Oia, Santorini - Blue skies, blue seas and blue domes

As the one behind all the organising and all the booking of the finer details for the trip, I quickly gained the title “Tour Guide” that would stick around for the next 3 weeks. It was a title that I didn’t take on lightly and it came with an immense amount of pressure. On approach to each destination I inwardly started to panic in fear that we would turn up to accommodation hosting nothing but walls of peeling, stained paper, located hundreds of unimaginative streets away from any kind of attraction, and beds of paper-thin mattresses. On the ferry ride to Santorini, this was playing on my mind and once we boarded the taxi bus at the port on the other side, I started praying that the photos were even slightly similar to the reality of where we were staying in Oia.

In hindsight, it would have been near impossible for me to get this one wrong, but I can’t express the relief I felt after greeting our host near the Oia post office, and making our way towards the town. We suddenly walked into what seemed like a movie set of a typical Greek island, clichéd with white buildings resting big blue domes on their fresh, reflective walls. Our host, already sweating from his day’s work, quickly and assertively walked us through the crowds of people and down the myriad of stairs to our apartment. He smiled telling us that there 90 steps to the apartment. We laughed, until we realised it wasn’t a joke.

Once getting down the unending stairs, trying to keep up with our swift host, we lifted our intent, watchful eyes from the narrow steps to see the doorway to our Greek home. A blue picket fence led us to our terrace, which conveniently looked over the glistening water. To our right was a mountain range of stunning little homes, artistically giving texture and colour to the landscape. To our left was the naturally beautiful, earthy-red cliff face, topped with more white, blue and pink structures. I was assured that I did not let the team down with our accommodation, despite the hesitation to climb back up the stairs anytime soon.

However, the stairs were unable to inhibit us for a second, as we were so excited to explore this island, not to mention get some lunch!! We pretty much walked into the first restaurant we stumbled upon and ordered from the fresh menu; tomato and mozzarella cheese salads, grilled fish, pasta, big green salads, all accompanied with the standard basket of bread and local olive oil. It’s hard to believe that one of the things that stunned us the most about the food here was actually the tomato. Tim and I don’t even really like tomatoes! But, shivers, I have never tasted such plump, juicy, sweet and tantalising tomatoes before!!! From this day on, there was not a meal that we indulged in that did not involve the wonders of Greek tomatoes.

Oh man, thinking about the delicious food we enjoyed makes me want to try and recreate every mouthful for you. It’s impossible to do so, but the memories of the food will always be intricately detailed in my mind. One particular meal that was impressionable on me was when we came across a homely little restaurant with blue checkered table-clothes scattered under a big awning. We sat down and instantly worked out that the waiters were the sons of the grey-haired gentleman, who was arranging the oil and vinegar bottles on the tables. This older man’s eyes were framed with deep, friendly and tanned wrinkles and his grey curly hair sat joyfully atop his gentle face. He instantly reminded me of my own grandfather who had passed away only a few months earlier. I immediately loved this man, and whilst he didn’t speak a word of English, I really appreciated the hard work and family culture that was invested into this restaurant.

Whilst it’s hard to believe that we did anything other than eat – we also managed to enjoy many other things on this picturesque island. With the hustle and bustle of the tourists visiting Santorini, there were such a vast amount of shops riddled amongst the houses, displaying stunning art, fashion and souvenirs. We spent a lot of our time going through the streets and just admiring the gifted crafts that were on display. Maree developed an obsession for linen, which was available in abundance in Oia, and both her and Dave managed to purchase some amazing items.

Visiting Santorini means a definite viewing of the sunset, which Oia is enormously famous for. I have to admit, it was an incredibly gorgeous sight, yet a giggle couldn’t be helped, as we watched bus loads of people file, push, shove and queue their way towards the end of the town, to view the going down of the sun. We were spoilt with a prime spot in a restaurant and from here we could see the sky change to warm, romantic colours until it finally fell dark. However, from here we also watched the spectacle of people as they flocked, in hundreds, to do the same. The castle perched on the hill, was covered with silhouetted figures enjoying the beauty of nature.

For me, the highlight of the trip was being on the back of a quad-bike, holding on to the back of Tim, with an enormous grin on my face. My legs felt the warmth of the sun and the fresh wind made the heat bearable. It was such a load of fun and I couldn’t help myself from singing into Tim’s ear, every song I could recall about sunshine and summer. He smiled and laughed graciously despite the repeated choruses wringing in his ear.

