And woke up to this glorious green surprise:
When we were planning this trip, it was near impossible to pick only one island in Greece, but we're so glad we followed the advice of friends and fled to the land of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (I'm sorry, I promise I won't reference that again, but I was once a teen girl after all).
Santorini was built on the caldera remnants of an ancient volcanic eruption and is mythically tied to Atlantis, but the part that you always see in pictures was all constructed after a huge earthquake that wiped out the whole northern half of the island in the 50s. Still, it's so charming and friendly and picturesque, and we really loved it. We'd read that it was also crazy expensive, but it ended up being pretty reasonable. Probably a benefit of traveling in the shoulder season. (Another benefit is perfect weather in the upper-60s and hardly any crowds, but we'll try not to brag about that too much.)
For the first two nights, we stayed in an Airbnb in Finikia, just a ten minute walk from the iconic whitewashed village of Oia.
The whole town is a never-ending maze of white and off-white and every shade of white in between, frosted in what I like to call caldera blue. It's so simple and complicated at the same time, and everyone just seemed so happy to be there. We saw no less than ten wedding photo shoots, and no less than 50 fat, napping furballs. I think this would be a very lovely place to be an animal. Also, before you tune out because I'm talking animals AGAIN, please consider that I am actually exercising great restraint because there are hundreds of dog and cat photos on my memory card that I'm not posting. Go me.
Lured first by this calico and second by fresh beatz, we ducked down into the most glorious bookshop I think I have ever beheld. It was started by a group of friends, and I now want to become one of those friends so I can go live there and keep shop for a summer. People, there are cozy loft beds built in above the book shelves! These are all of my cluttered childhood dreams come true! Matt bought a used novel and I got a book of short stories to read on trains and such.
On the north tip of the island, I convinced myself that my horse allergy doesn't apply to donkeys so I could take a ride up the steep cliffside steps. That was a little bit dumb of me. Luckily it was a pretty short ride up the hill because by the end of it I was sneezing up my brains and going blurry in the eyes. Adventure! Donkeys!
And with that lovely donkey booty, here are a few more pictures from our endless stroll through Oia:
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