Day 27 – Red vs Black
23 April 2015
Santorini
Breakfast was served at 8am. We made sure we started the day early so we could do a lot more exploring since it would be our last full day on the island. It was a little chilly in the morning but the sun was slowly creeping towards our balcony and so we decided to have our breakfast there. We had sunny side-up eggs, omelette, fresh fruit, toast, jam, croissants; we had the works! We could not complain about the view either. It was going to be a beautiful day.
We got dressed and headed to Thira for the bus station. The night before we actually got some sightseeing tips from our receptionist who happened to be Filipino. His name was Vasilis, a Greek name. He was born in Athens and he went to Santorini for work placement and experience at the hotel. We asked him last night about other places to see on the island and he told us to check out Red Beach and Kamari Beach. He told us that we could ride a bus to these destinations and the fare was cheap.
The bus station was not hard to find since the town was quite small. A number of buses were parked and a lot of people were on the side waiting to board. Tip: You buy the ticket on the bus, not at the counter, even though the sign is quite clear about this instruction, a lot of tourists went to the counter anyway to ask for tickets including us :). Be very careful reading the bus destinations on the wall. Each destination corresponded with a bus number. Even if you get confused the bus conductors would shout out the destination when you board.
We got on the bus to Akrotiri. The journey took less than half an hour and cost €1.80 each one way. During the bus trip you get to see the other side of Santorini. The vast plains of the ‘mainland’, not as picturesque as the white washed dwellings by the cliff. There were a bunch of us that got off by a beach which was not red at all. We were a little confused and so we asked the conductor where Red Beach was and he pointed to a direction by the cliff. “You walk that way to Red Beach” he said. I decided to lead the pack to the said direction. We walked through a couple of restaurants which none of us were interested in eating at since we weren’t there for the food. Then we saw a sign pointing to go up the cliff which led us to a road. It would have been a lot easier if we took the road instead of having to walk on the gravelly beach. The road then led us to a path that was right near the cliffs edge. The cliff was red and so we knew we were getting close. Around 15 mins later we finally had a decent view of the beach. It was beautiful. There were a few people already down there, some were sunbathing, making the most of the sun. It was quite a task going down to the beach from the top of the cliff. One wrong footing and you could slip and hurt yourself below the rocks and fall into the water. We took our time and managed to reach the beach safely.
A few photos later, we climbed back out and took the bus back to Thira. Since we couldn’t get enough of the souvlaki, we found another place which served them (plenty to choose from). The bus to Kamari was to leave an hour and a half later and so we still had plenty of time to waste and so we went souvenir shopping.
After some time we made our way back to the bus station and caught the bus to Kamari. It was the same price of €1.80. As soon as we got dropped off we were once again confused to where the beach was. I just walked through a street with Wifey behind me and eventually it led us to Kamari Beach. This time the beach was black. We were there just before the summer and so it was fairly empty but we were told by a local there that it got very crowded during the hot season. He was actually asking us to eat at his restaurant but we already had lunch. We asked nicely if Wifey could use the toilet instead and he was very happy for her to use it. We walked by the beach, took more photos, I could imagine being here in the summer. The black pebbles would have been scorching hot to walk on. Since it was the off season, the area was quite dead. A lot of shops were still closed. Apart from the beach there wasn’t much to do there and so we decided to catch the next bus out back to Thira.
Part 2 coming soon :).
Cheerio,
Jeeps
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