Aidan & Holly - Santorini

We have had a week in Santorini in a Greek hotel. When we got off the plane we got a taxi to the hotel, the taxi driver was waiting in the airport with my Dad’s name on a piece of paper.

When we got to the hotel the lady that owns it came to show us to the hotel because the taxi would not fit through the narrow road. We had to walk down some little laneways with walls on each side.

When we got to the hotel she opened a door in the wall and I thought it would be the inside of the hotel, but when I got in I looked up and we were still outside. 

The hotel is like a little the owners live in. Each room had a little outside area to sit in and there was a pool. village of its own. There were 4 different rooms plus the house the owners live in.

The first thing Holly and I did was put our swimmers on and jump into the pool. That’s when we first met the two dogs. They were very friendly one of them was only a puppy. Their names were Kirki and Raoulu.  I don’t know how to write them properly in Greek.

The hotel was in a village called Karterados. There was a church across the laneway. On Wednesday morning they rang the bells at 7am.  They did it again on Sunday, which was good because we had to get up to catch our plane.  About a kilometre from our hotel was a really awesome bakery.   At the bakery every day we bought breakfast and coffee for Mum and Dad. In Greece they eat Bougatsa for breakfast. This is a pastry filled with custard and you eat it warm. It was really, really good. They also sold really big doughnuts like pretzels and big croissants filled with Nutella.

this is breakfast at the bakery. Mum and Dad had big cappucino freddos which are cold coffees.

While we were in Santorini, we went to lots of beaches to swim because it was very hot. Most of beaches did not have sand, they were made of rocks.  The rocks were mostly black because they are volcanic rock. This is because the island was once part of a volcano. Thousands of years ago the volcano erupted and the island was broken up. Now you can see the volcano island of Nea Kameni from the caldera on Santorini.

One of the beaches was called Perissa beach. We had to catch a bus to get there. On the beach there were lots of umbrellas and sunbeds that you could hire for the day. There were lots of restaurants along the beaches and if you ate there you could use their sunbeds

. They also would bring your food to the beach for you. They have little sheds where you can get into your swimmers.

Another beach was called Kamari. A little way out from the shore was a big pile of rocks that you could swim out to.  When Holly and I first got there we found little nooks and crannies filled with sea salt. As we were climbing up to the top of the rocks I saw lots of little fish in the pools. 

The water was very clear because there was no sand to get pushed around by the waves and there were also not very many waves. The water was very salty so it was easy to float.  The beach was also very steep so it got deep very quickly and it was hard to get out. It was also hard because of the pebbles that sunk under your feet.

For lunch and dinner most days we had gyros pitas which is a pita bread with some chicken, chips and some salad and tzatziki. They were really yummy.  One day we tried a pork one but the chicken ones were better.

Another place we went to was called Amoudi Bay. At the top of the island is a village called Oia.  It is very pretty with lots of houses all painted white. There are also some old windmills.

  To get to the bay you have to walk down the cliff. There is a path with a lot of steps. Once you get to the bottom, you have to follow a path until you reach the swimming area in the bay.  The water is very clear and very deep.  You have to jump off the rocks to get in. There was a huge rock sticking out of the water and some people were climbing up it and jumping off it from high up. Swimming there was fun, but afterwards we had to climb the steps again to get back to the village. It was very hot and it was a long way.

There are donkeys at the bottom that you can ride to the top but it is recommended that you don’t ride them because they are not looked after properly and they have to stand all day in the hot sun. When they take the donkeys home for the day they tie each donkey to anther donkey the first donkey has the man riding it to lead the donkeys single file.

In Santorini there are a lot of stray cats that you find eating out of the bins at night. One of the cats was friendly so we fed it some ham the we were given for breakfast. We visited her twice a day.

In Greece they drive on the other side of the road than we do at home and sit on the other side of the car. That’s why dad did not drive.

Most of the people ride motor bikes and quad bikes but they don’t have to wear helmets. Most of the people with quad bikes are the tourists.  

We also went to see the sunset up at Fira that is about 15 or 20-minute walk from where we are staying.

On our last night there was a firework display on the volcano for the volcano festival.They had made it look like it was coming out of the volcano. My favourite part was where they made it look like the lava was flowing out of the volcano.