Travel Log: Santorini, Greece

Today I am continuing coverage of my recent trip to Greece (you can see the first travel log on Mykonos here).  After three lovely (but too short) days in Mykonos, we took a high-speed ferry over to Santorini to continue our adventures with our newly-engaged friends and travel group.  Santorini is just as beautiful as I had pictured--it is tough to not see a postcard-worthy view!  Please read on for photos and details of this beautiful island.

Gorgeous sunset views in Fira make a perfect cover shot for this travel log!

Our large group split up into smaller groups for AirBnBs again, just like in Mykonos.  This is our villa group for Santorini, squished in the little "Jeep" we rented to scoot around the island.  It was super cozy, and we had so much fun!

This is what we looked like from the outside (sans moi, as I took the photo).

Once we were settled into our second AirBnB in Exo Gialos (we had some AirBnB drama in Greece that you can read more about in my first Mykonos post), we decided to head up to Oia for dinner and sunset views.  Oia is the cliff town on the north end of Santorini with the most famous white cliff & blue dome views.

The views in Oia were beautiful, and I loved that my gorgeous friend Laura and I were both wearing bright colorblocked outfits.  Of course we had to take a photo.

This was the best sunset photo I captured in Oia, with one of the blue domes!  Oia was very crowded at sunset, but we managed to find a spot to squeeze in and take a few photos.  As soon as the sun went down, the crowds dispersed to dinner or back to their hotels and it was much easier to walk around.

Photo credit for this one goes to my friend Stefan Latev.  He managed to get a photo with all three blue domes!  How postcard-worthy is this?

The next day, we took a sunset boat cruise around Santorini.  I chose a Triangl Poppy bikini for the cruise, because the bright colors stood out nicely against the white boat and the blue water.  My exact swimsuit is linked above and here.  Huge thanks to Eva Lin Photography for these three photos (one above, two below)!

Our cruise took us to several swimming spots, including this volcanic "hot springs."  I didn't jump in the water here, because the red rocks were known to stain white swimsuits and I didn't want that to happen to mine.

Lounging on deck with several of my ladies!  I love Allison's photobomb in the background!

The crew grilled up a delicious dinner for us during our third swim stop of the cruise.  Everyone could jump in the water while the food was cooking, and it smelled amazing.

In addition to grilled chicken and pork, the crew also made shrimp saganaki, eggplant, pasta, greek salad, and more.  They also had plenty of local white wine.  It was the perfect meal for an afternoon on the water.

Seattle, Hong Kong, and New York represent!

More fabulous sunset views as the boat brought us back to the harbor.  I definitely recommend taking a sunset cruise if you are ever in Santorini!  We were out a good six hours or more, and since we had a large group we were able to rent this entire boat just for our group.

What a great photo of our Santorini crew, representing from all over the world!

The following day, our villa group walked a short distance from our AirBnB in Exo Gialos down to a local beach restaurant for lunch.  If I remember correctly, the sign outside just said "Seafood Restaurant."  We were served a feast of fresh local fish, squid, prawns, salads, baked eggplant, zucchini, and of course local white wine.  This was one of my favorite meals of the trip!

After lunch, we drove down to the southern end of the island to check out the ruins of Akrotiri.  This was an ancient settlement that was completely buried in ash from a volcano eruption in about 1627 BC.  It was described as being like Pompeii, except that there were no bodies found.  It appears that  these residents knew ahead of time (or at least had enough warning) and were able to evacuate.

Akrotiri has also been said to be the inspiration for Plato's story of Atlantis, due to its location.  The ruins are now kept in a covered, climate-controlled environment with walkways allowing tourists to walk through and get close enough to peek into the ancient settlement.

Akrotiri is right by the Red Beach, so we stopped by for a quick dip after the ruins.  To reach Red Beach, you park up above in one of the free parking lots, and then hike down over the rocks to reach the actual beach.  It looks really far away in this photo, but it only took a few minutes in reality.

Our last evening in Santorini, we met up with the rest of the group for dinner in Fira.  It was a chance to see one more gorgeous sunset!

I love this view of the lights that dot the hillside.

One last group photo after dinner, taken by a kind stranger!  After this evening, most of the remaining group continued on to Rhodes for a few more days.  We flew out the next morning to make it home in time for two dear friends' wedding, but we did have a ten hour layover in Athens that I will share in my next travel log.  Thank you for visiting my blog today, please stay tuned for our Athens adventures soon, and I hope you have a great rest of your week!