A taste of the island on ATVs

Ready to Go!

We woke up to gorgeous weather: 60's and clear blue sky.  We hustled down to our ATVs awaiting us.  For me it was completely natural to be on a four-wheeler, having driven one nearly my whole life at my cabin.  After a quick lesson from Fruit Loop Alex, we rumbled off down the road to complete the items on the map Katerina had given us.  As we drove towards the Red beach, we stopped at picturesque sites and soaked in the beautiful sun. It felt so freeing to speed down the road with the clear blue ocean surrounding you, going up and down hills and stopping and going as you please.  I was in my happy place :).  We stopped at an excavation site, where there is a continuous process going on to uncover a city that's covered in volcanic ash.  It was very cool to walk through the rooms they've uncovered.  Next we

excavation site

parked our ATV's next to the sign saying "red beach that way."  We expected the beach to be right there, but we were surprised to see you had to hike a little ways over large red rocks to get to the beach.  It was beautiful and there were even random doors attached to the side of the rocks.  Once again, we played like little kids in the water and layed out in the sun. Afterwards, we walked back to the restaruant called "Dolphins", which is conveniently located right

The red beach

on the edge of the water.  We ordered a plate of fresh fish as we watched a man from the restaruant fish on the dock outside for the next customer's meal.  The fish was served, well, looking like a fish: the head, the eyes, everything.  I looked away and destroyed the fish on my plate so it looked like less of a fish, and instead more like a plate of meat and hundreds of bones. But Leone, a girl from Germany who was also joining us, looked at me incredulously. I made sure the next fish I ate was sliced properly and ate the rest of my meal with proper etiquette until the octopus in the tank next to us began to make eyes at Kelly who was eating the tentacles before her.  It was a riot! Next we drove our ATV's out to a lighthouse which has an amazing view of the island.  Then we made our way back to Pyrgos and stopped in at "Santa Wines", a place known for watching the sunset, for some wine tasting.  We paid only 2 Euro to try 2 glasses of wine: I had a traditional Santorini white wine and a

Eating fish at Dolphins cafe 

strong and sweet dessert wine.  We split up with Kelly and Leone who had to leave and drove through the city to find the monestary. We ended up driving past it and driving all the way up to the highest point of the hill.  At the top was a military ground and was blocked off, so we headed part way down to a house under construction where we sat and waited for the sun to set before us. After the beautiful sun had gone below the horizon, we quickly hoped on our bikes to try to make it back before we froze.  On the way down we stopped at the monestary.  Driving ATV's in the dark on the road is a little less

Sunset on the hill

relaxing and a little more scary. But, we made it back safely and ate bakery pizza before we crashed from the long but best day ever!