Monday, June 2nd, 2014

After all three gorgeous perfect weather days in Oia, my weather luck finally ran out and my day started with cloudy sky! We left Oia at noon and headed to Imerovigli; Dimitri came around noon to check us out. I asked him about the reimbursement that the lady promised due to the driver failed to pick us up at the airport, it costed us 35 euros. He said taxi from airport to Oia should only be 25 euros…..sigh….and he called the lady. He said they’ll only willing to pay us the transportation from Oia to Imerovigli (15 euros)!!! Great property but poor management, what a shame!!! The only good thing I viewed this is originally I planned to take the public bus to get to Imerovigli but after I saw how pack the bus was as our van passed by, I was glad that I don’t need to cramp in there.  Also, Dimitri called Vallais Villas to let them know we are on our way so we can get picked up, this saved us a lot of hassle.  I can tell you this, if you are moving from one hotel to another, it’s really worth the cost to pay for private transportation if you don’t have a phone with you. The hotels there are almost impossible to find on your own…never mind carrying the luggage down those steps! We arrived at a parking lot and a guy there was waiting for us to help with luggage.  We followed him, walked down a long stairway, and then I saw Skaro’s Rock!!!! The moment I saw it was like “wow” even though it was cloudy!

It was closer than seen in pictures of the hotel!!! We checked in and the manager (I apologized for forgetting his name but he’s super nice) showed us our villa #6 which is located very close to the reception office. It was small but clean and has a decent sized bathroom!

It was one of the best valued villas in Imerovigli (which on average hotel prices are higher than in Oia)! Actually, I was debating on rather to stay in Artmeis Villas (which is on the left side of Vallais); Artmeis had the last room which is the honeymoon suite that I don’t really like the creamy colored tone. I started to look for hotels 8 months prior to my trip and Vallais was completely booked. I didn’t give up and checked Booking.com everyday and luckily one day one room was available and I reserved it immediately! I thought I was crazy to start booking hotels 8 months in advanced, I realized in Santorini, you need 1 year in advanced if you want to get the place where you want to stay. The total price for 3 nights in Vallais Villas was 420 euros including breakfast!!!

Each villa has its own private balcony with chairs and table, this was ours looked like right in front of Skaro’s Rock!

I haven’t seen a drying rack for a long time! It came in handy!

We headed out to the bus station to go to Fira to book the volcano tours ticket. Here is the stairway that we climbed everyday:

Vallais Villas already on the first “layer” on the cliff, there were many hotels beneath Vallais!

We got back out to the parking lot and followed the path down, there is a market there:

Turned left from the market is the highly rated restaurant called Anogi and recommended by our villa manager.

A map of the locations of the hotels in Imerovigli:

Continued on walking down the road and turned right is the bus station, bus schedule:

We got in the bus and it was full so we had to stand, then the guy walked down squeezing through the aisle to collect money -.- In no time we got off at the Fira main bus stop. I still remembered the way to our favorite Pita place: Obelix!!! Here it is, still the same as 4 years ago!!!

We had the first pita in our life here and we still remembered that taste……..here it is….

Furthermore, the owner, we said hi to him and he said he remembered us!!!! Regardless it was the truth or not, it brought back so much memories! I had a picture with the owner this time 🙂

The price for 3 pitas and 1 can of Fanta: 8.6 euros. The price for memories: priceless!!! We were so glad to be back!

We highly recommended Obelix, excellent food and inexpensive! Their menu:

After lunch, we walked up to the shopping center of Fira, it was crowded with tourists and cruise ship passengers!

There were 3-4 shops selling those cute ceramic houses (with a stamp “hand-painted in Santorini” on the bottom) and others are selling cheaper versions which aren’t as nice. There were a few tour operators there selling tickets to the volcano, there were a few options. We wanted to go on the one to the volcano only but it was not available yet due to early in the season. They are having a sale on the volcano and hot spring tour – 15 euros per person. We booked that and note that they accept credit card but with a few so I paid with cash! We walked all the way to the cable car station where this church is near-by, beautiful church!

We waited for few minutes before the road was empty to have take photos!

We walked out to the cliff side and here it is…Fira!!

It was windy there, look at my hair, I knew it will be so I tied it up! The photos couldn’t do its justice because it was cloudy so the colors aren’t as vivid as they should be!

We walked, visited shops, and stopped for photos!

We passed this church everyday walking down from Firostefani to Fira four years ago!

Pretty special shop:

A Chinese restaurant on the way haha! This trip, we didn’t have a meal in a Chinese restaurant! Usually in a two weeks trip, we tend to start missing Chinese food towards end of our trip hehe!

Another church right in the middle of the Fira:

Fira and the caldera! I really wish for a sunny day so I could take some nice photos of Fira!!!

Asteras Villas is located here, it was my top choice if we stay in Fira but we decided to stay in Imerovigli instead because it’s more peaceful and we never been there on our last trip!

We were done checking out all the shops that sell those cute ceramic houses so we walked out of the cliff side and headed to the restaurant that totally changed my view of spaghetti: Pelican. I had the best seafood spaghetti there and ever since then it was my favorite Italian dish! I still remember that seafood taste and looking forward to have it again!

Donkey monument in Fira:

It looked the same as four years ago!!!!

We were very early for dinner, around 5:30 pm but they are serving dinner at that time!!! We ordered the steamed mussels: it was not bad but not as good as the ones we had in Mykonos

Hubby ordered the grilled shrimps: those king prawns yummy….hubby really like the grilled vegetables!

My seafood spaghetti that I waited for four years….it looked different though:

it looked like this four years ago:

2 king prawns instead of three and the seafood taste was not as heavy as the first one I had. It was still good though but just not as perfect…I gave it a 4.5 stars!

They still give this Greek dessert for free….no rose wine this time though:

Dinner with tips included: 43.5 euros, pretty inexpensive for dinner!!!

It rained a bit then stopped so we ran back to the bus station before it rain again! The weather prevented us from taking night photos…..we’ll just have to wait for the next day! We stopped by Anogi and made a reservation fro dinner tomorrow and then headed to the super market and bought a huge bottle of our favorite Fanta before we went back to our villa. Good night Fira, I wished for better weather!