The trip: Part 11 (Last day in Santorini)

Day 11
On our last day in Santorini, we walked to Fira to check out the archeological museum, which houses artifacts of the island's prehistoric settlement.

A big volcanic eruption in the 15th or 16th century B.C. covered the island in a layer of ash and destroyed the civilization, which included complexes of multi-story buildings and the oldest known running water system. In 1967 archeologists began excavating the site, called Akrotiri, and found it had been remarkably preserved, much like Pompeii. They found stunning pottery and amazing frescoes still beautifully intact. Amazing.



The museum was small but really well-designed. Very sparse, so the artifacts really stood out.

Just outside the museum is Fira's Orthodox Cathedral, which is all white and lovely.


Then we wandered around Fira and did some souvenir shopping and ate lunch at Naoussa. Best spaghetti I've ever had. And as we were sitting at our balcony table, the donkeys came by.


After lunch we wandered around some more, taking lots of photos before our flight out.



We saw lots of people taking wedding photos during our stay in Santorini, and most of them were doing silly, awkward poses on the cliff. Like this (imagine me in a flowing white veil):


This is an olive tree. They were everywhere in Greece. On the way to Delphi we saw miles of olive trees. They are a beautiful silvery green.


This is one of the tiny lizards that were constantly crossing our path in Santorini.


We were eager for our next destination but so glad to have experienced Santorini, which was uniquely beautiful and fascinating.


We flew back into Athens that night and were exhausted by the time we got to the Electra Palace Hotel. So we ordered room service pizza and enjoyed the view from our balcony.

The trip: Part 10 (Scuba!)

Day 10
We had set up a pretty high expectation level for excitement with that volcano boat tour, so we decided we had to up the ante a bit. We signed up for scuba diving.

Neither of us had ever scuba-dived before, so we really didn't know what to expect. We were picked up in a van by a large, blond man who we later found out was Norwegian. (You'd automatically assume that everyone in Greece speaking Greek is Greek, but you'd be surprised.) He was making fun of how Greeks never show up anywhere on time. "You've heard of GMT? Greenwich Mean Time? Here it's Greek Maybe Time."

We drove south and wound up at Caldera Beach.


We were given a crash course on scuba from the dive leader, Paul. We had to learn the hand signals (because you can't talk to each other, of course) and the various ways to control whether you sink or float. Also how to keep your eardrums from bursting. And how not to drown.

Then we put on our gear and practiced using it. The wetsuits were much stiffer and harder to get on than I anticipated.


Then we waded into the water and practiced putting our faces in and breathing from the tank. It was semi-freaky. Then Paul started leading us deeper into the water.

I had some issues. For one, I kept floating up. The instructors had to keep grabbing me and pulling me back down. You're supposed to point your head and shoulders down to go down, and I apparently wasn't bending enough. (It felt wrong that when I leaned way forward my tank smacked me in the back of the head.) Also I was kicking my flippers too fast.

I had a couple of panic moments, when I felt like I couldn't catch my breath or was possibly hyperventilating. But they were few and were separated by long stretches of calm.

Paul had brought fish food, and when we reached a sufficient depth he started releasing it. Fish started swarming all around us. It felt like being inside a snowglobe. I tried to touch the fish, but they were too fast.

I have no concept of how long we were under or how deep we went. I found it impossible to look around me or pay attention to anything but the task at hand.

Paul led us back up the beach and to the surface. I immediately felt a rush of nausea and started imagining how embarrassed I'd be to vomit in the Aegean. Kim had a similar reaction. Luckily, we managed not to.

We struggled out of our wetsuits, (the Norwegian guy actually yanked mine off of me), and sat around recuperating until an Australian guy drove us back to the hotel.

The rest of the day we did this:


I've never seen the appeal of a vacation where all you do is lie by the pool or lie on the beach. I need to go places! See stuff! Do things! But I must admit, one day of lying around was nice. And we weren't completely sedentary: Whenever we got too hot, we jumped in the pool.


And we relaxed and chatted and dozed and got sunburned. We ordered a fabulous chicken club sandwich from room service (it had a fried egg on it!). And we took a few pictures of our surroundings.




