We started on our way, driving toward the lighthouse at the southern tip of the island. Alicia drove first, having had minimal experience driving one out in Minnesota as a kid. We took in the view of the whole island there, noting where we began in Oia and where we rented the ATV in Fira. From here, Karla took the handlebars and delivered us safely to the Red Beach.
Once we parked, we had to walk about 5 min to get to the actual beach, over and around the cliffs. The Red Beach gets its name from the giant red cliffs that are the backdrop to the beach. The sand itslef is even a muddy red tint! It was beautiful, but windy and a bit chilly, and much more crowded than our beach yesterday. We were thankful that we picked yesterday to be our beach day!
After a quick juice stop at a grocery store, we arrived in Pigros for lunch. Then we carried on to the highest mountain on Santorini, crowned by a monastary. It was unfortunately closed (we haven't been having much luck with religious edifaces here!), and we were very thankful that for once we hadn't walked up! We walked around the monastary to the bare rocks on top of the mountain, and took in the scenery for quite some time. We could see the ocean on 3 sides, and 3 other Greek islands!
We spent some time trying to figure out whether this panorama would make us believe the world was round or flat, the hopped back on our 4-wheeler, heading south again toward the town of Perissa. This beach was named as the nicest on the island by one of our tour books, but Karla and I still prefer our little isolated beach in Oia! Nonetheless, we relaxed there for a while, although it was by this time a bit too chilly to swim.
Next on our biker tour was a small vineyard in Megalochori called Antione's. We sampled a white, a red and a dessert wine. Shockingly, the dessert wine was by far the best...the white and the red were very lack-lustre and simple. Karla thought it must be because the conditions are so comparatively harsh here for grapes.
The wine tasting over, we went back to Fira to grab a quick bite before taking the ATV to a place we had scoped out along the caldera to watch the sunset. It was much cloudier this evening than last night, but our spot was ideal because we not only had a great view of the main event, but also of the volcanic island in the middle of the caldera.
After sunset, we returned our ATV and explored Fira on foot for a couple of hours. Fira too seemed much less crowded than Oia did that first night, but maybe we're just getting used to the tourist mob!
We took a bus back to Oia for our last night in Santorini. Tomorrow afternoon we leave for Athens!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
1 comment:
I have seen Alicia on an ATV and from what I have seen I definatly would have reconsidered letting her drive :) Good to hear that your having some 'Minnesota fun' riding 4-wheelers, watching sunsets, and of course enjoying a little bit of local alcohol. Keep those facebook messages comin, they are quite enjoyable.
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