Day 2 Santorini

Today we started with a much smaller, but still good breakfast at our hotel after both passing out last night.  We caught a bus to the Akrotiri ruins, which are the remains of several towns built on top of each other then buried by a volcano.  The site is nice and it is all encompassed by a roof that keeps it cooler, but after visiting Pompeii it is not even close. We walked down to the shore from the site and caught a water taxi to Akrotiri's Red Beach, White Beach and finally Black Beach - the beaches get their names from the colors of the cliffs and volcanic sand that literally make the beaches white, red and black (very hot). The boat ride was nice, cheap and offered amazing views.  Sorry, didn't take my tablet to the beaches.  

We caught a bus back to Fira to grab some lunch and hang out by the pool. The hotel owner informed us that she had to change our room, but now we have a villa with a full kitchen and a walk in shower, so I'm not complaining.  We spent the afternoon at the pool, I am sunburned on my neck and chest, still ghostly white everywhere else, ugh.  I also learned that the beautiful Santorini blue that the bottom of the pool was painted with rubs off - I had blue feet, legs and arms from leaning on the sides until I took a shower.  

 Church of Panagia of Platsani

Before sunset we caught a bus to Oia to watch another beautiful sunset.  Oia is a really cute town, full of churches and more art studios and high end stores than Fira.  A few hundred tourists tried to pack onto the ledge at the end of the island to catch the sunset, it was insane.  We wandered around a little before heading back to the hotel.  The streets were still narrow and winding, but smooth stone versus the cobblestone streets of Fira - so much easier on my sore feet.

Street in Oia

We picked up dinner from a local bakery and got amazing pictures of a red moon coming up over a church.  We stopped in to let the hotel staff know when we needed a ride to the airport and ended up hanging out on the patio.  The owner's husband served us his homemade sheep's milk cheese and sweet Santorini dessert wine.  We just had our dinner there and chatted with the family, they were so nice (and the cheese was really good).