There was a young German couple who also spent the whole day poolside. They were alternately nauseating (like when they were lying all over each other) and kind of cute (like when he was reading aloud to her from a book about Frida Kahlo.) The woman had a fascinating technique for avoiding tan lines: She changed swimsuits four times. And apparently it works, because she had nary a line. And it was a lovely little fashion show for us. (Speaking of shows, she also took her top off at one point and made a half-hearted and ineffectual attempt to cover herself with her hands.)

After sunset we finally got off our butts and drove to Oia to have dinner at Amoudi Bay. We ate at Taverna Katina, where basically the only thing on the menu is fresh grilled fish. We couldn't figure out how many kilos of fish we should order, (we should've brushed up on our metric system before the trip), so the waiter had us come to the kitchen to look at the fish. We wound up having red snapper and Greek salads. We wanted dessert, but they didn't have any, so they gave us coffees on the house.

A great night. The first of the trip when our feet weren't even sore.

The trip: Part 9 (More of the island)

Day nine
After another perfect breakfast, we rented a tiny European car to explore the island.

We first headed for the inland village of Pyrgos and got a little bit lost. The roads in Santorini don’t have names. I stared at the map for a long time before I figured this out. And since neither of us has an internal compass, navigating was a little tricky.

Then we went looking for the beaches, which are on the opposite side of the island from the caldera. First we found Perissa, the black sand beach. It was fairly deserted at that time of morning. We didn’t stay long.


Then we went looking for the red beach, which was surprisingly hard to get to. From the parking lot you have to scale a pretty large, rocky hill to get down to the beach. I wouldn’t have wanted to do it in a swimming suit and flip-flops.

It was quite beautiful, though. I can see why people make the effort.



On an impulse we decided to drive out to Akrotiri Lighthouse, which is on the far southern tip of the island. The lighthouse itself was sort of understated.


Since it was at the tip of the crescent-shaped island, there were lovely rocky cliffs for us to climb out on.



Driving back toward Fira, we spotted these two stray dogs hanging out by the road. I made Kim pull over to get their picture.


We stopped for lunch at a Mexican restaurant on the way. Yes, a Mexican restaurant in Greece. It’s called — get this — Senor Zorba. We had planned to go there mainly because we thought it was funny. It turned out to be cute and fun and beautifully perched on the cliff. And expensive. A small tostada was $9. A Coke was $6. And you couldn’t even save money by ordering water because the tap water in Santorini is too salty to drink. So you got $6 Coke or $6 bottled water.

Which reminds me — I forgot to mention the toilets. In Santorini you can’t flush any toilet paper because the plumbing is so delicate. You have to put it in a little trash can next to the toilet. You might think this would be nasty, but it’s actually not so bad. You get used to it pretty fast.

Anyway, after lunch we stopped by the island’s main port at Athinios to ask about ferries to other islands. Unfortunately, only one island was available for one-day trips: Ios. And I’m sure Ios is lovely, but we had read that it was a real party island with lots of shopping and nightlife, which wasn’t really what we were looking for.

We drove on to Oia (pronounced ee-a), the village at the north end of the island. We drove down to Amoudi Bay, where the fishing boats were bringing in their fresh catches. Those guys in the bottom right were gutting a 3-foot-long fish right on the sidewalk.


We walked around to the other side of the cliff, where a bunch of people were swimming and jumping off the rocks into the water. We might have jumped in if we’d had our suits on.

We walked around Oia for a while before deciding it was too hot to be walking around with all those tourists.



We ate dinner that night in Fira at Ampelos Wine Bar. I had a very yummy artichoke stew with potatoes. We listened to the dumb Americans at the next table ordering decaf. “I just want regular coffee, only without caffeine.” Because Greek coffee isn’t regular.

Then we had some more awesome gelato. I got banana. And nearly died.

The trip: Part 8 (Thalassa tour)

Day eight
During our stay in Santorini, we had breakfast every morning on our patio overlooking the caldera. The breakfasts were fabulous. We had giant bowls of yogurt with honey and fresh fruit and buttery croissants and fresh-squeezed orange juice. (Orange juice was a big thing in Greece. You could get fresh-squeezed OJ practically anywhere.)

