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.   

Aidan 23, Mary Arden's farm

Today we went to Mary Arden’s farm which is where Shakespeare’s mother lived and worked.

One of the things we did was watch the Tudor’s eat dinner. the first thing they did was take off their hats but the head of the household did not.  It was considered polite to take off your hat and rude not to.  In Tudor times it was very important to be polite.

But he did when they said grace because they were talking to someone more important – God,  then he would put his hat back on.  When you say grace you put your hands together with your fingers pointing up because you want your prayer to go up to God.

They flicked their napkins over their left shoulder to get rid of the devil that might be sitting there.

Whenever they eat they use the spoon they got when they were Christened.  Everybody got given a spoon by their Godparents when they were Christened.  They kept that spoon forever.  The poor got wooden spoons, the people that had more money had pewter spoons and the people with much more money had silver spoons. They could not start eating till the master had a spoon full.

They sat at a board, not a table.  This was a flat board sitting on trestles, so you were not allowed to put your elbows on the board, otherwise the board would tip.  The master sat on a chair at the head of the table.  Other people sat on stools or benches.  This meant that the master was the Chairman of the board.

The servants sat at the board for dinner too.  This was how the master found out about what was happening on the farm, so it was a board meeting.  The servants often didn’t have much food at home, so they were given a hearty meal at the farm as part of their pay.  If there wasn’t much food, the Mistress had to make sure the workers still had a hearty meal so the family would get less to eat.

The women always had to have their hair covered and also their ears.  Children had to serve the food.  They were not given a seat at the table until they had learnt manners. 

Other things at the farm were falconry displays, donkeys,

blacksmithing and geese herding.  This is where they would have herded the geese to market.  Sometimes they might have taken 500 geese.  I got to have a try at herding and blocking.  Herding was easy because they follow each other and you walk behind them with a pole to push them along.  If you don’t want them to go somewhere, you stand in front of them with a pole and they will go a different way.

There was the house that Mary Arden lived. It had very small doors.  The beds the kids slept on had logs for pillows but with a blanket over it.

We saw a man milk a cow and a man that was making things out of leather.  He told us about swords and scabbards and he was making a water bottle.

One of the falconry displays was a barn owl named Millie. I got to have a turn at flying Millie, because the man wanted to show how people would have learned the skill of falconry.  I got to wear the glove and he let the bird fly to me. then the man said your fired but I did not do anything the bird just flew off my arm.  The bird was very light, I could hardly feel her on my hand.  She was missing one of her talons.  I liked it because it is something I would like to do when I am older. 

Holly 23 - Mary Arden's Farm

Our outing today was Mary Arden's Tudor Farm. Mary was Shakespeare's mother and Shakespeare was a play writer. He wrote Romeo and Juliet.

 Mary's farm was a lovely place to be. There are lots of cool things to do and look at like the bird display. The bird display was a bit different to the usual sort of falconry shows because the man told us all about how the birds were used in the Tudor times for hunting and how different types of people were allowed to have different types of birds.  If you had the wrong sort of bird you might have your hand cut off.

They did three shows that we saw and one that we didn't see. The ones we watched had an eagle owl called Tahlia.

The other one was a barn owl called Millie.  

There was also a Tudor dinner where the Tudor's talked to everyone about the manners they had and how they lived.  It was very interesting. They sat at a board instead of a table and the Master was the head of the house and everyone had to wait for him to start before they could eat.  Everyone had their own spoon.

There was also the cow milking and a man milked a beautiful cow. Another animal that I liked were the sheep

but I have to say my very favourite animals were the goats and the horse. The horse was very shy and the goats tried to eat my shoes.  

My favourite thing at the farm was the leather worker because he made a really cool leather bottle. I

had a go at geese herding which is a very important job because they had to take the geese to market to make money.  To herd the geese you need a stick. There would be a men or even children herding them and another person is called the blocker and they stop the geese going the wrong way.  They would take about 200 geese at a time and they needed a lot of men. Aidan also had a go at geese herding.

The blacksmith was Dad's favourite. He made some pretty cool things like arrow heads. It was very noisy and he was making a knife and it was a little bit curved as well.  

I had a lovely time at the farm.