Any lack of vitamin D was made up for in our four amazing days in Santorini. We no longer showed the evidence of 18 months spent in the UK, as our skin no longer betrayed our Australian and New Zealand origins. Our legs bulked up with the amount of stairs travelled, but the amount of food we consumed made up for the calories burnt. Absolute bliss!!!­

Athens, Greece - A golden oldie

Despite the endless experiences that have qualified us to become well acquainted with tedious airport routines, one airport run in particular was greatly anticipated and also welcomed with a sigh of relief. There’s a specific feeling of liberation that comes once you have managed to get through customs, without a rigorous pat down, and get to your plane seat without being jostled by the impatient fellow travellers. When that little light illuminates on the dashboards and the familiar “ting” sounds to inform you to tighten your seatbelt, you know you’ve made it and the lead up was all worth it. The excitement kicks in and you realise in a few short, or sometimes horribly long, hours you will be exploring the soil of a new, rich and exciting culture. This exact feeling was what overwhelmed me once seated on our flight destined for Athens on the 26^th August 2013.

Just over one month before this date, I was finishing up my time at the school I was working at, and although I absolutely loved the job there was a hurricane of tasks and checklists to get through over the coming months.  I knew I had to put on my hard capped boots and safety helmet and trudge my way through the extremely busy weeks ahead. For starters, I had to confirm a summer job and quick smart. We also had to coordinate the moving out of our apartment with the departure for our trip. Which then leads to the organising of the ‘Big Epic Adventure.” Needless to say, it all happened in a swift, windswept moment and our last 2 months in London were over too soon. I ended up getting a reception job for exactly one month and the plans for our trip all fell miraculously and perfectly into place. The one last, and most exciting thing to mention, the arrival of our travelling companions and much missed family, Tim’s folks, Maree and Dave!

They flew into London on the 20^th August, giving them hardly enough time to adjust themselves into the opposite time zone and explore the enormous city of London. We tried our best to give them a little taste of our local and lovable London life. A delicious dinner at our local pub, The Green Man, charmed them as well as added to the epitomising picture of an “English dinner”. Of course, we took them to Borough Markets and rolled out a culinary journey for them to excitedly embark on, starting with good coffee, omelettes, paella, Italian panini, fresh fruit juice, almond croissants, goats milk ice-cream, duck and rocket rolls...

After somehow managing to fit in all of this, we celebrated being together with a special night out to see the theatre production of Billy Elliot. I feel that I have been spoilt with the array of theatre productions that I have seen, and honestly, I have never really been disappointed; the standard of each show I have seen has been amazing! Yet, Billy managed to pirouette his way to the top, and absolutely stunned us all with the excellent entertainment it provided. This was a night that I absolutely adored, and I am thankful to have shared it with special people.

Amongst the cramming in of London adventures, Tim, Terri, Mark and I also had to move out of the flat before we each left the country. Somehow, we managed to do it, handing the keys for the apartment over whilst trailing our suitcases behind us on our way to the airport! It really was a whirlwind of a week and so I bring you back to the moment we are sitting in our seats on the plane, with our most wonderful travel buddies next to us, on our way to Athens!

We were forewarned that Athens wouldn’t be much to see and would be quite dirty. For us, Athens was mostly acting as a stop over point to get us to our next destination – Santorini. So, with low expectations in mind, we arrived in Athens and found our Air BnB apartment. It could not have been located in a more perfect spot and it was air-conditioned, fighting the thick humidity that greeted us at the airport. We enjoyed a surprisingly delicious dinner and followed it up with what would become a tradition of gelato for dessert.

The next day was our only day to explore Athens, so we did it in style and jumped on an open-top bus. It was incredibly informative and confirmed that we didn’t need a whole lot of time to see the city. We jumped out of the bus to then climb up to the Acropolis, perching on the top of the mountain, quite close to the city centre. It was a shock how close it all was; it was almost like these ancient buildings and ruins were randomly dropped in amongst the busy city, and the locals had forgotten their attraction and would just stroll right on past. Well, we certainly didn’t “stroll” on… oh no! The four of us crammed into a cart, carried by a horse and rode our way up to the mountain. It was hilariously squishy, as our knees knocked with each stone we travelled over and our driver spoke not a word of English.

Once we reached the Acropolis, even though we’d seen photos and had been told about it, the enormity and ancientness of the site still had me in wonder. It was a bit of a shame, as the Parthenon was tainted with large scaffolding work. But never the less, we were there, seeing all the history and taking in the views of the vast and heavily populated city that was Athens!

In walking through the streets to and from our homely apartment, we were overwhelmed by the amount of shoe shops that were strung together along the roads. So many shoes!!! With a little bit of time for meandering, we did a touch of window-shopping without forgetting to end the day with a good meal! With recommendations from our host, we sought out a local and traditional restaurant, serving up home-cooked moussaka, grilled meat, fresh seafood and Greek salads… the beginning of our food affair in Europe. The accommodating waiter gave us suggestions as to what to try, and when we looked around at the locals enjoying their enormous plates of food, we knew we had found a treasure.

A stellar start to our trip, and we had no idea that it was only going to get better. We thoroughly did enjoy Athens, and whilst it’s not a destination we would think of doing again, it was one of those things that I had to do – a big, satisfying and well worth tick on the checklist!!