After breakfast we went hiking out on Skaros rock, which juts into the sea just below our hotel. Skaros was once the site of a dense medieval settlement and castle but has been uninhabited since a large earthquake in the 19th century.


The view from out there was pretty nice.


When we'd hiked around to the opposite side of Skaros, we were surprised to discover a little white chapel.



Kim likes to make me crouch in nooks.


After we'd cooled off back at the hotel, we walked to Fira and ate grilled cheese at Zafora. (They call it toast.)

We had signed up for a boat tour of the volcano that our hotel recommended. To get to the port at Fira, you can either walk down 600 stone steps, ride a donkey or take the cable cars down the cliff.

In what must have been a translation problem, we thought our hotel clerk had told us to wait at the top of the cable cars. But when we got there, we didn't see anyone else waiting. So we asked the cable car clerk if she knew whether we were supposed to wait at the top or the bottom.

So she kindly explained that boats cannot come up the cliff. "It's only logical," she said.

Oh! You don't say!

So we rode to the bottom. The cable cars are sort of like an enclosed ski lift.

Our boat was a replica of an 18th century sailboat called Thalassa.


In Fira we had bought sun hats to protect against the unrelenting Greek sun. (Have I mentioned that it's sunny there? It is sunny there.)


The boat sailed out to Nea Kammeni, the small island where the volcano is still active. We hiked up about a mile and a half to the rim of the crater.


This is our tour guide. He gave us a really interesting history of the island and the volcanic eruptions that have shaped it. Behind him you can see the rock layers of the island. The top white-ish layer is volcanic ash.


The boat then took us around the other side of the volcano to the hot springs, where we hopped off the boat for a swim. It was outrageously fun.


We climbed back aboard, and the boat swung around and docked near Thirassia, the second largest island of Santorini, and we ate a feast of Greek hors d'oeuvres and Santorini wine.


The boat then moved back toward the main island and paused once again to raise the sails. The tan, muscular crewmen jumped around the boat in bare feet, unleashing the huge white sails.

Another crewman played the saxophone as we watched the sunset over the Aegean.


But somehow the day hadn't been quite magical enough. We went to dinner at Selene, probably the island's most famous restaurant. And the food was some of the best of my life. Beef filet with honey butter and green beans, followed by vanilla creme with strawberries.

It was a good day.

The trip: Part 7 (Santorini)

Day seven
On the seventh day, we went to Santorini.

Santorini is a small volcanic island in the Cyclades, just north of Crete. The main island is crescent-shaped, with the center of the volcano on a smaller island in the center of the crescent. The cities are perched on the cliffs looking down into the caldera. It is breathtaking.





We stayed at a fantastic hotel called Astra Apartments. All the rooms have views of the caldera. Ours was right next to the pool.


Before we fully explored the island, we had a bit of business to take care of. Our original plan was to return to Athens for two days after Santorini, but after three days in Athens, we felt like we had seen all we needed to see. So we made the impromptu decision to add Paris to the itinerary.

We were staying in the village of Imerovigli, which is a 25-minute walk from the much busier capital of Fira via a twisting, turning, uphill, downhill footpath. We walked over, amazed at the landscape and architecture and unrelenting Greek sunshine. For lunch we shared an enormous sandwich and gargantuan bowl of yogurt and fruit at Mylos Cafe. We also had the most amazing gelato of my life at Il Gelato d’oro.

Fira was full of tourists and the stupid stuff tourists like. The number of jewelry stores was incredible. You can tell what kind of people vacation in Santorini. (The kind who go to beautiful island resorts to shop for giant diamonds.)

We were looking for a travel agency that could help us find a flight to Paris, or at least somewhere in western Europe. So we walked into one and asked the woman if she had a flight to Paris from Santorini.

And she said, “Why? Is only two hours by boat.”

“Paris, France?”

“Oh, Paris. Not Poros.” **eyeroll**

She found us one flight from Athens to Paris. So then we asked if she had flights to several other cities. She didn’t. And she was getting annoyed with us. She said, “I cannot search all the flights.” And she looked away from us when she was exasperated, as though we might just get up and leave her alone if she stopped looking at us. (We would see this technique used again the next day by a different Greek clerk.) And eventually we did give up on her.

