So Santorini…..hands down one of if not the most beautiful place I have ever been.  It definitely competes with Cinque Terre in Italy.  Our villa in Santorini (another airbnb find) was absolutely amazing! We had two balconies that overlooked the Aegean Sea as well as all of the other white villages in Santorini.  The village we stayed in was Imerovigli.  I highly reccomend staying here as opposed to the touristy Fira.  Although we spent a lot of time in Fira, tourist shops lined the streets and I just don’t like that.  I like to feel that I’m in the middle of the real people of the city.  And although Imerovigli isn’t completely non-tourist as there are a lot of hotels, you definitely don’t see the ugly tourist shops.  In fact, the entire island is basically a tourism island.  Most (and when I say most, it is something like 80%) of the locals only live there during tourist season and go back to Athens or other parts of the mainland when it gets cold.  I really don’t understand this because I feel like I would want to live there 24/7 if I had the opportunity.  It is pretty much the most amazingly beautiful place ever and makes all your troubles melt away.

Oh and if you go to Santorini, you absolutely go eat at Anogi.  It is in Imerovigli and was by far the most delicious restaurant we dined at.  We actually went here twice because it was so good.  That is really unusual for me as I typically like to always try new places.

As I did with Part I of my blog post in Athens, I will tell short stories throughout to explain the photos.  And of course, you absolutely must visit Emily and Dani’s blog posts to read even more Santorini adventures.

If you would like to purchase any of these photos, please contact me at ashley@ashleymichellephoto.com

So one day we decided to take what we thought was a leisurely hike from our village Imerovigli to Oia which is on the complete opposite side of the island.  The hike ended up being just a tad bit longer than what we had expected but it had some of the most gorgeous views I have ever seen.  This is an absolute must do if you visit Santorini.  Definitely carve out a 1/2 day to make it happen.  The below picture is toward the beginning of the hike.  You can see the village of Oia all the way on the other side….just to give you an idea of how long and hard the hike was.  I felt like I was in the Sound of Music so I definitely sung, “The Hills are Alive” multiple times.

Beautiful churches all along the way.  You can’t get to these places by car which is even cooler.

Serious scale for you.  Dani left Emily and I for most of the hike because she was scared we were going to miss sunset in Oia.  And I think her feet hurt so she was being a baby ;).

About halfway through our hike, there was a little shack with a man making fresh squeezed orange juice.  I of course had to stop and get some because I’m obsessed with orange juice and after hiking for so long, orange juice sounded like the best thing ever.

Why don’t we have views and white houses like this in the US?

Its Oia! We are almost there! Now, we must hurry because its almost sunset.

This is an adorable lovey-dovey couple I just happened to see at the top of a mountain I had just walked down.  I couldn’t resist taking a few pictures without them knowing.  Don’t worry though, I introduced myself later and sent them the pictures.

Check out the couple in the right hand corner.  Love!  I seriously wanted to find a couple and do a legit session in Santorini. There were photographers with couples EVERYWHERE.  Dani and Emily didn’t like my idea.  I guess we did have things we needed to do and see and we were on vacation, but still.

The next day we went on a wine tour with Santorini Wine Adventures with Dimitris and visited three different wineries.  After tourism, wine (white wine to be specific) is the island’s biggest source of income.  I’ve been on many, many wine tours but the most interesting thing about Santorini wine is how the vines are grown.  They are grown low to the ground in a basket shape.  Since Santorini is an island, there are very harsh winds (we definitely experienced this).  This shape protects the grapes.  Another thing that was very interesting is the grapes don’t need to be watered….like ever.  There is so much humidity from the sea that the vines just take that in.  I might have brought back a few bottles.

Thats our awesome tour guide, Dimitris.  He gave us each a Greek name but for some reason I can’t remember mine.

That evening we went back to Oia for sunset for some epic photography.  Because our hike took much longer than expected the day before, we didn’t get to stake out the best place for sunset photos.  And believe me, people wait for hours for the best spot.  Regular people wouldn’t want to do this which is another reason traveling with photographers is so much fun.

Another amazing thing that we did that I don’t have pictures of (besides Instagram photos) because I didn’t bring my camera is the Volcano and Hot Springs tour.  We had to swim to the hot springs and we weren’t quite sure of the boat set up so we all thought it safer not to bring our cameras.  I really, really wish we could have because the volcanos were absolutely amazing.  Its crazy how so many different things/views can exist on one tiny little island.  The hot springs were a disappointment because well, they weren’t hot. We had to swim through literally freezing water about 100 yards before we got what was supposed to be the hot springs.  The temperature was barely lukewarm.  I’m thinking it was just the time of year we went though.  I imagine during the prime tourist season, this is different.

And with that, our trip to Santorini our trip to Greece was coming to an end.  We flew back to Athens and stayed in this gorgeous villa that was off the beaten path near the airport.  This was definitely local people as no one spoke English.  There was a guy herding sheep so of course I ran inside to where the other girls were sipping wine and yelled frantically, “Grab your cameras, hurry, there are sheep!” They got my point and came running with me.

More grape vines. There were also pecan and olive trees as well as beautiful wild flowers in this area.

The tiniest and busiest church I have ever seen in my life.  The inside was probably 8×8. I had to wait probably 20 minutes to go inside because townsfolk kept on coming and going.

The olive trees (I think) I was telling you about.

So the big news is that I actually made it back to the US.  Some people were skeptical because halfway through our trip, I realized my passport was expired.  Yes, my passport was checked twice at Reagan National and then again at customs in Amsterdam and no one said anything to me.  I didn’t even know until the airport people realized it on the flight to Santorini.  Everyone was completely stunned.  They just kept saying, “How did you get here?”  Thankfully they let me travel within Greece on the expired passport so it didn’t ruin my trip.  I had to make a couple of trips to the Embassy once we came back to Athens, but finally they let me have a temporary passport.  PS–US Embassy employees are not what you would imagine.  It is the DMV x 10.  The people are rude and just not very helpful.  I had to cry before they would let me use a phone to rebook my flight home. In my head, I imagined it being this welcoming place where people were constantly smiling.  I wouldn’t have been surprised if I received a hug upon my arrival, but once again this was not the case.  At any rate, I wasn’t really worried as I’m not much of a worrier and I knew I would make it home eventually.  I was rebooked for a later flight the same day and flew on the same flight and met Jimmy Carter so I think it was worth it.