Our holiday from travelling Part 1: Santorini

We had decided to take some time out from hectic travelling and relax for 11 days in the Greek Islands. First stop, Santorini. We stayed in a little apartment in Oia, just down the hill of the main part of town. We had ocean views as well as peace and quiet from the flocks of tourists in Oia town. 

Start of sunset from our balcony 

see you tomorrow sun

gazing into the sky

We spent most our time relaxing, sunbaking at the beach, swimming in the clear blue waters and reading books on our balcony. It took me a couple of days to get used to the concept ‘relaxing’ due to my hyperactive nature but eventually I stopped trying to research and plan activities and just went with the flow.

mermaid rock

reading and relaxing

One day we decided to hire a quad bike so we could see the rest of the Island. It was great being able to explore amazing coastal views, little towns, vineyards and beaches, all in our own time. I even drove the quad for a bit and didn’t kill us! We gradually made our way south and had delicious souvlaki gyros and tatziki for lunch in Perissa.

Yes we wore our helmets 

Arvi held on tight

Santorini is known for its beautiful sunsets and they did not disappoint. We found a great, secluded spot just a short walk from where we were staying, where we enjoyed a few beautiful uninterrupted sunsets. One evening we made the mistake of heading to Oia main town just after sunset, along with just about every other tourist on the entire Island! It was way too busy for our liking as the streets became clogged with thousands of tourists going out for a fancy dinner after the sunset. Needless to say we returned to our secret place the next night.

Just on the coast from our apartment 

Our last little adventure between our days spent relaxing was a little 3 hour hike from the main town of the Island, Fira back to Oia. We started early with our bags loaded with lots of water and caught the bus to Fira. The first part of the hike was mainly along the coast weaving through all the fancy resorts of Fira and Imerovigli. I wont lie, we both got a little jealous of all the rich people lazing by their amazing infinity pools with breathtaking, panoramic views of the coast and surrounding islands. We looked up some of the amazing resorts we saw on the way and found that some rooms were over 1000 euro a night! Definitely out of our budget! The second half of the walk was a more natural track, with beautiful 360 views around every corner. 

looking towards Oia from Fira

Talking to the locals

Arvi being a boss

little rest stop

fancy resorts

i guess you pay for the view too

Next stop, the party Island of Mykonos!

Leah - 

30 hours in Madrid

We started our day bright and early with a 3am wake up for a 6:30am flight from Porto to Madrid. We landed in Madrid at 8:30am (time difference). So what did we get up? Well, we went straight to the hostel, dropped our bags off and found this great TV room with comfy mattresses and had a 3 hour nap! After that we did a little sight seeing and then spent the night catching up on planning and booking, exciting stuff!

our dinner for the night

some sights of Madrid

some sights of Madrid

some sights of Madrid

P-P-P-Porto

A view of Porto.

Our last stop of Portugal, Porto. Porto is the home of port wine and a loud Brazilian snorer in our dorm room! You could even hear the guy through earplugs! On the up-side, our hostel was really cool with personal electronic wrist bands to get into the hostel, your room and your locker.

This was a toasted ham and cheese sandwich topped with more cheese, sauce and a fried egg, healthy!

View from our hostel window

Recently, we have been getting a bit sick of visiting countless churches, viewpoints and hearing about the history of different rulers, wars, wins and loses. So our walking tour with cheery Portuguese Marco was a breath of fresh air. He got everyone involved, chatting and asking questions aswell as keeping us entertained throughout our 3 hour walking tour of the eastern quadrant of the old city.

Being a Sunday, Porto was about 80% closed but Marco gave us some good tips on what to visit:

-The old city wall that was hard to get to if you didn’t know how.

-A street where a lot of old (70+) strippers dance in some little Taverns.

-A couple of port cellars to visit that won’t rip you off

-Some good places to eat a Francesinha (a what you say?)

-Churches of gold

-Awesome view points of the city

-He also rattled off 4 dozen things in Porto that are apparently the 3^rd best or 2 biggest or 4^th most famous etc. Never number 1 hmmmmm....

the goldest church I've ever seen

Church near our hostel (which is actually two churches with a skinny apartment in between)

Later that afternoon, Leah and I got together a little group from our walking tour and our hostel to join us for some port tasting. We ventured off to the other side of the river to take our pick from the dozen port cellars. We went to Taylors and for 3 euros we tried 3 delicious ports (chip dry white, ruby and a tawny) and had a tour around the cellars, learning how port is made and then transported and aged in Porto.

an abundance of Port barrels 

Leah tasting a Ruby port her favorite. 

Rafiki (Real name Henrique) who we worked with in Tallinn also recommended that we eat a Francesinha. Ok so what is a Francesinha? Well it means young French girl. Hmmm now a story of how the Francesinha was created. A Portuguese chef living in France came back home and found that he didn’t have that much luck with the Portuguese ladies as he did with the French ladies. He thought maybe it was because they wear too much clothing and are quite reserved. So what better way than to create a sandwich that can fix these problems. Start with a toasted pieces of bread then add cured ham, roast meat or steak and a chipolata type sausage called linguica, close the sandwich and top with a fried egg and cheese slices on top. Not finished. Surround with chips and douse with the hot special sauce (it has to be hot so it melts the cheese). Everyone has their own version of the special sauce mostly containing beer and chilli. Serve with a cold draught beer. The story goes that when women eat this they say, ‘Oh the sauce is making me hot, I should take off a layer of clothing.' Followed by, 'Oh the hot sauce is making me thirty, I should order another beer.’ Well-played sir. make the women show more skin and become inebriated.

