Santorini, Hiking the Ancient Trail

Woke up this morning and had a wonderful breakfast, its delivered to our Villa every morning, fresh fruit, greek yogurt, cereal, eggs and much more. I eat greek yogurt for breakfast at home almost every morning so I went right for it, added some honey and cereal and I was happy! After breakfast we went upstairs on the deck and relaxed on the outdoor bed for awhile, deciding what to do next, it was our first day, after some discussion we decided to make the hike from our Town, Fira to the town of Oia on the opposite side of the Island its approximately 10k (just over 6 miles) but because we are on the very outside edge of Fira it may have been a bit longer. We set out at about 2:30pm from our Villa the first 2 miles is mostly walking thru small town walkways and stairs, lots and lots stairs! As we get to the edge Fira, we find a small art/jewlery shop which caught our interest, We like to look for a local made piece's of jewelry, Pat has bought many on our travels, in Paris we happen upon a women who made jewelery in an ally and she found a beautiful piece this place was much the same. Pat and the Jeweler hit it off, the two them had some fun looking at and trying on different pieces, we found one and bought it, and then resumed out hike. Upon leaving Fira we walk thru two other towns before we hit the countryside Firostefani and Imerovigli both bleached white towns. Its a wonderful hike thru the two towns as we pass by several churches with the Aegean Ocean Blue roofs.

The town of Fira where we are staying

Pat and I starting our hike

Walking our way thru the town of Imerovigli

The trail follows the coastline from high up above, the views are spectacular, and we pass by many small shops and restaurants, its a wonderful walk. As we leave Imerovigli the trail turns to cobblestone made out of volcanic rock, for the most part its all black, but there is red and white as well. We can see ahead where we will be going, lots of climbing! there are at least 3 pretty big hills and the trail looks to be get steep. Were enjoying our surroundings, its spring here and there are flowers blooming all along the trail, we also notice that there is lots of cactus, it almost desert like, very dry. We arrive at the second climb and the trail turns very soft and sandy like, its very tough going both up and down the trail, we take it easy and careful you don't want to fall. Once up and over we arrive at small fruit stand, they sell water, so Pat and I buy another bottle as most of our current one is gone, happy to have passed this place.

Wild Flowers on the Trail

Views from high above are spectacular!

These little guys constantly crossed our path!

Ancient Sign pointing us towards Oia

The trail is constantly changing under our feet, we go from lose to almost paved, but most of it is still volcanic rock cobbles, and much of the trail has a small wall to the side also made out of the black rock. We pass fields that have many of the volcanic rock walls, seems this area may at one time have been a vineyard. As much as the trail changes so do our surroundings, dry arid fields to beautiful resorts all along the coastline of Santorini. Both Pat and I are so happy that we decided to hike this trail its been a real pleasure explore the Island by foot. 3 hours later we find ourselves in Oia, we will be back here tomorrow for dinner, its a beautiful village. We find the bus station and wait for the bus back to Fira, doesn't take long and were back in our town. As Pat and I are walking off the bus we hear our names being shouted out from the back of the bus, its the couple we dinner with in Athens, small world, we walk into town with them and part ways. After cleaning up we head out to buy a bottle of wine and some Gelato. Pat has made friends with the woman at the Gelato place, she wanted to get the same lemon lime from the day before but the owner tells her, your going to try something new and gives her a sample of Rose Gelato, she says its a Santorini tradition, its awesome and we both enjoy it. The wine on the Island is fantastic, I walk into the store and the owner asks me if I sail boats, uhh no, oh then you must ski? he notices my Elan t-shirt, he is from the mountains of Italy we start talking ski resorts and he tells me the best skiing he has ever done is in Aspen, I mention my trip to Chamonix last year, he says "your and extreme skier" LoL. I buy my wine and head back to the room, where Pat and I enjoy our wine on the outdoor bed and soon call it a night, its been a wonderful first full day.