to do. Then we got ready for dinner. We had reservations at Shinx, recommended by our hotel and some research that I had done.

(Tzatziki served with pita bread; and more pita bread; can't remember what jen had; chicken fillet with shrimp, asparagus and white wine sacue)

Dinner was amazing. I think my favorite part was the giant plate of Tzatziki Sauce. There was so much and it was so good that we ordered a side of pita bread to get every last bite with. The view from our table was wonderful and it was a great end to a wonderful day. We walked back to our hotel, which was just down the main street and sat out on our balcony listening to the music of the street performers and reminiscing about our day and all the amazing things we had done in the last 32 days.