A Few Days in a Greek Paradise called Santorini:

As I compose this blog update, I am sitting alone in my new office with the sunshine and picture pefect seaside view of crusie ships and tour ships passing by directly in front of me. The popular volanic crater and hot spring island almost seem within swimming distance from here, in the beautiful calm blue green, and sparkling Mediterranean Sea...for now I will soak the last moments in!
Today is clear, sunny, and very warm...the past 2 days have been quite overcast and a bit cooler, while the seaside breeze is always blowing to keep your body conditioned. The Kavalari Hotel is the oldest hotel in Fira, next to the larger Atlantis, and both began over 40 years ago as many dwellings were damaged during an earthquake just prior to that time in the 70's. It certainly seems Mr Kavalari( means Horse Rider  in Greek), who is a local resident, and a very simple older man built quite large had quite a vision with this property as each of the 20 private rooms are unique and built into the mountainside.
The other surrounding hotel and villa properties look very similar with their architecture and white stucco appointments, which has become the expected design and look on this island, rather than the unusual as it has become kinda Greek with the island tourists
It's kinda funny as when you first arrive here and walk through the gate to the property, that is located right next to the street, you see for the first time the incredible views and the sea. It is just like the pics you see on the internet when you are searching  like crazy for an available and reasonable hotel, in what you hope to be is clean and in a good location. When it becomes real before your eyes and as you acquaint you rself with the village and the staff, it feels pretty good when things come together nicely!
I have enjoyed as every day new guests arrive and they tour the place and their cave rooms I listen quietly and hear the very same reaction I had, most all the time. The staff kinda get used to it cause it's just the faces that change, and most everything else that challenges and the questions asked remain constant in the tourism and hospitality business?
The staff here at the Kalavari consist of only 6 regulars, that I have seen and met, and they are work very hard to serve and keep the property in superb conditon and each guest weel taken care of.
A special bouquet to Elena in the reception who adminitsters everything and accepts each guest and checks them out, arranges for any tours and provides all the information of the island that you would ever need to know. Elena works 7 long days per week and is very grateful for her job and cant even consider a day off as she feels it could jeopardize her employment position as they are so many local Greeks looking for a job...and they work for quite low wages, (approx 1000-Euro/mth).
Then there is Giannis who at 33 years old is a strong and multi talented guy who does most all the ligght maintenance and hauls each residents heavy suitcases up and down the many stairs to their room, prepares and serves breakfast and is very particular about the table linens and the furniture in the breakfast room and on the patios. He is forever working and preparing and serving each guest with a smile. The cleaning ladies are alao non stop with each room cleaning and a very thorough and complete service and then afterwards its the laundry with all the table linens and sheets pressed and folded, as I have spent time in the big breakfast room finding internet and just chatting with them...very special and dedicated staff that are so grateful to have a job, in this bankrupt country.
The village of Fira is very well tourist developed with many shops and restaurants, and the seaside views are simply incredible but most all of the restaurants offer a view and the cuisine can accommodate most appetities nicely. I found the table service has been good and the menu prices are 13 to 20 Euros for an entree, of course they make plenty on drinks and with me they only get a bottle of water added!
I have enjoyed various vegetarian preparations from Artichoke Stew, to Veggie Mousaka, and Linguini...the home made deserts are crazy sweet and amazingly good...it's a one time only so kinda trying it all out just as I had been doing in Turkey. Apparenlty the Greek coffee is Turkish coffee and vice versa so it just depends if you are asking a Greek or a Turk, cause both are very proud of their history and beginings! lol
I have chosen to avoid the popular tourist traps and they include a boat tour to the dead volcano crater, and the hot springs with a small hike. Also popular is a donkey ride up the stairs from the old sea port, or the tram both up and down from the top of the Fira village to the bottom, and then there is tons of quads buzzing around for self guided island trips along with scooters and cars for rent everywhere.
