The Streits

In the 20 months we've been living in Europe, we've been able to go to some pretty cool destinations: Barcelona, Portugal, Germany, Paris, the French Riviera, Austria, Croatia, Prague and Istanbul. Each destination has something special and unique. However, in my opinion, Santorini, Greece far surpassed any of them in terms of the WOW factor. It truly was absolutely incredible. If you're going to take a trip to Greece, Santorini is a must. We spent less than 48 hours on Santorini, but over half of the photos we took from our week long trip were taken there if that says anything!

Our means of getting from Paros (Part 1 of our Greece trip is here if you missed it) to Santorini was via ferry boat. It took about 3 1/2 hours and stopped at two other other islands before arriving in Santorini. Very relaxing and a scenic way to get there.

At the port in Paros (that's not the boat we took :) )

Views from the ferry with the island of Naxos in the background

Island of Los

Town of Oia on Santorini as we approached.

It's hard to get perspective from this photo, but those cliffs and the town are pretty high up

Our hotel was right at the top of the cliffs in the town of Fira. Our hotel was not accessible by car given how these little towns are built on the cliffs. A guy from the hotel met our taxi with a dolly to pull our luggage to the hotel about a quarter mile away from the drop off spot over rocky paths that wind along the top of the mountains.

Our original intent for this trip was to spend a day in Athens and then the rest of it in Santorini. However, after doing lots of reading and research, we discovered that Santorini isn't quite as family friendly as some of the other islands. Given the terrain, there aren't at many easily accessible beaches. The rocky street paths make it impossible for pushing strollers. And the island is a hot spot for honeymooners with many of the hotels having a young child age restriction. After finding out all that, we hence added Paros into the mix of our travel plans. While the two brief days we had in Santorini weren't enough for me and Geoff, it was a perfect amount for the girls. Which is just the way we travel now. We can still take amazing trips with two children in tow. We simply have a different perspective and a lot more flexibility to how it happens.

Checking out the views from our hotel. Just jaw dropping.

Pool time with amazing views

Unfortunately, the water temperature in the pool was FREEZING. The girls and I are huddled together here trying to stay warm. Can you see the girls' blue lips??? Just kidding!

While the girls napped one afternoon, I hopped on a bus to go explore the town of Oia which was a 15 minute ride away. So, so, so picturesque. Perfect Greece. Since someone had to stay back with the girls, unfortunately Geoff wasn't able to go exploring with me. I'm thankful though that he didn't mind me ditching him for a couple hours. Or maybe after seven straight days of being with me 24/7, he was ready for a break! :) Anyways, I guess this just means we'll have to make a return trip back to Santorini someday so he can take Oia in for himself.

Our last night in Santorini, we made arrangements through our hotel to have a local babysitter come watch the girls for a couple hours so that Geoff and I could go out to dinner to celebrate our wedding anniversary, which was the following day. Thankfully, the girls have no problem with a unfamiliar babysitter and the young lady that came was wonderful, bringing coloring activities and movies to watch.

We dined at restaurant on the cliffs not far from your hotel watching the sunset as we enjoyed our dinner. Quite romantic! So glad we were able to squeeze in a little child free celebration together in Santorini.

Happy 11 years to us!!

Really glad I married this guy and as I frequently tell him, he's definitely my favorite husband. :)

There probably aren't too many places that you can see both the sunrise over a body of water and see the sunset over a body of water and only have to travel a five minute walk to do so. But given the narrowness of the island, it's possible on Santorini. Not one to miss the opportunity, I set my alarm for way too early in the morning and snuck out to take it in.

God's handiwork...great way to start the day

So long Santorini...it's been spectacular

So what was suppose to be a relatively easy return trip to London via a brief stopover in Oslo turned out to be anything but. First, the check-in process at the Santorini airport was horrible. We waited in line over 1 1/2 hours and that was even with moving ahead of people to the front of the line because of Geoff's business class status. Then, our plane had issues. They couldn't get the front door to close properly. The airline had to fly a repair guy down from Athens to fix it but for whatever reason, the airline took their sweet time in notifying him he was needed in the first place. This airline only flies in and out of Santorini once a week, so it's not like there were other flights or an alternative airplane we could use as an option. They finally got the door to close, but then they couldn't get it back open! While we could all load on from the back of the plane, now being short a door, there were exit door issues if there were to be an emergency. So then they had to find a good chunk of passengers to give up their seats in lieu of finding alternative transportation out of Santorini so that the plane had the right passenger-exit door ratio and naturally, that process took a long time.

