Our week in Santorini was relaxing and a perfect end to our holiday. We stayed in Oia, a village about 10km from Thira, just as pretty with beautiful sunsets, but not as crowded with tourists. We had an apartment on the edge of the Caldera with no one in front of us to spoil our view, the weather was hot, did not think much of the beaches, so mainly stayed in Oia. Santorini was very expensive, so most nights we had a greek salad, bread, cheese and wine and dined on our balcony, balmy nights, a beautiful view and absolute peace and quiet. We caught uu with some friends of George's parents who live on Santorini, spent the day with them and went out to dinner with their two daughters who were a delight and spoke very good english.
Our holiday has been wonderful with many rich experiences, a few transport dramas along the way, but that is to be expected when you do it yourself. Living with George's family was quite an experience and despite the language barrier I managed quite well to communicate, even thanking them in Greek when we left. I loved all their stories and how they live together as one big family, they adore their chidren and work long hard hours to provide a good education for them, and in turn their children appreciate their parents effort. Greeks in general are noisy, love nothing better to cook for you and all sit around the table to eat good greek food.
Plitvice Lakes and Santorini would be the highlights for us, each quite different but unique. We now know not to book obscure guest houses in large cities, so hard to find, especially if you do not speak the language! All in all we did quite well in our travels and despite the crazy greek drivers managed to coe home without any major incidents!
Had a stopover in Singapore where I was ready to buy many shoes, despite looking at hundreds of pairs, only came home with two pairs, very disappointing. We both succumbed to plane germs, lots of people aroud us coughing, ended up with flu when we got home and sick for a week! Also having to adjust to ur freezing cold weather, after nine weeks of hot weather, its very hard to take and my sun tan is all covered up!!!!!! Stopped sunbaking after seeing all these hideous mahogany, leather skinned women, so dont want to end up like that!
When we arrived home, George went to the back gate and called Jemma, she looked at George with absoute disbelief as if he was a ghost, wen she realized it was him, she lay down beside him on her back and howled, told him all her woes and troubles of nine weeks, Lenni and I were in tears, she was so pathetic, clung to him for days and when she realized we were once again packing the car, decided to cry all over again, until she realised she was coming too!!!!!!!!!