The next most popular village to enjoy or stay at seems to be Oye and pronounced 'Eya'...this is on the upper tip of Santorini and is reputed to have amazing sunsets. The new hotels and villa's on the sea are very small, private, and opulent, and some rent up to 1000-Euro per night. This village in the tourist areas is very classy with their marble laid walkways and up until the much anticipated sunsets it is quite packed, and restaurants with the best views are taking table reservations and are full.
As a reference point...my hotel in Fira for the 3 nights including breakfast and the daily room service, etc, was booked online in advance, and my bill at checkout today was 185-Euro's...for a crippled financial economy, there are no travel bargains in Greece that I experiencedor heard of?
How I know a bit about this area is from other locals and the long walk I undertook on Wednesday from the bottom othe Old Port and up the over 600 wide stairs, while dodging donkey trains coming back down, and many piles of donkey poop! This is hardly the Santorini Grind as it only took me 15 minutes of fast paced climbinmg even with the donkey encounters.
Once I made it to the top of Fira I headed to the roadway that would take me to Oye...this was a nice steady up hill grind over very uneven cobblestones and rocks with amzing views when it began to meander next to the sea.
I was told by locals the walk should take over 4 hours and it took me half that, but I was keeping pace with a 20 year old for a good part of the way. It was a very warm day but the breeze was strong and I got pics I would have never seen and met a few good travelers along the way, but for the most part everyone else was on the main road on their scooters and quads...while the tour buses were literally bumper to bumper as it got to the late afternoon.
As it turned out in the early evening some low clouds rolled in and with the wind it was chilly...I found a lovely restaurant that wasn't too expensive and as most had reservations, they had a small tablewith a view, and met a gal from Korea who was waiting and in a similar dilemma...so we shared the table and dinner with the cloudy sunset.
This young Korean lady had traveled extensively, and on this trip was going next to Turkey from Santorini, all total for 35 days trip since she left her home in Seol...exactly what I will have been. She even spent 6 months in Vancouver teaching english, while taking a course...quite an interesting coincidence indeed!
It always amazes me how many people I have met over the past almost 5 weeks, and also in the most unplanned and often distressed circumstances and always how well it turns out afterwards...those most interesting people happenings have certainly made this adventure indelible and very special!
Sadly, my airport transfer arrives here at the Kavalari for 6:00, which is 90 minutes from now...I am all packed and simply getting caught up on my blogging in this beautiful warm sunshine while admiring this surreal and unobstructed view of the sea and the cruise ship and other various boats sailing by, My next marathon trip I gotta plan just a bit more rest and relaxation, and a quiet small and interesting island like Santorini works very well!
My only real island challenge while trying to gear way down in this most beautiful place has been with the internet and with my new iPad as I obviously have taken too many pics and the 32GB strorage capacity has been completely exhausted. 
I have been pestering my son Sheldon many times and very late evenings and early mornings, while I am sitting outside trying for a stronger internet signal and to get advice how I can free up space to continue taking and working my important trip pics. What a great addition to the iPad if Apple would provide a USB port or even an adapter to dump files onto a thumb drive and just keep going along smoothly with the provided storage?
As a consequence of this frustrating and time consuming dilemma, I have had to recently rid my iPad of almost 50 apps and their content, including audio books, music, movies, and all the items we carefully loaded before I left home so I could enjoy them during quiet moments, and particularly during the long flights both ways...oh well, I can chalk this learning experience up also to many first time choices with minimal information, and it's still always how we react...so it's all well and very good at the end of the day, with so much to be grateful for!
The rest of my beautiful Santorini Island story can be told perhaps with the pics I was able to download before everything froze up on me...enjoy the perfect postcard pics and stay tuned for my hopeful and nearing to final travel blog update, which will include my full day and night in historic Athens...

