"Lobsters and Sunset" - Oia, Santorini

Day 3

The day started with a complimentary breakfast from the hotel. You call, they bring in five minutes. We enjoyed an amazing breakfast on the front patio of ham and cheese sandwiches, hard boiled eggs, fresh fruit, pound cake, toast with honey and jam, yogurt, fresh squeezed orange juice and fresh coffee. It was incredible and kept us full until dinner!

After breakfast, we took a walk around the western side of Fira to work off the food. So many nice spots to enjoy the view of the Caldera.

On a side note, we realized that our hotel is really in the heart of city center in Fira and has the BEST view of the Caldera. The volcano is literally right in front of our hotel. Management had to put up a sign that the stairs to the hotel were to be used by guests only because so many people kept coming down to take pictures. We definitely lucked out on our hotel. It's definitely worth the money.

Our next stop was Oia. We hopped on a local bus and headed towards Oia. There is a lot of Santorini that is still not developed, but hopefully it stays that way. Once in Oia, we walked through the alleyways of stores (similar to Fira, but with less crowds and much quieter) and found ourselves at the ruins of an old castle. The views from the castle were amazing.

After walking around some more, we decided to venture down to Ammoudi Bay (trip advisor's #1 "thing to do" in Oia). Let me say, it's a long slippery walk down to the bay, luckily, Eric convinced me to wear sneakers, or else I may still be attempting to make my way down the 200+ steps to the bay. Once at the bottom, we noticed a rocky pathway that went around the bay. Not knowing where it went, but not ready to eat dinner, we decided to just see where the pathway led us. Turns out, it ends at a small rocky beach with crystal clear water and rocks that people jumped off of. We were both amazed but also bummed because neither one of us was wearing a bathing suit. In any event, we enjoyed seeing other people swimming (and lying topless on the beach). If we ever come back, we're definitely bringing our suits!

Before attempting to walk back up the 200+ stairs (it's worth noting that after each step, there is an incline equivalent to at least another step, so really 400+ steps) to the city center, we decided to refuel with dinner at Sunset Taverna (recommended by my friend Jaebock). According to trip advisor, the dish to try was the lobster spaghetti, so naturally, that's what we got. Again, trip advisor got it right, it was absolutely delicious. Eric had about 1.5 lobsters himself.


After dinner, we decided to walk back up to city center. However, halfway up, we found a great vantage point to watch the famous Oia sunset. We sat on the steps for about an hour and a half and I went to explore an abandoned home built into the sea side. Nothing but rocks and debris, but interesting to see how some people used to live. Unfortunately for us, the sunset did not live up to the hype due to the haze. We managed to get some slight pink color, but definitely not as beautiful as the sunset we caught yesterday in Fira.

All in all, it was still a great day. We're enjoying our hotel room with lemon slushies in hand. It's only about 9PM, but we may just call it a night - else, we'll find an internet cafe to hang out at.

To view our pictures of the day, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=theresang1977&target=ALBUM&id=5385109149707350945&authkey=Gv1sRgCJWR7YS_66nPrQE&feat=email

Tomorrow - Kamari Beach!