Picturesque panoramic view of OIA - Santorini

After a long journey from Jakarta, around 16 hours without counting waiting time during transit, transit at 3 airports in 3 different countries (Jakarta-Singapore-Istanbul-Athena-Santorini), finally we reached Santorini around lunch time. A bus picked us up in the airport, it's quite small for 16 of us with big luggages. The bus baggage could not store all of the luggages, so the last row of bus passenger seat had to use for piling up the luggages. Bus went directly to the hotel to drop all of us there. The hotel looked great with white walls and stone pathway to the lobby. We were waiting quite a long time to check in, the hotel lobby was not big, but it's quite nice, it could give us shelter from the hot weather outside. After getting the room key, we only got around 30 minutes to fresh up.



My sister and I took a bath in rush and change clothes, so it's very braces. Others had waited for us for lunch. We crossed the street in front of our hotel, Al Greco which has 4 swimming pools. A beautiful scenery of Santorini beach with its island and some small boats passing by were welcoming us. The layering rock on the beach with houses above it was complementary to the scenic scenery. Walking under the sunshine was very tiring especially when we were hungry. It's a pity that the bus didn't drop us to the nearest place to the restaurant.


We went through old town where we could only pass through by foot, or sometimes by riding donkey. The road was narrow, sometimes up and down. So many stores at the left and right of the road selling souvenirs, clothes, hats, bags, etc. A Malay restaurant that providing Chinese food was our destination for lunch after almost an hour walk.

After lunch by bus we went to OIA, exquisite small town, to see the best scenery of Santorini. Santorini is essentially what remains of an enormous volcanic explosion, destroying the earliest settlements on what was formerly a single island, and leading to the creation of the current geological caldera. During the trip to OIA, we saw that the land was very barren. Most of the building were painted white with no roof tile but concrete roof. There were many small chapels with bells as private belonging, but public may use it along the way to OIA.

The bus stopped, we had to continue walking to reach the cliff. The main pedestrian street connects its ends accross the top of the cliff, with many local branches. There was a church right on the edge of the cliff, we took some pictures in front of the church and the beautiful scenery on the cliff. OIA is famous for its imaginary sunset and its narrow passageways get crowded in the evenings. The most popular spot to watch sunset is by the Kastro walls. Before reaching the castle, there was a small way to the other end of the cliff where we could see the beautiful scenery at the right and left side.

It's very amazing, I took many pictures there. Some professional models were also taking pictures at that time, so the place was closed just for them. After another half an hour, they finished and we could take pictures from that side. While waiting for the sunset, my sister and I were sitting on the wall, enjoying the scenery. We didn't want to walk further to the castle, because from that place we could see the panoramic view of Santorini with its unique characteristic view of white buildings and blue dome for the church contrasting with the deep blue of the Aegean Sea in the background. Houses, paths, churches built up skillfully on the northern part of the island, with low-lying cubical houses, made of local stone and whitewashed or limewashed. From where we sat, we could see donkey go down and up the hill riding by tourists. I could not imagine if we stayed in the hotel there, it's very heavy and difficult to bring the luggage because you had to walk on stairs, no escalator, no lift :-)


During the beautiful sunset, we could not see the circle sun, but the red color sky before sunset was beautiful as the background of the OIA panoramic view. On the wayback to the bus stop, we passed by some stores selling cute souvenirs, restaurants, clothes, jewelry, etc. We often stopped to take pictures, because the store design was beautiful especially with its light at night. I bought sweet roasted pistachio nut with sesame, because the seller offered tester and I like it. It's difficult to bring back to Indonesia because it's easily break and they didn't have a good package to avoid the damage.


OIA is beautiful, an ideal place for those seeking peace and quiet. It's very windy, so prepare your jacket, especially for protecting the cold at night.

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