My Turkey Adventure concludes...hello Greece:

My last day in Turkey was in central Istanbul and back in the same busy and very convenient location that I began almost 18 days earlier. I unfortunately had a hotel change for the night as mistakenly the tour company had me in the other Golden Horn Hotel, which is owned by the same group however located 10 minutes walk away...nice sea view but strangely eerie location. 

I left my bags at the original Golden Horn and after sleeping in a bit decided to hit the streets and there were was the Sulyman Palace, the Sohia Museum, and the Spice market I was kinda keen on to visit if time permitted and the wait times were sensible. The rest of the time was gonna be just walking around in the very busy and active streets and just see what the locals, and merchants do on a Sunday...of course the whole place was overrun with tourists!

Never on the streets of Istanbul did I ever feel unsafe or uncomfortable...except maybe when I was lost and needing to get back to my hotel, but that was my the fault of my broken internal compass! 

Funny story while I was walking to the Sophia Museum...I passed a younger Turkish guy and he struck up a conversation wanting to know if I was from America, of course I told him that was an insult to be called American. Right away he knew I must be Canadian and apologized, he told me a bit about the Sophia Museum and the Spice Market, as I had ruled out the Sulyman temple as I was gonna run out off time to see it all. This kind fellow offered to stand in the que for me and get a ticket while I visit his shop for a free Turkish coffee, he would also help me with walking directions to the market. Before I could figure out the clever strategy I agreed to see his store before the museum as there was no strings attached I was told. This was another of many family run carpet stores and I was ushered into the upper showroom and the Uncle was pitching me hard for a carpet...I knew this pitch and generosity approach from Cappadocia and declared I had already purchased a carpet, (not quite a truth), and was definitely not buying any more on this trip! So the young polite Turk was the nephew to the owner and obviously on a commission or finder's fee to bring in tourists...gotta watch those Turks cause they are good and know the tourist gig real well! lol

The Hagia Sophia is Greek for 'Holy Wisdom', and is one of the best surviving examples of Byzantine architecture. This building has a unique history as it served both Christians and Muslims, and has gone through extensive makeovers and renovations from earthquakes to looting. The Muslims had removed many cherished Christian relics and plastered over many of the original Christian frescoes and installed minarets and the largest circular medallions of their kind with calligraphed words to their prophet. From the date of its construction in 537 until 1453, it served as an Eastern Orthodox Cathedral and seat of the Patriarchate of Constantinople except during 1204 and 1261, when it was converted to a Roman Catholic cathedral under the Latin Empire. The building then became a mosque from 29 May 1453 until 1931....then it was secularized and opened as a museum in 1935. Recently the Muslims have been in the news regarding this former mosque, and are praying at it for it to be turned back to another beloved mosque...its location is only about a 10 minute walk to the famous Blue Mosque.

It was indeed a very beautiful building and I met a gal from Turkey who was showing the museum to her friends from Toronto...we all purchased the audio tour but it sure helped to have a local informed Turkish gal to fill in the many blanks and answer my strange questions...glad I chose this museum and had the personal tour also.

The walk to the Spice Market was not too bad after asking multiple times for directions and it was a very popular venue with the locals and tourists alike. You could buy justa bout anything, including many genuine fake brand name  clothing, but they specialized in spices and food related items as the selection and merchants was too numerous to count. It was a great place and throngs of people and had some great chats with the merchants while they bargained with you and aggressively tried to persuade to buy their items...I was quite used to this after 2 weeks of it and it's still always fun and love the free tastings! 

Many hours of walking and photo's and a great day and the overcast skies kept the sun from being too uncomfortable and it was fun to be by the seaside and open patio areas watching the people and sampling different foods from the various mobile vendors. I love the roasted chestnuts...the big pretzel like bread was dry and the fermented cabbage and picked veggies in a cup was strong but good for the gut? lol

Grabbing my suitcase and towing it downhill on the narrow cobble stoned streets at night was okay cause the merchants never close and the tourists and locals never sleep it seems...checked into a nice room for about 90-Euro's and always anxious to check out the internet service, as it has become my key rating criterion for all my hotels.

The internet was borderline and slow as usual...I decided to stay up late and work on the blog to catch up and my arranged airport shuttle was arranged for a ridiculous 5:45-am. when my flight to Santorini was at 9:30-am. I had repacked my now bulging bags as the tourist books and stuff was taking up the very little room I had and before long it was approaching 4:00-am. I was tired and just needed a wee power nap before my wake up call...what happened next you can only imagine! I slept thru the wake up call and intended to have a shower but that all changed when I suddenly and strangely bolted from bed and it was exactly 5:45-am. I hadn't moved so fast in quite a while and prayed the bus be late...and it was by 5 minutes. Of course showering, shaving, and stuff was impossible and I threw the remaining items and my ipad in the backpack and as soon as I got to the lobby, and out of breath the bus driver was having my room called as his bus was packed with airport transfers and I was the very last hotel stop...Yikes!

The only available seat was at the very front and I met another Turkish gal that was heading back to her home and family in Irving, CA and had just enjoyed a getaway to Georgia in Turkey. We talked about lots and when the subject shifted to health and nutrition I soon forgot about my hasty hotel retreat and whether I had all my items in my bag?

Well I soon found out why it's important to get to the Attaturk airport in Istanbul early...crazy amounts of people and the passport validation que for non residents was insanely long! It was quite a modern and very developed airport once you got thru the security and the flight to Athens was about 90 minutes. My bag had to be retrieved and re-checked in Athens and that was a drag because they went thru all my oversized liquids and sun lotions, and had me quite interrogated. I now had only a few short minutes to make my connection to beautiful Santorini and the views from the plane of the island were stunning....can't wait to do nothing for a few days and no more tours, museums, or ancient ruins!! Well then my final city visit to Athens in a few days, so may just have to check out a couple ancient rocks and a museum, because apparently they are quite old and intact and worth seeing? :-)

Enjoy the pics of the Sophia Museum, Istanbul Spice Market, and the locals just being local!