Celicia Travels: Santorini, Greece

Beautiful Santorini, also known as Thira, home of the most breathtaking sunsets in the world. I can't think of a single place on earth that took my breath away the way Santorini did. Santorini is an archipelago and is what remains of a volcanic caldera from the Minoan eruption sometime ~1630 BC. It is unusually shaped with steep cliffs on most sides so many of the dwellings are built into the sides of the cliffs. They tend to be cavernous and a bit damp, but still very cool. In addition because of the volcanic soil it's made the ground extremely fertile for planting grapes, and as a result a few wineries have popped up, like Santo Wines and Volcan Wines (we went to pretty much every winery on the island because well, we truly love wine.). It is also home to some unusual produce that is local to the region, like white eggplants. 

Also as a result of the volcanic eruption there are beaches with sands of different colors - the beach sand color depends on which geologic layer from the volcanic solidified lava is exposed, like the red beach, black sand beach, and white sand beach. We visited both red and black beaches because they were just so unusual.

We stayed in Fira and ventured to both sides of the Island. I found Oia the most beautiful - the sunsets there, as I mentioned were just amazing. The food was delicious and fresh. We were however a little perturbed by the racism on the island - it's well known to be a honeymoon destination, but more often than not we got strange stares or were told to go back to China. What gives?? That left a bad taste in our mouths and if it wasn't for the natural beauty we were eager to just go back to Mykonos where everyone loves everyone.

My staples for the island? Dresses from Velvet by Graham and Spencer, tees from Love by Ya-Ya and bikinis and shorts from J.Crew. 

We left Mykonos (hangover I might add) on the Blue Star Ferries to Santorini's ferry port and rented a car from there that barely made it up the winding roads to the top of Santorini towards Fira. 

We hopped onto a boat that took us to what remains of the volcano 

And hiked

For those of us who could swim jumped into the water towards the hot springs

Which I might add weren't very hot!

On our way back, we decided to take a Santorini Donkey Taxi

Akrotiri, the Red Beach

Opa!!!

Yet another winery

We love. Greek. Snacks.

Perissa, the Black Beach

The Apple "Verdia" Fanta was delicious!

Celicia Travels: Mykonos, Greece

Gorgeous, fun-loving party island Mykonos - the best way to describe Mykonos is the overwhelming "Free Love." Everyone is welcomed here, and I mean everyone. Gay, Straight, Narrow and everything in between. I love that. People party into the early morning - I was the only sober one one of the nights (you have to be when venturing into town - we stayed on the other side of the island), so I drove our entire entourage home in our little Peugeot the wee hours of the morning. When available we'd take the shuttle bus into town but honestly it came maybe 2X a day if we were lucky (everyone was really laid back and the whole island ran on Mykonos Time). You know how you can listen to certain songs and it brings you back to a time and place? The shuttle bus was legitly a party bus, so lights were always flashing, global and Greek club music was thumping. In rotation on the playlist was the well known Jennifer Lopez's "On the Floor" (she sampled the Forbidden Dance) as well as a few other gems that to my delight I found on youtube:

Ela Rose's I Can Feel:

Akcent's Stay with Me:

Akcent's That's My Name:

While insanely expensive we finally found a few places that we fell in love with - Jimmy's for his amazing and cheap gyros (pronounced eer-ro) and Namma Barbeque for its delicious to die for feta cheese salads. We had ouzo, graduated to mastic and knocked back too many Mythos beers to count. Mykonos was so beautiful with its whited out buildings and winding labyrinth of shops and restaurants, bars, clubs and endless windmills.