Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Santorini with a Baby

Finally found some time to update. It's 11.39 p.m. now on new year's eve. That's 21 minutes till 2016! I'm sure by the time I'm done with this post, it'll be next year. Ha-ha, I'm so not funny.

Anyway, felt like I should update on my trip to Greece and Dubai. Let's start off with Greece. My plan was to go Santorini, because after some discussions, Zai and I realised it was the most doable with a baby in my Places-To-Go list which includes Italy, US, Maldives and Norway.

Italy - May be too cold and too much moving for baby's first trip.
US - 20 over hours in the plane with a baby is nightmare, plus it'll be super cold.
Maldives - Too short a trip for December and we wanted a winter holiday.
Norway - Super duper cold. Period.

We had our qualms for Greece as well. After researching we found out that almost no one would recommend to go Santorini in winter. Shops, restaurants and cafes would be closed, it would be cold and may be too cloudy for nice photos and the beaches would be empty.

So to go or not to go? I began looking at photos of a local singer who went there during winter for their honeymoon the year before. I also came across photos of a friend who went there before during winter. Photos look nice what, not grey and cloudy at all. Ah, just go la.

Remember in my previous entry I said our flight to Santorini was cancelled so we had no choice but to wait 10 hours till the next flight to Santorini? We had another choice, which was the morning flight but didn't think we would have the time to get on that flight after we landed in Athens. When we reached Athens, we realised that we could catch that morning flight after all if we could just run. Yeah literally run. So we did just that. With our luggage, bags and a baby in tow we ran to the gate and asked whether we could get on that flight instead of our original flight 10 hours later. Our luggage went over the weight limit so after we sorted that out, we managed to get on that morning flight. Yay! An extra day to spend in Santorini!

I love our accommodation in Santorini I just cannot thank myself enough for stumbling upon that cave house online. Hahaha self praise level 724204. It had the view of the blue domes right at the doorstep. The cave house itself was entirely blue and white and had an indoor hot tub. They had 'room service' as well so every day someone would come over to clean the house and wash our clothes. The best part, we got it at a cheaper rate because it was winter. See, not bad to be going there in winter at all.

How is Santorini with a baby?

While there are smooth and flat surfaces for you to push your strollers, there are also many steps and stairs and hills so, better to be using a carrier. You won't want to keep folding and carrying the strollers. Because we went in winter where the frequency of buses were lower, we decided to rent a car for convenience sake. Best decision ever! We could dump our heavy diaper bag in the car and I could express milk with just a nursing cover. We could get to so many places where the bus didn't even go. Hardly no places catered to babies/toddlers/kids except for one indoor play area which we didn't go cause I was told it was very small anyway. There were beaches there but cold and empty in winter, probably full of suntan-ers in summer.

Food wise?

No halal food at all. So we ate seafood every day and cooked in the cave house on some days. Maliq hardly ate during the entire trip because he just won't accept jar food. :/ We did cook for him while in Santorini but he didn't eat a lot.

Are all the shops/restaurants/cafes really closed?

Yeah a lot of shops were closed, but there were some which were still open so it wasn't really a ghost town. There were tourists still, so it's not like you'll be lonely. Which was great cause I was told it could get crowded in summer, so much so that people would have to be an hour or more earlier just to get a good place to watch sunset.

Our home for 5 days and 4 nights.

:)

Awesome view from our cave house.

Happy us!

One of the places I looked forward to. A quaint book store.

Love the inside too!

Blue doors and windows and pink flowers every where.

Perfect views every where we turned. 

So hard to take pictures of this boy.

We walked a lot there.

Empty beach.

Clear waters at Amoudi Bay.

Dinner with a view and Maliq pretending to read hah.

We stayed in Oia although the main town is actually Fira. Less shops but so much more beautiful in my opinion. We basically walked the entire village in Oia and drove a bit around Fira. Didn't really spend much time in the other villages though. Just glad we managed to go on this trip against some people's concern that we may not enjoy Santorini in winter (it's a summer destination) what more with a baby. Heh but we did! Didn't manage to take as many photos as I would like though cause my hands were always full. :/ Our next stop was Athens so that'll be in the next entry! 

Ended up posting this 4 days later than intended. -.-

2 comments:

  1. I felt the same way about visiting Cinque Terre in winter (cos it's a summer destination), but yes it turned out to be a good trip too! When I get the chance to go to Santorini in future, I wanna stay in the cavehouse you stayed! Haha.

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    1. Ahh yeah I remember that trip of yours! Sometimes just gotta have faith and go. :D If you're going one day, let me know! You should stay in this particular cave house cause not all accommodations there are the traditional cave houses and not many has the view of the domes and sunset. In fact the houses around me are mostly private owned instead of for tourists. :D

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