We went back to our hotel and borrowed a laptop to book our own trip. We had picked up a Paris travel book in the Athens airport and found a recommendation for Ermitage Hotel in Montmartre. It was described as family-owned and charming and decorated with antiques. So we jumped on Expedia and booked a flight to Paris and two nights at the Ermitage. We felt quite satisfied with ourselves. To be continued ...

We finished the evening with a glass of wine (or two) on our patio, watching the sunset over the volcano.

The trip: Part 6 (Delphi)

Day six
We knew that we wanted to go to Delphi, but we weren’t exactly sure how to get there. We were planning to take a public bus, but it became clear that figuring out the bus schedule might be problematic. And the bus might not be air-conditioned. And we might have missed the early bus anyway. So we had our hotel arrange a bus tour for us.

And it turned out to be kind of fun. The bus was very plush, and the group was really diverse. We sat across from two women from Minnesota and in front of a young couple from Australia with an adorable baby.

Delphi is about two hours from Athens, driving through beautiful mountainous country. We stopped for coffee on the way in a little restaurant/shop that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere.


We stopped again in the little village of Arachova, which our guide called the Aspen of Greece. It’s the ski resort where the elite of Athens vacation. It was quite charming.


Delphi is situated o­n the slopes of Mount Parnassus in what felt like a pretty remote spot. It was beautiful and quiet there.


A brief history lesson: Delphi was considered the center of the ancient world, the “navel” of the Earth. It was a worship site for the god Apollo and the site of the Oracle of Delphi. In ancient times the oracle was consulted on matters ranging from personal relationships to wars and political dealings. A priestess would inhale vapors escaping from the rocks, fall into a trance and yell out random words and phrases. Priests would then “interpret” these messages into answers for the questioning worshipers. The answers were known to be quite vague.

Here we are with the navel rock.


The site became a huge complex of buildings. Politically the site was supposed to be neutral. But each city-state built its own treasury house, where they displayed evidence of their prosperity and military prowess with hundreds of sculptures and other treasure.




This is our tour guide, Effie. She was very funny and Greek. She also had to give the entire tour in both English and French because we had three French people on-board who didn't speak English. It was kind of impressive.


We had only about 15 minutes to look around, and the Temple of Apollo was closed because of “technical problems.” Then we went to the museum, which houses the sculptures and other artifacts they have been able to save from the site.

You could take photos in the museum, but you were not allowed to pose with the artworks. So that is totally not what I was doing here.


We ate lunch in the modern village of Delphi, which was also very cute. I had moussaka, which is a Greek casserole with eggplant and meat sauce. Kim had eggplant shoe, a weird name for what was basically stuffed eggplant.

The ride back to Athens was uneventful except that Greece was in the middle of a dramatic national election and both presidential parties were staging rallies in Athens that night. Traffic was a little hairy, but I was amazed that those giant tour buses could navigate the narrow Greek streets to begin with.

That night we went to the trendy Gazi district and ate at Myrovolos. We had super yummy potato dishes and pita bread, followed by a marvelous chocolate souffle. There was a big group of young professionals at the next table having an intense discussion about the Greek election.

Then we wanted a taste of the Greek nightlife. But we were about two hours too early. The Greeks don't eat dinner until 9 or 10, so the bars aren't exactly hopping at that time. We had a quiet drink and headed back to the hotel.

There was a pet store on the corner by the hotel that had unbearably cute puppies in the window. It was a sweet end to our nights in Athens.

The trip: Part 5 (The Acropolis)

Day five
We tried to get an early start before it got really hot. After scoring the aforementioned bargain cappuccinos, we took the Sunshine Express again up to the Acropolis.

I’m having trouble putting into words what the Acropolis experience was like. A thousand photographs could not have prepared me for the sight of the Parthenon.

It was a moderately steep climb to the top. Along the way, dogs snoozed on the marble, which stays cool even in the unrelenting Greek sunshine.

First we climbed past the little Temple of Athena Nike, up the steps to the Propylea, the ancient gateway to the Acropolis.