Francesinha

During our run the next day we ventured to the old city wall. We had the whole wall to ourselves to explore. We could see other tourists wondering how we got there, mwahaha! 

Run along the Douro River

Old city wall

Old city wall

oh yeah just a lazy 200+ stairs to run up.

On our afternoon tour with Pedro we heard more about the Western side of the city and its landmarks. He took us to the bookstore where ‘apparently’ J.K.Rowling the author of Harry Potter got inspiration for the moving staircases in her novels. She lived in Porto for a few years and Livraria Lello bookstore has an amazing staircase to prove the point.

Livraria Lello staircase

Pedro took us to some amazing view points and through some beautiful gardens. He also pointed out some really cool sounding places that sadly we missed out on visiting because we were leaving at 4am the next morning but oh well, next time.

Looking across at all the Port Cellars

Us laughing with the laughing men

Douro River hosted the Extreme sailing competition. 

Arvi-

Hilly Lisbon

After a relaxing train ride up from Lagos, we checked into our hostel, which was more like a hotel! We both agreed it was one of the best hostels we have stayed at so far. We stayed in one of their huge dorms, each of which was designed by a different artist and woke up to an awesome free breakfast complete with crepes and ham and cheese rolls. Beats the usual free breakfast of cornflakes bread and jam! With 4 days to enjoy Lisbon, we took our time to see the sights.

Resting at Sintra

Lisbon is quite a hilly city, which is why the government bought some trams from San Francisco many years ago. While they are very old, loud and rackety, the iconic ‘tram 28’ route is popular with tourists (and pickpockets) as a different way to see the city. So one afternoon, when the crowds died down, we rode the old tram 28 around the city to get our bearings (well, Arvi did at least. I have no idea) and hopped off at some great viewpoints.

one of the view points 

rattling down and up the hills

On the old trams

A Portuguese guy (Rafiki) we had worked with in Estonia had said that we must take the short train ride out to Belém. If for nothing else, to try the amazing, famous eggs tarts or Pastéis de Belém.  Before trying this well loved treat, we walked along the Rio Tejo canal in Belém and saw some famous sights such as the Belém tower and Monument to the Discoveries.

Monument to the discoveries 

Belem tower

Then on to the tarts! We joined the large queue out the front of the café but didn’t have to wait long to enjoy the delicious custard tarts, warm from the oven with cinnamon and icing sugar, yum!

Pasteis de Belem

Sooooooo delish!

 During our standard free walking tour of Lisbon we saw many beautiful views of the amazing old city. We were surprised to learn that most of the city was completely destroyed with an earthquake in the 1700’s and all the old buildings had been rebuilt. It happened on a Sunday while all the religious people were in church, many of them died. Meanwhile, up on the hill in the ‘red light district’ most of the people and buildings were spared. This caused lots of confusion in the city as to why the Christians died and the prostitutes lived, haha.

up high to the right is where the prostitutes used to live and everything else was distroyed  

trippy tiles.

sunset during our run

During a walk one afternoon, we discovered a little festival at Martim Moniz square. So we spent the afternoon having a beer and listening too the live DJ’s playing Portuguese Reggae and watching the hippies dance.

Beers in the square.

On our last full day we took the train to Sintra, a hilly town declared  a UNESCO World Heritage Site, about 30 mins from Lisbon. Seeing you would have to take a loan to visit all the attractions, we chose to hike around Sintra and only go into the place we were most interested in, Quinta da Regaleira. This huge gothic/ renaissance style palace and beautiful Estate was just as one guy from the hostel explained it ‘Disneyland for adults’. The huge park and garden is filled many grottoes, wells, benches and fountains, all elaborately decorated in a romantic, fairytale style. You could even walk under the Estate through caves from well to well.

I'm being Rapunzel but my hair is too short :(

The fairy tale palace 

one of the wells

at the bottom of the well, 'the ring' style ahhh!

The stairwell out of the well.

Arvi being a boss during our lunch break. 

We also hiked up to the Moorish castle and managed to somehow get in for free, score! From the different towers we were treated with views over Sintra and the Pena Palace in the distance.

The Pena Palace and the Moorish Castle

no friends

Up the top of the Castle

King of the castle

Looking over at the other tower

That night, we decided to treat ourselves with a (cheap) meal out and some drinks. So I did some research (fuelling my addiction) and found a little Portuguese diner where we had 5 Euro meals and paid 3.5 Euro for 1L of wine! After dinner, we headed to Bairro Alto, a common night spot in Lisbon. Here people go into a bar, buy their drinks in plastic cups and take them into the street for the biggest street party I’ve ever seen! So we joined them!

Stay tuned for Porto!

- Leah