So long, Santorini Santorini, Greece

Santorini, Greece

Today let’s tone down the history lesson a bit – after yesterdays big essay there’s not that much to report on today, it was a pretty quiet one.

We spent a part of the morning wandering the streets and doing a little shopping – finally picked up some small souvenirs.. small being the important word, I hope nobody has great expectations when it comes to gifts, but the suitcase was full enough when we left home, never mind trying to cram more stuff into it.

After the shopping we all grabbed takeaway lunch to enjoy by the pool at the hotel. This was soon followed by that other important holiday tradition – a big afternoon nap. So as I said, a pretty quiet day today.

For dinner we returned to the restaurant we visited on our first night – Parathiri Restaurant. Pretty impressive that Nicki from the restaurant remembered our names from the that visit. Perhaps we really did cause that much trouble the first time 🙂 Then as part of our grand farewell tour we went back to Tropical, the Australian-owned bar with the American barmaid – had to go say goodbye as she’d been so friendly every time we walked in. We stayed there a while, just soaking up the atmosphere and not really wanting the time in Santorini to come to and end. What a jaw-droppingly beautiful place, I had a rough idea of what to expect by seeing so many photos when we arrived – but it just doesn’t hold a candle to the real thing. Just an amazing view that I don’t think even the residents could ever get sick of.

One small piece of history I did forget – If you thought (as I did) that the word ‘Santorini’ sounds Italian rather than Greek, that’s because it is indeed Italian. The island was named after the chapel of Saint Irene, in approx 1204.

For us, however, its goodnight Irene – our last night on the island has come to a close. It will be a bit of a wrench to leave this place. But we still have a lot of holidaying yet to do, and Mykonos is calling…