About Me

I am a 45 year husband and dad, currently adjusting to life back in the United States after living in Italy for a little over two years. I love spending time with my family, cycling, model railroading, mosaics and watching TV and movies.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Exploring Oia

We woke up to a sunny and beautiful day on the island of Santorini.  Our hotel offers a breakfast with our reservation, so we headed up to the restaurant.  



Breakfast spread - juice, tea, hot chocolate, bread, cheese, jam, biscuits and red hard boiled eggs for Easter.  


Red hard boiled Easter eggs.  Red is the traditional color here, not like in the US where eggs are dyed many different colors.  


View from the hotel

After filling up at breakfast, we decided to spend the day exploring Oia, located just down the road from our hotel.  Oia (pronounced e - ah) is located on the the northern end of the island of Santorini.  It is renowned for its spectacular sunsets on the Aegean Sea.  The town is flooded with visitors in the afternoons who come to watch the sunset.  The town is spread out around one central stone street.  The lower end of the village boasts a number of houses built in caves, most of which are now hotels.  


Remnants of a windmill.  Santorini once boasted over 70 of these, but today most are in ruins.  


It's hard not to see the beauty of Oia.


Looking south out over the caldera.  Santorini was once a large volcanic cone.  It exploded and parts of the caldera walls collapsed into the sea.  A new cone is slowly rising in the middle, last erupting in 1950.  



Stone caves.  This stone is easy to carve, but also stronger than concrete.  At one time the poor of Santorini built homes in caves they carved into the caldera walls.  Now these cave houses are slowly becoming the hot property, since most have sea views.  



We decided it would be fun to take a family photo!



Today was Easter Sunday, so the church was decorated for the occasion.


Greek flag


Its hard to see, but the sign says ATRINA, so Brandon had Katrina make a K.  


Katrina enjoys her first Greek baklava.


Happy boy.


Everything is so white in Oia.  The walk from our hotel into Oia was about 1.2km (about half a mile) and we must have passed 3 or 4 paint stores.  This man is giving the hotel roof a fresh coat.



Chapels and bells everywhere.  I think Greece is more catholic than Italy.


Brandon spotted this swing in the middle of town, so we took a swing and ice cream break.  


We ate lunch here. Its tradition on Greece to roast lambs on Easter.  We cooked smell roasted lamb everywhere in town.  Guess what I had for lunch?


Blue domes and lots of bells



Almost all the chapels and churches had domes, and all but a few were painted blue.


Brandon takes a break.  Did you know a Nintendo DS has a camera?  We didn't until Brandon bought his.  



More bells


Another windmill on the edge of town.  This one has been restored much more than most.



Many houses, hotels and shops have these solar water heaters on the rooftops.  


Santorini sunset


Back to the hotel at dusk.  

We had dinner at the hotel again tonight.  I had lamb, for the second time today.  Brandon had a meatball appetizer dish and Katrina had chicken souvlaki.  

Tomorrow we will take a cruise to the new crater....

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