Santorini 1998

Jo-Ann

27- 30.7.98 - Got up at 4 am but flight was delayed until 6 am.  Airport is very old, trip to Santorini took 40 mins.  Room wasn't ready so had breaky and swam in the hotel pool till 1 pm. We bought Joshua a soccer game for his birthday. Joshua's birthday - he got a surprise when he woke up.  Walked down to old port long, hot and windy, lovely place lots of cruise ships come in.  Caught chair lift back to top near church.  Pita souvlaki for tea and walked around streets.  Sat on verandah and watched sunset.  Started to get dark about 11 pm.  Restaurants very noisy and go till 5 am.  Went on three hour trip to volcano and hot springs had to book the day before.  About 30 mins to get to volcano by boat, 30 mins hot walk up had to take plenty of water.  Volcano is barren. 15 mins to hot springs.  You dive off the boat and swim to hot springs, boys and Stephen swam, but I waited on the boat, water looked very inviting and deep.  Went out to restaurant for tea just up the road from our villa.  Ate at about 9.30 pm - thats the norm over here. Hired a little car and drove to Ia and the top end of Santorini - quaint little place, beaches aren't much, had coffee and rizzogolo at a cafe.  Ruins were closed and then we got lost.  Got to the airport at 8 pm only to find our flight had been delayed.

Christian
Day 32 to 35 - Plane was delayed to 6 o'clock, we stayed in Athens dirty airport for another two hours.  We went to wait to be taken to the plane in a mini bus, it didn't even have a walkway.  The flight was good and there was not any turbulence.  We had a look at shops and I tried a thing called a pita souvlaki which is like a greek kebab and it was really nice.  They have a lot of motorbikes and they even have lemon Fanta in Europe.  In the afternoon we had a swim in the pool and saw some Australians.  At the pool some ladies took their bikini tops off and Josh and I thought that was a pretty impressive way to get a tan.  For Joshua's birthday he got a plastic soccer table.  In the afternoon we got some photos of the sunset.  We walked up to the top of the volcano where the crater was.  On the way back we sa a hole with Hydrogen Sulphide leaking out and it really stunk, we picked up a rock each.  We went up the stairs on donkeys.  We hired a car and drove to a town called Ia, to look at the old city which was closed so that was a waste of time.  Mum bought a ring with dolphins on it.


Joshua
Day 32 to 35 - We got up at 4 in the morning but our flight was delayed until 6 am.  Had to wait until our hotel was ready.  We had breakfast at a restaurant that had a nice view of the sea.  We went to the hotel and the toilet started leaking so we had to get the plumber to fix it.  For tea we had pita souvlaki.  When I woke up in the morning I saw a soccer table at the bottom of my bed.  Christian and I played that for a bit and then we walked down six hundred steps.  We sat and had a drink and some food and we went up in the cable car.  We shopped and then we got home and took a photo of the sunset.  We caught a boat to the volcano and when we got there it was packed with tourists.  When we got up to the top we were so hot we had to drink lots of water. there was a big crater where lava came out, we saw some smoke coming up and it stunk a lot.  After that we went to the hot springs.  I jumped first and it was cold at the start but when you got to the springs it was warm.  When we got back we rode the donkey up and that was fun. We hired a car and went up to the ruins and mum was afraid because she's afraid of heights and when we got up there it was shut.  So we went to Ia and had something to eat and drink at the beach.  We drove back to Thira and Christian and I got mum a golden dolphin ring then we went to the pool and had a swim.