SB2014 Part 1: Getting to Greece
<<<rewind to last last week<<<
Thursday (Feb 27): Train. Strasbourg. Train. Bus. Sleep.
My bags packed and peanut butter baguette sandwiches made (thanks to Mami's care package), I was ready to embark on my 10-day spring break journey. Although I knew I would get to my first destination (Santorini, Greece) until Saturday afternoon, I was excited nonetheless. Thursday was mostly trains with the exclusion of one bus. I did, however, get to explore Strasbourg a bit (due to a layover) and visit the town's amazing cathedral which had a really cool astronomical clock and gorgeous exterior. Hidden gems like that are always so fun to find.
Friday (Feb 28): Bus. Plane. Bus. BUS. Metro. Sleep.
The plane ride was actually really gorgeous. We flew around the same time the sun was rising and had the insane treat of getting a view of the Italian-Swiss Alps peaking through a thin layer of clouds with the sun shining just the right way. I felt like I was looking at a painting out of the plane's window.
The BUS in the sequence above was a 7-hour journey from Thessaloniki to Athens that was supposed to be a 4.5-hour train ride. Alas the train was full so we ended up having to sacrifice 2.5 hours in Athens (goodbye, Acropolis). Besides sleep and looking out the window at a variety of greek landscapes, I took it upon myself to learn some basic Greek in those 6 hours (yay for linguistic nerdiness haha). When we *finally* got to our hostel in Athens I got to say ευχαριστώ! (read: ef-hah-rees-TOH, translation: thank you) to the super friendly receptionist. It made her happy :)
Today we woke up early and headed to port to take a 6 hour ferry to the Greek Island of Santorini. I like to think of it as a un-luxurious cruise that had very few activities for its passengers but you know... It was pretty cool being a boat. After traveling for hours we really just wanted to be on the island. Around 4 or 5pm we approached a C shaped mass of land with clusters of white villas and lots of hills and OHMYGOODNESS CAN IT BE TRUE YES SANTORINI FINALLY. Granted, it was cloudy and windy but I was so excited to be there. Upon our arrival we took a cab to our hostel and soon realized how season-oriented Santorini's tourism really was (read: most restaurants/hotels were closed and we were part of a few couple travelers on the island).
After our grocery run I fully understood the phrase It's all Greek to me ...we heavily depended on pictures to know what we were buying (except for the pleasant surprise of Oregano chips. Yum!). At night we went to Perissa Beach, Santorini's black sand beach, which was about 2 blocks from our hostel. There was something hauntingly beautiful about the quiet noise of the waves, coarse black sand under my feet, and the moonlit hills surrounding the beach. Even though we were not accompanied by the summer crowd, Santorini's natural beauty was enough to make all that travel worth it.