2:45 am is awfully early to get up, especially after an evening of tapas bar hopping. I almost slept through my alarm, but luckily Kuniko woke me up. We got ready quickly, packed our bags, and then checked out of the hotel at 3:30 am. One of the hotel staff was covered in a blanket, so I’m guessing they stayed up late for our benefit. Outside the taxi we had ordered was waiting for us, and he grabbed our suitcase and headed out to the airport. As we pulled away from the hotel and started down the main street of La Rambla, I couldn’t believe how many people were running around. This is the dead of night, and the nightclubs were open and doing a good business. It was what I imagine Mardi Gras feels like – street party craziness. After we left La Rambla things got back to normal (that is, quiet). It was a bit of a drive to the airport, and it was a little expensive using the taxi, but at that time of night (morning?) our transportation options were limited.  On the way to the airport we were treated to the sight of the moon on the horizon.  It was huge and red, and probably the biggest I’ve ever seen the moon in my life.  Hopefully it was a good omen.
The airport was almost empty, but there was another flight leaving at the same time as ours, and the Air France counters were packed with people. Turkish Air had a small line but only one employee checking people in. Luckily more people came soon, and as we approached the front of the line the airport started turning on their lights. It was time to start feeling human again.
As we checked in the employee asked suddenly if Kuniko spoke English, which made us both laugh. I had been doing the talking during the check in, and it seemed at first like they were worried about my wife’s communication skills. Of course they were asking about it for the emergency exit row, and luckily we received some seats with lots of leg room for this leg of the trip. Before boarding we had time for some coffee and a bocadillo sandwich, and we departed for Istanbul about 20 minutes late. Upon arrival at Istanbul we had a bit of a rush to find our connecting flight to Athens, but as it turned out we made it with plenty of time to spare. That flight left 30 minutes late, but they made up about 20 minutes in the air and we arrived close to our scheduled time at Athens airport.
From Athens we went through immigration and customs (out of the EU, to Turkey, back to the EU) once again, and then had a little time to kill. There are lots of flights from Athens to Santorini, but I didn’t know how the connections would work out so I picked a flight leaving in the early afternoon. We killed the time quickly and then caught an Aegean flight to Santorini that was only 45 minutes long.
With all the delays and plane transfers we were sure that we would lose our suitcase, but somehow it made it through OK. Lucky us! We had arranged a driver and he was there to take us to our hotel. As we found out later, there are only 38 taxis on the island of Santorini, so it is best to arrange a taxi in advance or have your own car. The driver was making some money on the side by digging up other passengers for his minibus taxi, and so we shared the ride with another family that probably paid the same amount of money (25 euros) that we did, effectively doubling the driver’s income. This seemed to be pretty common, but not what I had expected.
Finally we arrived at Oia, the village where we were staying. Our hotel owner was waiting for us when we arrived, and he brought our suitcase over to the reception area, a small office on the top of the hillside overlooking the entire town and caldera of the volcano. Absolutely beautiful view, and it really actually did take my breath away when I first saw it.
Our hotel room was very nice – a cave room that was down the steps of the hill. We had a terrace with the same great view as everyone else, and there was a swimming pool and hot tub nearby to share with the other villa residents. We were very satisfied with the accommodations. The owner even gave us a fruit basket and a bottle of his homemade wine to welcome us. What a nice guy!
We freshened up really quickly and then headed out into the village to explore a little bit. The village is perched on the western side of the crescent shaped island of Santorini, and it was full of shops, restaurants, hotels and homes. While we explored there was always a great place to take a picture, and I used up a lot of memory card space the first day. There were also a ton of tourists (like us) walking around, and sometimes it was hard to pass through the little lanes between white houses when somebody stopped to look at a shop. On the way back to the villa we stopped and bought some cold Greek beers (Alpha and Fix) to drink on our terrace and take in the unobstructed view. It was nice – the tourists up above had to fight for elbow room to enjoy the view but nobody bothered us behind the gates of the hotel.
For dinner that night we had a simple meal at a nearby café called Mezzos. The staff was kind enough to use English with us, and she had a cute voice that sounded like she learned English from a German. The food was only so-so, but the local sparkling wine was very nice. Once the sun started to go down we walked around town in the cool of the evening and took more pictures. As a nightcap we decided to go back to our patio to enjoy the bottle of wine from the owner and watch the moon rise. Ack! The wine was totally oxidized and well past the dumping point. Someone probably should tell the guy that this wine had reached the end of its life, but it wasn’t going to be me. So we dumped it down the sink (easy come, easy go) and called it a night. That turned out to be a very long travel day.
