Santorini and Crete

Town of Oia, Santorini

View of the Town of Thira, Santorini

I have already been to Santorini once before, but I was convinced to go again with two beautiful Australians, and I'm so glad I did. Santorini was the highlight of my European travels two years ago, but I only had one day there which was obviously not enough time to see everything. This time, I managed to relax a lot more and see things I didn't even know existed on the island.

Red Sand Beach, Santorini

We rented ATVs one day and drove around orienting ourselves about the island. Another day, we went into the capital, Thira, and walked around the shops, had coffee, took photos and ate free samples of wine and olives. We visited both the red sand and the black sand beaches, and sailed around the smaller surrounding islands, climbed the Caldera and watched the sunset.

View of Sunset from Oia, Santorini

Coffee Shop in Thira, Santorini

Ever since I went to Santorini two years ago, I've been obsessed with the idea of going back to Greece and seeing the island of Crete. Luckily, I managed to convince both of my friends to join me there, and we caught the 4am ferry to Heraklion.

Crete is a very different island from the rest of the Cyclades not only because of it's size (it is much bigger) but because of it's history. The Minoan civilization is the oldest known civilization in Europe, and they resided on Crete. The interesting thing about them is that their destruction was the creation of the island of Santorini... when the volcano erupted creating the island, the Minoans were wiped out.

One Rock Beach, Near Plakias, Crete

I really enjoyed staying on Crete, but I feel like I didn't quite see everything I wanted to see. It is a big island and it is difficult getting around, especially on public transport because their road systems are awful. It is also a very mountainous island, and the roads weave in and about them.

We stayed on the south side of the island for 5 days on Plakias beach, and then myself and one of the two girls I had been travelling with headed North to stay in Rethimno for another 5 days. The Aussie friend we left behind had met a nice boy and wanted to stay in Plakias with him for a few extra days.

River Walk, Plakias, Crete

Plakias was beautiful, but other than going to the beach and climbing up the river bed, there wasn't that much to actually do there. So when we got to Rethimno we were eager to begin seeing everything Crete had to offer.

Samarian Gorge, Crete

Minoan Ruins, Crete

Matala Beach, Crete

Matala Beach was one of my favourite places. There were neolithic caves carved out of the sandstone on this beautiful beach, and in the 1960s they were inhabited by hippies. Stevie Nicks even lived there at one point and wrote a song about it!

Our adventures continue to the island of Rhodes, where we needed to wait for two nights in order to catch a ferry across to Fethiye, Turkey.