Beavers Abroad: Santorini, May 2014, Island Paradise (Pictures fixed!)

One of the advantages of living in Europe is that sometimes we get the chance to meet our friends in an exotic location. Lucky for us our friends had the great idea to let us crash their honeymoon and join them in Santorini and we decided that was a great excuse to make the trip! We headed to Santorini in late May, right after the wedding of Chris & Chelsea and after a treacherous flight into Athens we landed on the island right when as the sun came up.

We ventured out a few days early and Barramie and Lloyd and I stayed in a 2 bedroom apartment on the outskirts of Oia, a city towards the edge of the island, and the place affording the best sunset views. The city is perched on the edge of the volcanic island which is curved inwards towards the caldera, the cauldron-like volcanic feature formed by the collapse of land following a volcanic eruption. Derived from the Spanish word caldera, meaning 'cooking pot', Santorini is an active volcano but it is also dormant. It was beautiful looking at the cities perched atop the volcanic rock, and the sheer cliff views were just stunning.

The steps down to the water were numerous & treaturous, but the local transport navigated it with ease.

Wind-y steps down to the sea

One of the days we took a long walk down to a winery near the coast on the opposite side of the island from the Caldera, the side that our apartments were on. We had a lovely wine flight in a calm, peaceful scenery and were able to relax and take in the clean air and relaxed atmosphere.

Lovely day at the vineyard

One of my favourite parts about Oia was the food, we had delicious kebabs and mediterranean fare and we loved the rich feta cheese and delicious Mythos beer!

A few days later the rest of the group arrived for a weekend of fun in the sun!

The newlyweds and Matt & Jenny were staying on the other side of the island, about 10 minutes away from us and they had beautiful Caldera views, although to get there you had to navigate steep steps down to their cave rooms.

Newlyweds eating their first Bakclava!

One night during the trip we booked a dinner at a fancy restaurant with some of the best sunset views in the island. The food and wine was amazing and we had a really fun dinner. We decided that May was a bit early to go to Santorini, as the sea breeze in the evening was still a bit chilly.

Lovely Mediterranean fare

One of our favourite parts of the trip was an afternoon catamaran cruise around the island. It was still a bit chilly but we got to swim to some hot springs and see several picturesque small islands.

One sad thing about Santorini was the large amount of stray cats and dogs, but some of them were friendly and used to being fed by tourists, and very cute.

We were lucky enough to have a beautiful full moon on one of the nights, which illuminated the cliffside towns and cast a beautiful shine on the ocean at night.