We sluggishly got out of bed, having drank a bit too much wine coupled with the weight of acknowledging today was the day we say goodbye to Santorini.
We packed our suitcases and checked out. We found out that the hotel allowed us to leave our bags secure at reception and our stay included a transfer to the port. This made the rest of the day a whole lot easier.
There were a lot of people in Fira – there were two cruise ships full of tourists looking at spending the day in the caldera-view market place. This made our browsing of local wears a little frustrating and notably deficient in cats. Despite this, we were able to find two lazy cats looking for some pats near the cable car entrance. Immediately our day brightened.
We had Gyros for lunch and enjoyed walking around, taking in the last sights of Santorini.
By 6pm it was time to go and the hotel transfer took us to the port. The driver was able to direct us to a small café / restaurant where we shared a souvlaki and the sunset. We then boarded the ferry at 8.30pm. We were asleep by 9.30pm.
We arrived back at Piraeus at 6am and walked through the chaotic traffic towards our hotel. When we arrived we enjoyed some superfast wifi speeds as well as an early check in. The shower after about 36 hours straight was very welcoming. We had a nap to refresh after the patchy sleep on the ferry and then made our way towards Athens.
We took the train at Piraeus and noted that it is very similar to the trains in Brisbane. There’s occasional graffiti and commuters speaking loudly. The only thing absent was someone playing loud music from their phone. We did get a crazy man loudly yelling nonsense, though. So very much like a Brisbane train.
We got off at the metro station at Thissio and then stopped to share a Moussaka and Greek Salad at a local taverna. We then walked a couple of hundred metres to the Hammam Turkish baths. These are traditional Turkish style baths where you essentially wash yourself old-style in a sauna before drying off and drinking tea while eating Turkish delights. The Hammam is a round room where mixed genders sit on a marble bench which encircles a large marble round table in the middle. Marble sinks, each with two taps: a hot and a cold, decorate the bench. In those sinks you can mix the hot and the cold water to your liking and then use a metal bowl to fill with water to wash yourself. You are given an additional bowl full of bath salts and soap along with your own personal loofah. Laying on the marble round table was the best bit – it was hot and we were able to stretch out on it, soaking in the heat of the sauna. In an adjacent room, other patrons can receive traditional massages and beauty treatments. There were no appointments available when we visited. After we couldn’t take the heat any longer, we made our way to the tea room where we exchanged our wet towels for dry and enjoyed the tea, water, and Turkish delights.
The whole experience takes around one to one-and-a-half hours and is very relaxing. We felt like jelly floating on a cloud as we left to go back to our hotel in Piraeus.
We had dinner at the rooftop restaurant and bar at our hotel, called the Niners Club. There we enjoyed a three course meal of grilled vegetables with haloumi, chicken and mushroom risotto (me) and a creamy chicken and mushroom dish (Chris). We then had a chocolate soufflé with ice cream all while enjoying some house wine. The best thing about Greece is that the house wine is actually wine made by the restaurant.
We stumbled back to our room, slept off the wine and the overindulgence of food we had consumed.
Finally, it was our last day in Greece. We woke and went out to fetch some breakfast from a local bakery where we had some savoury pastries and coffee. We then packed and made our way to the airport via train, this time we were entertained by some accordion players busking from carriage to carriage.
We fly from Athens to Amsterdam this afternoon at 5pm and look forward to the coffee and pastries there.
Chris and Chantal 