Sunset capital of the world

After 2 months on the road, the time was ripe. Post visits to plenty of new places, acquainting ourselves with new people and their cultures, the time had come to re-acquaint ourselves with people previously familiar – la familia. The rest of the Pai family had planned to meet us in Greece for a 10 day ‘leisure stay’. I say leisure stay because out went couchsurfers and hostels, $2 meals and ‘roughing it out’ daily. In came hotel stays, cruises and gourmet lunches.

We always intended to chase summer during our one year and it was quite symbolic that the day we flew out of Warsaw to Athens, Europe had its first snowfall for the winter. Plan well executed I’d say.

After a month of living in countries with mostly single digit temperatures, Athens was a warm, humid and dusty welcome change. Well, the dust not quite so, but we’d take that any day over the cold of Poland, Czech Republic and Germany.

Chapter 1: The day before

We had a night to spend in Athens prior to flying to Santorini to catchup with the folks, and we couchsurfed with Roberto, a multilingual Italian bloke who had been living in Athens for the past 4 years. We were warmly welcomed into his house and together with 2 of his mates, cooked up a massive multicuisine feast. Our first impression of Athens was how similar it resembled the city of Mumbai in India, what with relatively crowded streets, plenty of little shops ranging from mechanics to fast food to general stores. Also the dusty, rustic setting of the city made it seem like the Mumbai of Greece.

Since Roberto lived in the heart of the city, the Acropolis was only a short walk away. We paid a visit to the Acropolis museum which blew us away with the thousands of artefacts that it housed from the acropolis and the interactive videos which gave us an insight into Greek history and that particularly of Athens. Highly recommend a visit to this museum. Not being a big fan of museums prior to our trip, I now seem to be on a spree!

We did not get a chance to visit the Acropolis during the day as nightfall had set in by the time we got to it, but there was a vantage point right next to it atop a set of boulders that made for a stunning panoramic view of the Acropolis and the entire city.

Chapter 2: La familia meets

With backpacks on, my dirty Sanchez mo curled, we set out the next day back to Athens airport to meet the Pais. Our first sight of them had us quickly checking ourselves again as in walked the ladies – Mrs Pai elegantly attired followed by the Jr. Pai and her ‘BFF’. For those like me not quite acquainted with the English language of today – BFF stands for ‘Best Friends Forever’. Moving on.

Post numerous group hugs and smiles, we found ourselves on the beautiful island of Santorini. We found the east coast of Santorini to be quite similar in landscape to the city of Muscat, Oman – dry land adorned with a few pristine white villas and gorgeous blue windows and rooftops.

Our hotel was right on the cliff edge with magical views of the entire island and the impending sunset, which I now term as the best that I’ve ever seen anywhere in the world. Views from the island were just as we had seen in numerous postcards and paintings that most people nowadays have in their houses around the world. The photos below will illustrate that.

A visit to the active volcano was made even better by dips in the nearby thermal baths and was capped by a view of the sunset in the city of Oia – the most popular spot to view sunset on the island. Luckily, since it was low season the island was fairly deserted with just the odd tourist and on most days, we got to enjoy a peaceful, serene sunset with a couple of beers in hand.

Chapter 2: Crete

After 4 memorable days in Santorini, we caught an overnight cruise boat to the island of Crete. Given that winter had set in other parts of Europe and Santorini itself was a slight bit chilly at night, Crete was a pleasant change with its humid and warm climate.

We spent our first night in a barely there town of Rhynmenthnon. Given it was the low season, we scored a room in a 3 star hotel for $25 with sea views. There isn’t much to do in this little fishing village apart from wading in the sea that’s fairly swamped with red algae, and wouldn’t recommend a visit unless you need to make a stopover.

The next day we caught a bus to Hania the capital of Crete and we were instantly mesmerised by this little coastal town that was we soon termed the ‘Mecca of Crete’. It was a languid town located on the north coast of Crete with a little harbour that was decorated with tons of bars and restaurants each offering a view of the lighthouse and the sea. The place was perfect for families and young party goers as it had something for everyone, right from quite lunches by the harbour to a pumping nightlife as well right on the harbour. It was the perfect place to stay and we made day trips to the nearby beaches each about an hour drive away, with Elafonisi taking the cake as best beach on the west coast of the island.

Unfortunately the wet season had commenced so we could not visit the world famous Samira gorge which would have had us walking about 14 kms through the gorge and finishing up at the sea. Well, there’s enough reason for us to return to Crete for a second time as we could have easily spent a couple of weeks there.

Chapter 3: Differences in perspective

It was an interesting time meeting our family as after almost 70 days of living in minimal style, be it with accomodation, food or other necessities, we were now seeing things in a new light, i.e. we felt that we quite did not need the excesses our lives back home offered and that we could very well survive living a fairly simplistic lifestyle. We are now 5 months into our travel and we’ve barely purchased an item that was really not required. To put it in numbers, I’ve actually bought just 2 t-shirts and Dee the solitary shawl. Champion girl! My excuse was that my current t-shirts were badly ripped, stained and what not. Anyway we were convinced that we did not need much to be content with our lives save a big smile!

And all the above was put into perspective when we met our family as they, as any other family would do, were on a holiday and were more than happy to spend on items that we probably did not deem ‘necessary’. We had a few differences in opinion on how we did not have to spend money dining at highly priced touristic restaurants to make our trip ‘enjoyable’ and the differences paved way for our some interesting discussions which ended with both parties agreeing to disagree. Nevertheless, we had a great time celebrating Dee’s birthday at a Greek-Turkish restaurant with plenty of ‘Raki’ the local liqueur. It tastes like really bad medicine and has a high alcohol content, and what’s more it’s free with every meal – a total win!

Our trip to Greece was a a memorable one and we definitely plan to come back to to visit the other islands later this year when we are back in Europe. I personally feel that if the locals were to shed their laziness and keep their businesses running throughout the year, the economy would do a lot better than it currently is faring.

The Facts