If Celia had a pet donkey she would call it Mr HeeHaw

After a wonderful evening at a 5 star bench in Athens airport we arrived in Santorini on Wednesday morning. Stepping off the plane to a cold spring day on the islands (28 degrees). We were confronted with the islands unusual architecture, striking white houses with barrel rooves. 

After check-in we grabbed a €2 Souvlaki and explored the main village Fira. We walked down the cliff path to the old port where passengers were returning to cruise liners by boat and grabbed a beer on the edge of the water. With some Dutch courage, we rode back up the cliff path on the backs of donkeys - who didn't seem to want to follow instructions but luckily seemed to know the way!

Afterwards we popped back to the hotel for a swim and a quick power nap - that stretched out to 3 hours! But we managed to force ourselves to go out and get dinner and explore the cliff side by night and enjoy the view.

On our second day we traveled to Akrotiri archeological site on the south of the island, a former town from the late Cycladic period that was covered in silt and ash when the islands volcano exploded 4700 odd years ago (like Pompeii but different volcano).

It's amazing hour much still remains and how little they have excavated so far (about four out of 35 buildings!) but they have only been digging for forty years, they estimate it will take another 200!

Later we tried to get to another site on top of a mountain but it was closed due to high wind so we decided to explore the beaches. The bus goes on 'Island Time' and was taking forever so we hitchhiked to the beach, we got picked up by the local Maths teacher who was really nice, he wouldn't take money for gas and gave US a present for riding with him! So we had a few cocktails and a souvlaki on the beach before heading to Oia on the northern tip of the island. Oia turned out to be even more beautiful the Fira! So after dinner we caught the sunset over the Aegean and went back to start packing. 

Our flight out was delayed due to high winds, could have really done with another day in Santorini and nearly got one! But it managed to land (just) after an hour.

The thing that sticks with me the most is the hospitality of the islanders, they are really nice, like really really nice, like nicer than the Danish nice ( and without that whole 'secretly taking over the world' vibe). Even when they were trying to sell things being nice was still more important!

And now on to the mainland!