Even half-covered with scaffolding, the Parthenon made us gasp. It is truly remarkable.


We walked slowly around it, pausing to look down at the Theater of Dionysus and foundations of the temple of Asklepios.




The Parthenon is being meticulously restored to its former glory (before fires and wars and pollution and other stupid human behavior “ruined” it). Pieces of marble scattered around the site are being categorized and returned to their original positions, with new pieces being fitted to the millimeter to fill in the gaps. Replica sculptures are even being placed back on the pediments that remain.




Then was the Erechtheum, with its Porch of the Caryatids, a temple to Athena and Poseidon.


Then we climbed up the Rock of Ares, a big rock just below the main Acropolis where the Apostle Paul is said to have preached in 51 AD. The view was lovely.



We then walked to the new Acropolis Museum, which just opened in June. It was built, in part, because in the past, when Greece requested that Britain return the Parthenon Marbles, British officials said the Greeks had no suitable place to display them. The new museum features a glass gallery with almost 180° views of the Parthenon itself.

The museum is built on top of an archaeological site, and the building design features glass floors so you can look down on the excavation. An amazing floor mosaic was visible just in front of the museum entrance.



The museum houses what remains of the Parthenon Marbles, plus every other artifact and artwork discovered on the Acropolis. I managed to snag a photo of the Calfbearer before we were told photos weren’t allowed. Kim was this close to getting Kritios Boy.


Then we took the metro to Piraeus, the port of Athens, and bought a ferry ticket to Aegina, a small island about 40 minutes away. The ferry was enormous and mostly empty. We stood at the railing and got covered with salt spray.



Aegina was cute. The town was tightly packed with shops and restaurants and scooter rental places. We ate giant Greek salads and baked feta at a cafe beside the bay. There were cats everywhere. They would sit at your feet and meow for scraps. When people got up from their tables, the cats would hop up and start licking the plates until they got shewed away by the waiters.



Then we rented a four-wheeler with the intention of going to see the Temple of Aphaea. We made it half-way around the island before we had to turn back so we wouldn’t miss our ferry back to Pireaus. So we wound up seeing a glimpse of the temple from what turned out to be very far away.

We returned our four-wheeler and then bought some local pistachios, the island’s top export. Then we went back and bought more because they were so flippin’ delicious.

We dozed on the ferry back to Pireaus. On the metro back to the hotel, a girl sat across from us and meticulously ate every kernel from a roasted ear of corn.

Before calling it a night we went to our hotel’s rooftop lounge and took some blurry photos of the Acropolis.

The trip: Part 4 (Athens)

Day four
We said goodbye-for-now to London and hopped an early flight to Athens. We flew over the Alps!


Then we embarked on a sweaty, crowded two-hour subway ride to our hotel.

We stayed at the Fresh Hotel, an ultra-modern place with lots of hot pink everywhere. When we got up to the room, none of the lights worked. We flipped every combination of switches we could think of before Kim finally called the front desk and said, “We need someone to come up and show us how the lights work.” The woman laughed at us and said you have to insert your key card into a slot in the wall before the electricity will work. (Is this a thing now? They might think about mentioning it at check-in so the guests aren’t made to feel like morons.)

We took a walk though the Plaka, which is the very touristy area surrounding the Acropolis. And when I say touristy, believe me. It was unreal. Block after block of young guys selling the same fake designer handbags, dime-store toys and cliche Greek souvenirs. And yet it was interesting. Unlike anywhere else I’d ever been.


Athens was kind of fascinating. Some areas of the city were pretty cosmopolitan, with upscale department stores and sushi restaurants and people walking around in suits. We were staying in the more “gritty” area of the city, with the outdoor meat markets and pet shops with caged pigeons on the sidewalk. But even there we saw many sanitation workers cleaning up trash and hosing down the sidewalks. Everything was very clean. But everything was also covered in graffiti. Everything. Here was one recurring theme:


Athens was also full of stray dogs. They just roamed around, crossing busy streets, sleeping on sidewalks. Many of them had collars, though they didn’t seem very interested in people. Most of them were really fat.

