Santorini, Greece

Santorini has been high on my bucket list for a long time. Sometimes when you dream of a place forever it doesn’t quite live up to your imagination - that was NOT the case with Santorini! It was magical. Everything was so beautiful and the food was so delicious!

We went in mid October which is not tourist season, so nothing was crowded which we really enjoyed. The temperature was mostly pretty nice - a little chilly at night but pretty nice during the day in jeans. It did storm a bit on and off but we didn’t really mind that! It was a nice excuse to take breaks and we ended up having a very relaxing weekend.

Hotel

We spent a long time looking for hotels in Santorini because there are a ton! It was difficult to choose one. The first decision to make is what city on the island you want to stay in. The most popular & touristy one is Oia, but we were wanting to relax a little more and opted for Imerovigli, which is the highest up on the island and a little more secluded. It’s not far from Fira, the capital, but has a few restaurants of its own and is a little bit quieter. We were very happy with this decision!

We ended up choosing a hotel called Absolute Bliss. We booked a room with a private jacuzzi and caldera view. They actually upgraded us to their honeymoon suite! We really don’t know why - maybe it just wasn’t booked and we got lucky! Either way it was lovely. They picked us up from the airport and served us breakfast in our room every morning - you submitted your order every night and chose a time you wanted to eat and your food appeared in your room! The service was great and the view was amazing. The pool looked nice too but it was too cold to swim in it.

Day 1

Our flight left Amsterdam at 5:30 AM so we opted to stay at the airport in a hotel so we could ensure we got there on time for all the COVID checks and difficulties of traveling right now. By the time we got to Santorini we were quite tired! We checked into our hotel and then walked towards Fira for breakfast.

To Briki

Our flight to Santorini was SO EARLY and when we landed we were pretty hungry. We picked a spot for breakfast and headed out. I got a Greek coffee, which turns out to be coffee that is boiled instead of steeped with very fine grounds. It also came with a little bowl of some sort of…raisins? dates? Our waiter was not very interested in explaining to me and I wasn’t able to figure out what this was for online. It was not my favorite thing but it was fun to try something new! We both got omelettes which were very tasty and came with a small salad with lots of feta. Have I mentioned that I love feta?

After breakfast we relaxed on our hotel balcony and took a nice nap. I could sit on the balcony looking at the caldera all day!

The Wine Bar

We ended up here because it’s right next to Absolute Bliss. It ended up being our favorite spot and we went twice! It’s beautiful and they have an amazing view. The staff was super friendly and recommended me a nice local wine to try. We ordered baked feta on the first night and it was life changing. So delicious and spicy and amazing. We also got pizzas which were delicious. I had never had halloumi on pizza before!

Day 2

Skaros Rock

This was a cool hike that was a short walk from our hotel. You hike down quite a lot of stairs from the mountain down to the base of this huge rock. You can continue on from there further down towards the water and you eventually end up at this really cool hidden church! The way back is a lot of stairs but overall its a fairly easy hike. Luckily it was October so it wasn’t hot - in the summer I think you’d need to do this super early!

Salt and Pepper

After our hike we headed to Salt and Pepper for lunch. It’s owned by a super sweet Greek lady who was so friendly and adorable. We had tomatokeftedes which are sort of a tomato fritter and a popular dish in Santorini. Austin got a mixed grill souvlaki which was fantastic (and I didn’t manage to get a photo of). I got shrimp saganaki, which I’d never had before but thought sounded fun. It was really good, but I was very intimidated by the head on shrimp in the broth. I wasn’t sure how to remove the heads with a fork and knife! What I managed to eat was very tasty though. When we tried to pay after this the owner insisted on feeding us dessert which was also very delicious.

After lunch we wandered around a bit and then headed back to our hotel to rest and watch the sunset.

Kofini

This was another dinner really close to our hotel. We got more baked feta (look, my purpose in going to Greece was to eat my weigh in feta) and chicken souvlaki. Both were very delicous. The restaurant seemed fairly new inside and was very cute with friendly service. After our meal they gave us a little taster of limoncello which was fun.

Day 3

This was our last day in Santorini so we took a taxi (booked with Welcome Pickups) to Oia.

Oia

We didn’t really have a plan and mostly just wandered around. The city was super cute! We went around 10 AM so it was also quite empty which was very nice. I hear in tourist season it is very crowded. There’s some cool castle ruins to explore and beautiful views of the water. We hear there’s a good sunset view here, but our hotel had such a nice sunset view that we chose to stay there instead.

Ammoudi Bay

You can take the stairs down from Oia to Ammoudi Bay, it’s quite a trek. There are several little restaurants at the bottom, though they did all seem pretty touristy. It was a nice walk though and we enjoyed our lunch at the bottom. The way back up is pretty exhausting and there’s donkey poop everywhere which is not ideal. It was nice but I wouldn’t put it super high on my list of must-dos. The restaurants all seem pretty touristy and over priced, we just ate a few appetizers here.

The Wine Bar (again)

For our last night we ended up back at the wine bar, honestly because it was still our favorite place we’d been. We decided to go early enough to intentionally catch the sunset there this time. The second night we went, we got an assortment of small dishes which were all great - more baked feta, veggie skewers, bruschetta, and a dish of braised pork and halloumi served with rice. We also ordered desserts of lava cake and poached pear with ice cream. Every single bite was so amazing! The waiter also remembered us from a few nights before and was super sweet and helpful, he even remembered the wine I had drank before!

Overall Santorini was a perfect and relaxing vacation and really lived up to all of our wildest dreams!