We enjoyed our last breakfast with the Acropolis before packing up and checking out. We had been so pleased with the driver that had collected us at the airport ( booked via Welcome Pickups) that we had decided to book him again for the return journey. He arrived a few minutes early and we had a smooth trip to the airport.
He told us we were lucky we hadn’t left an hour or two earlier as the streets were gridlocked then, Marco Rubio is in town and the streets had been locked down in places, causing traffic nightmares.
Dimitris chatted to us about his daughters, and his Mother’s village of Nafpaktos ( which we will be driving through next week!) We bid him goodbye at the airport and looked for the bag drop. Everything went much more efficiently than our experience at Bologna airport ( one up for the Greeks!) . We had a coffee while we waited for our gate number to be announced.
We were bussed out to the plane and the flight left on time for the quick trip to Santorini. It was cool flying out over the mainland and then past some of the islands. Before long we were heading down to land, slightly nerve wracking when we seemed to pass rather to close to some cliffs!
After a short wait for the bags we headed out, dragging our bags through busy traffic and uoba dusty lane to the office of ” Motor Inn Santorini”, my chosen rental car company. Our nice clean and shiny Toyota Yaris was ready, and we headed off – with one of the suitcases in the back seat. They are very little cars! Immediately an alert bell started ringing , getting more and more noisy… So we backtracked to the office for dome help. Turned out our suitcase was setting of the ” seatbelt not fastened” alarm!
Back on the road it only took about ten minutes to get to the town of Megalochori. There is a laundry service on the main road and we had a bag of laundry to drop in, the very helpful manager said no problem, ready tomorrow – although I forgot to ask the price.
Than we had a three minute drive to our hotel , the Athermi suites. It is gorgeous here! Our suite has its own private entrance gate and as you walk through, thee views took our breath away as we looked from our private pool terrace over the caldera. ( I’ve splurged on this place, it’s a bucket list location and I doubt we will be coming back again)
We’d barely walked in the door before I had my cossie on and climbed into the pool , and got a jolt when I discovered how cool the water was! I enjoyed it briefly before drying off in the sun, Neil decided not to get his feet wet when he saw my goosebumps! 😊
After I dried off we took a quick drive up the road to the supermarket for chips, water and wine. And came back to try our indoor ” hot tub” .. which was lukewarm 😂. Not to worry, the view is still gorgeous . We’ve since asked the manager if the temp can be increased so hopefully it will be a bit warmer tomorrow.
We sat on the verandah and watched the sun go down, while being serenaded by an extremely loud Indian wedding party taking place at a big villa down the road! We really felt like we’d stumbled into a Bollywood movie, complete with fireworks at one stage! But the sunset was still beautiful.
We had booked dinner for 7.30, and the music from the wedding was blaring across the diners at the restaurant, who all looked like this was not what they’d been expecting for their romantic dinner in Santorini! Luckily for us, the wedding party DJ signed off shortly after we started our meal.amd we enjoyed the rest of it in peace . Aaaah!
We were a bit surprised at how quickly the temperature cooled off after sunset, we both needed jackets and it was pretty chilly by the time we headed back to the room. Which is lovely and warm.
We have a busy day tomorrow, lots to see in Santorini and only one day to do it!