Trying to pass almost 6 extra hours in a tiny airport in entertaining ways

A Coca-Cola definitely helps

So does chewing on the luggage

Finally, we were cleared for take off! But by that time, the flight crew was about to time out because of the long delay and couldn't make it all the way to Oslo. So the plane had to stop in Munich for a new crew, which had to be flown in from Oslo for our flight. More waiting in Munich. Eventually, we landed in Oslo but by then, it was so late there were no more flights to London until the next morning. So we spent all of five hours (arrived at 1 am, left at 6 am) in the airport hotel before finally being on our way home to London.

Approaching Oslo at midnight. Yes, that's right. Midnight!

After being airports in three different countries in a span of eight hours, it was welcoming to arrive in London and not have people trying to speak to us in Greek, German or Norwegian! And after it taking us a total of 27 hours to get home, we needed a vacation from our vacation. Oh well, it was all absolutely worth it!

Several years ago, back when we were still childless, Geoff and I talked about taking a vacation to Greece after only hearing and seeing spectacular things about it. For whatever reason, it didn't work out that particular year and we went to Hawaii instead for our annual vacation. Needless to say, when we moved to London and discussed all the places we wanted to travel to during our time here, Greece was at the top of the list. Definitely a must get to.

With Olivia on yet another break from school (seriously, she has breaks all.the.time.) and our summer window of travel opportunities shrinking quickly with family members visiting and other trips planned, we once again got out our passports, packed up our suitcases and jetted off to Greece.

Our main destination for the week long trip was the Greek islands. This trip was going to all about relaxing at the pool and beach. Well, maybe relaxing isn't the right word when you holiday with a 1 and 3 year old. But anyways, we didn't want the trip to be about lots of walking around with the girls doing touristy sightseeing. We've done a lot of that recently in Paris and Istanbul. However, all that said, we did spend our first day in Greece in Athens walking around in the hot sun checking out a few of the ancient sights there. We felt like we just couldn't go all the way to Greece and not see a little bit of Athens.

Temple of Olympian Zeus. Construction was completed in 2nd century AD

Temple with the Acropolis in the background

Arch of Hardrian

Enjoying a break before climbing up to the Acropolis

Who needs the Acropolis when you can play with sticks!

Theatre of Dionysus. Performances still take place here. How cool would that be??

On the stairs leading up to the Propylaea which serves as the entrance into the Acropolis.

Remains of the Parthenon

The Erchtheion Temple

View of the Acropolis from our hotel in Athens

The first of many amazing sunsets we would see on this trip

After our day of sightseeing in Athens, we hoped onto a small airplane and headed to the island of Paros where we would spend the next three days.

Paros airport. Yep, we're definitely in Greece!

Just chillin' at the hotel swimming pool

Bless my heart...these sweet girls

Our second day in Paros we rented a car and drove down to Golden Beach, appropriately named because of the nice long stretch of beautiful golden sand there. The water was calm and we practically had the beach to ourselves minus a few random sunbathers.

Ashton loved the sand. Especially eating it. And judging from the contents in her diaper for the next several days, she ate A LOT of it.

Here's a quick video from the beach to help you get a glimpse of how each girl spent her time there

All that sun, surf and making sand horse poo-poo will wear a girl out!

We spotted this little oil stand at a restaurant we ate lunch at. She was so excited!

That evening, we dined in the little town of Naoussa which was a five minute drive from our hotel. Quintessential Greece.

We sat down outside at a restaurant to eat, but it took us awhile to look over the menu and order because the sunset was unbelievable. We kept getting up from our table to take pictures of it every five minutes. As the sun sunk lower, the sky, clouds and water were continually changing and taking on whole new colors. Just WOW.

Someone was a fan of her pasta and rice

One our third and final day in Paros we headed to a different beach, this one called Kolymbithres Beach. While the sandy part of the beach wasn't very big, the beach was protected by these cool rock formations. The girls had fun and Olivia spotted her new friend Nayla, a little German girl who was also 3, that she had met at dinner the night before. Although they couldn't communicate with each other, that didn't stop them from building sand castles together.