We took a short tour of the Plaka on the Sunshine Express, a little open-air trolley thing. It was sort of surreal how around every turn there was some new piece of astounding ancient history. There were ruins just right there, in the middle of town, like it was no big deal.


Dinner that night was seafood risotto at Palea Athina, which was our first opportunity to try octopus, which we loved!

Then we wanted some dessert and coffee, so we stopped into a deelish-looking patisserie called Chatzi. It took 30 minutes for the girl to explain to us in broken English what everything was. This was also the first time we noticed how expensive food is in Greece. The pastry I originally picked out was $18. (I chose something else.) The thimbles of cappuccino were $6 each. This came to be a running theme during our visit, and we considered it a major victory the next day when we got normal-sized coffees for only $4.

The trip: Part 3 (Winchester)

Day three
We started the day with coffee from Costa Coffee, which is the British Starbucks. Then we hopped on a train to the countryside, on our way to Jane Austen’s house.

We arrived in Winchester to find no signage or information of any kind about the house. The train station attendant had no idea what I was talking about. A nice taxi driver finally directed us toward the bus stop, which wasn’t quite right, but a bus driver directed us toward the bus station, which was.

Winchester was a charming town with a nice pedestrian area and lots of cute shops and restaurants, and I’d recommend it for a day trip even if you don’t go on to Jane’s house. But we were on a mission.

A bus took us to the village of Chawton, a quiet, quaint little place with thatched-roof houses and lovely gardens. And, of course:



Jane lived the last eight years of her life in this house and wrote “Mansfield Park,” “Emma” and “Persuasion” and revised her other earlier novels here. It was a cute little museum. And it was wonderful to imagine Jane living there and sitting down to write at her tiny writing table.


We ate a ploughman’s lunch at the village’s only pub, the Greyfriar, and walked down to Chawton House, the estate where Jane’s wealthy brother lived. Nearby are the graves of Jane’s mother and sister and a lovely field of sheep. Very pastoral.


Next we headed to Winchester Cathedral, where Jane is buried. The cathedral was built in 1079 and is the longest Gothic cathedral in Europe. It felt unbelievably old.



Jane’s grave is simple, and the epitaph doesn’t mention her writing. A memorial plaque nearby was added later to commemorate her literary achievements.


That evening, back in London, we saw “Oliver!” in the West End and ate a glorious Indian feast at Punjab, the U.K.’s oldest North Indian restaurant. We were still thinking about the food weeks later.

The trip: Part 2 (Hampton Court and British Museum)

Day two
The first thing we did on day two was get slightly lost on the way to the train station. It turned out OK, though, because we stumbled upon the London Wall, the remains of the defensive wall constructed around the city by the Romans in the 2nd century.


We did eventually make it to Waterloo Station.


Our destination was Hampton Court, Henry VIII’s palace just outside London. It was built in 1514 as home of the Archbishop of York, who gave it to the king when he figured out he was likely next on the king’s beheading schedule.


Hampton Court was full of amazing, giant tapestries that the guide told us were the most valuable things owned by the British Royal Family. They covered many of the walls.


The ceilings were pretty nice, too.


“Could you take our picture in front of this painting? Actually, the painting’s not that important. But make sure to get the rug.”


We ate lunch at a little place across from the palace called Blubecker’s and had the best New England chowder since we were in New England.

We took the train back to London and headed for the British Museum.


This is what it looks like when you walk in.


We were primarily there to see the Parthenon Marbles since we knew we’d be seeing the actual Parthenon later in the trip. And they were magnificent.




In case you don’t know, most of the surviving marble sculptures that were once on the Parthenon were removed by a British ambassador and shipped to Britain in the early 19th century. They’ve been on display in the British Museum since 1816. Athens has continually requested that the marbles be returned to Greece, but Britain refuses. It’s a fascinating debate.


After the museum, we wandered through Russell Square and Bedford Square, which has the loveliest arched doorways.


Then we wandered around Soho and had dinner at Balan’s and dessert at Amalfi. We finished the evening with drinks at the Candy Bar. We were a little early, but we made the most of it.


Tomorrow, Day three: A literary pilgrimage!