Spring Break Day 5: Santorini, Greece: ATVs

Tuesday we woke up early in order to grab breakfast and rent ATVs to tour the island. We got a quick breakfast at a pastry shop before heading back to the hostel where George had someone come pick us up to bring us to the rental shop. Claire didn't want to ATV, so Alex, Dave, and I all rented/drove the ATVs, and Christine rode on the back of Dave's. Because Santorini is such a small island, everything on the island was within a 25-minute radius of Fira.

After we got our bearings on the ATVs (I was notoriously known as the "grandma-driver" of the group, because I was a little bit more nervous than the boys), we headed to the black beach. The black beach is a coastal beach that has black sand because of all of the leftover volcanic ash. It was really beautiful, and there was a road that ran along the coast that we followed for a long time. We then headed up the archaelogical site on the island, only to find that it was under construction, so we decided to leave. Then we drove around for awhile with no particular direction, and ended up at the tallest point of the island, which had a spectacular view. It was a giant mountain that we kept driving up, and by the time we reached the top, you could tell the air was thinner. We were so high that I remember thinking that the houses/people/cars below us looked as far away as they do when you're taking off in an airplane. It was crazy.

After we headed down the mountain we grabbed some lunch at a restaurant in another town on the island (I'm not sure which town it was). I'm pretty sure this was also the town that the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants took place on, so I was pretty excited to be there. It was also home to Santorini's most picturesque/famous church that is on tons of postcards.

After lunch, we headed to the red beach, which is a beach made of red clay and rocks. We sat on the rocks for a little while and got our feet wet, but it unfortunately wasn't warm enough to really go swimming. We also met some girls there who were on spring break as well, and one of them was from Manlius, NY! (Another Syracuse suburb - about 15 minutes from my house!) It really is a small world.

We headed back to the hostel quickly to grab some sweatshirts and jackets, because the sun was going to set soon, and your arms get REALLY cold while you're ATVing. Our ATVs were pushing 60-70 k/h, which made my hands get especially cold. After stopping at the hostel, we high-tailed it to Oia, which is the part of the island that is known for its beautiful sunsets. It was all its reputation made it out to be, and we drove down by the port and sat on the roof of a little shop to watch the sunset. After the sunset, we off-roaded a little bit and then headed back to the ATV rental place to return the ATVs.

We headed out to dinner afterwards, and then caught the bus to the ferry just before midnight (My birthday!)

Overall, this was definitely my favorite day of my trip abroad thus far. I wish that I could explain the sheer beauty of the island, but it's impossible. It had beautiful beaches, beautiful mountains, beautiful towns, and vineyards. I am so glad that I chose to go ATVing, because without having done that, I would not have seen even a quarter of the beauty of the island. Santorini is truly a beautiful place, and I recommend it fully to anyone looking for somewhere to visit.

This map should depict everywhere we drove during the day (roughly) I had a difficult time remembering, but the blue dots/squares indicate places we stopped and the red lines indicate where we drove. Woo!