— London Wanders

Santorini || Aegean Sea

I’ve read about Santorini in a picture book when I was little. I fell in love with the white brick walls and the blue dome church; I couldn’t believe that a town could only consist of two colours. I never thought of setting foot in the land that I’ve only seen on pictures but coming to Santorini was probably the highlight of all my travels. It took a 4 hour plane ride to Rhodes and an overnight ferry ride of 9 hours to finally get to Santorini. I chose the waterways instead of flying directly to Santorini (which would be a lot easier) but I insist on island hopping for the flexibility of traveling to different islands.

I remember waking up to the beautiful sunrise as we docked in Santorini. It’s been a while since I’ve last seen the sunrise; the colours were stunning with a bit of fog left from the morning dew. We arrived at the Santorini dock and we were surrounded by locals holding photos of their guesthouses. We hopped on the bus and it took us straight up the volcanic hill. We passed by Fira and it didn’t take long to get to Oia as the view was plenty for me to take in, digest and believe that I was really in Santorini. As we walked from the bus station to Oia, we saw dogs baking sleepily under the sun which to me was quite odd, I always thought Santorini was known for the Greek cats. The sad story is that people leave their dogs behind after they leave the island in hopes to have the tourists feed stay dogs. The story saddened me to no end as I actually thought that the dogs were owned by the locals since they all have collars but knowing that they are well-fed and free to roam around Oia lightened me a bit.

The entire Oia is painted by blue and white, the majestic of the colors were pure and pristine. Local houses are beautiful in the rustic, raw sense. I walked to the peak of the island and was surrounded by the immense Aegean Sea. Oia was our first destination in Santorini for the obvious ‘world’s best sunset spot’ and next up, Fira.