June 24 saw us celebrate our 25th anniversary. Given the kids just want to come home to their beds and sleep, they wanted us to be gone to celebrate it somewhere far away.
San, the planner, did an amazing job of planning a one week trip with practically one day in each city in eastern Europe for the most part. Only thing I had to do was to give a list of places or Viator tours of interest in those locations.
Our first City was Zadar. We took three flights to get there. SFO to Frankfurt, then Frankfurt to Dusseldorf, and finally Dusseldorf to Zadar on different airlines. We were tired by the time we got to Zadar airport. Got a Taxi and were dropped off at the old Town. This is literally a walled area that looks like the inside of a castle where no cars are allowed.
It took us some time to find our hotel. It was a beautiful hotel right next to one of the gates to the walled area. We just got dropped at the wrong gate!
The whole place was beautiful. Cobblestones that were smooth from years of feet walking on them.. it had been hit by the war but was rebuilt. We had leftover packed food and we just ate that in the hotel room after walking around our hotel. It was already late and most of the stores were closed. So we went to sleep early.
The next morning we had to walk a mile to the group gathering point for our all day adventure.
The roads were empty but beautiful. . .
Our beautiful hotel.. (the room was decorated Honeymoon style).. The Palazzo venezia!
When San starts posing like this on day 1, I couldn't be happier!
Video highlights..
Have 1000's of pics and videos from this trip, but never got around to blogging about it. As soon as I came back work caught up. Then my dad's condition took a turn for the worse as he swallowed kanji into his lungs. At one point doctors asked my mom to notify next of kin as they didn't think he would survive the night. We were all there in India and he made a miraculous comeback and is home now. That meant the blogs never made it.
My goal is to clear those out of my camera and laptop by writing at least one little blog before bedtime everyday. . .
After that all day bus tour and the last minute dinner plan change, the hangry family went to bed safe in the knowledge that we had a rest day of sorts. We had three back to back flights.. from Santorini to Athens on Agean Air with a 3 hour break then from Athens to Instanbul with a ~3 hour break and Instanbul to SFO! Almost a whole day of travel! So the plan was to stay in our Airbnb till 11:30 AM, leave our luggage with our host, then wander around the shops, have lunch, wander around some more, have dinner and be back at the Airbnb for the ride to the airport.
We learned a lot of lessons that morning. The little one woke up with a migraine and didn't even want to get out of bed. I also got hit with a migraine and light sensitivity although at a much lower level. The clouds had moved in the previous night and the outside temperature and pressure had changed. Our sinuses were struggling. It had rained but the rain had stopped and the sun was in and out. We frantically called our host and told her the situation. She told us to go out and leave the little one in the Airbnb and come back at 11:30 and she will see what she can do.
So the three of us wandered off through the one street and took some pictures.
The two donkeys!
We walked to the top of the hill past the shops and walked through a few art galleries. The art was fantastic. So was the price tag. One piece of art that could have funded 4 such trips for the four of us. The lady asked are you American and once we said yes, she said "we can ship to you, no problem".. the shipping cost made me smile, relative to the cost of the artwork. We admired the art and walked around some more and also saw a nice Church!
One interesting thing we observed was the hanging dicks and a blue eye looking stone in every store. We did not understand why and the meaning behind that.. one lady in broken English said "it is a good luck charm to hang outside your door!".. We figured hanging that eye would be a good idea instead of the dick and went with that!
When we came back to the Airbnb, our host said "it is okay, take a few more hours and leave the room as is"
So we checked on the little one and then had lunch at what seemed to be a hookah place called "Bohemia, the Journey". They had Cheese pizza that was decent and some other vegetarian dishes. We all ate a decent meal there . There was a cannabis shop right close to it, so we went and sat inside. It was nice and breezy.
Having seen dicks hanging everywhere all morning, it took me a second look at the pasties in our new favorite pastry shop( Svornos Bakery).. we got some for an early afternoon snack.
When we came back, all of us decided to sleep. Our host said we are good till 7PM as her other clients had not showed up yet. Apparently there were flight issues because of the storm in the Agean sea. That should have warned us, but nope! Given our situation, we were just happy that there were beds to sleep in.
After a nap, it was decided that the best thing for the stomach before a long day of flying was desi food.. Rice and yoghurt had to get involved. We were told that the best Desi food in the island was almost a 2 mile walk away called the Jaipur Palace.
We started walking there (thanks to Google Maps for once) and were not disappointed. A guy who had come there to study in Greece, decided to open an Indian place on this island instead with his wife five years ago. The food was good. The service was good. There were only three sets of customers as we were early.
We ate to our hearts content and walked back and waited for the car. Said bye to our host, who will always be fondly remembered. Good people come in your life in tough moments. Fotini is "good people!".
Was saying bye on the way to the airport and it all clicked.. Whenever you call the island "Santorini" the locals give you a look. Santorini is the name the Italian occupiers of the island gave it. Thira is what the Greeks call it. Apparently the blue and white for all buildings was started as a way to show solidarity to Greece instead of the Italians a long time back and eventually the island got back its Greekness and now it is mandatory to paint in blue and white.
Everytime you call it Santorini, you hurt a local's feelings! So here is a tip. When on the island, call it Thira !!!
A short video of our bye to Thira..
We made it to the airport and were in for a rude shock. There were 600 people waiting in the gate area. Apparently none of the incoming "rinky dink" flights made it to the island from other islands or mostly Athens because of the storm.
There was no updates at all on when and if at all we would take off. Given this small 40 minute flight was on Agean Air, if we missed our flight at Athens, we would lose money on all four tickets for those two legs and would be stranded here or in Athens. Had to be at work, right after coming back. Fired up my work phone and sent a message that we might not make it back as planned. Then we just sat there for 6 hours. Finally a flight showed up and we left to Athens. It was the four of us, a family of three from Chicago who had come to attend a wedding on the island and two Greek folks from Athens. That was it on the plane.
We landed in Athens to see waht our fate would be and saw that our outgoing flight also was delayed by an hour. Ran to the other gate and made it. It was 4AM and we were exhausted and we had long ways to go.
Slept through most of the remaining flights to the best of our ability and made it back. Literally dropped the bags at home and drove to work. It was a never ending day!
The lesson we learned (not well enough) was to not book the last flight or one of the last flights out of small places with small planes. Another lesson was to always have accomodation covered for the entire day when we leave, so we don't have to be homeless between check out time and flight time. Third and not least, after three days in any international place, find a desi restaurant or make sure you can have rice and yoghurt ready!
These lessons after the most recent trip have been codified into our family law.
Now that the whole Greece trip blog series is complete, will try to close out the other few things that happened between September and December.. so I can start writing about our trip to Iguazu falls, while my memory is still fresh!
First.. our own Sangeetha Kaif walking down the famous steps..
oh wait? who is that dude? My god, she is married?
now what is that? She has two grown up kids as well? say what?!
Let's just keep the pretty lady in the pic!
Sunset in Oia was a hit and miss. The clouds moved in. There was going to be no sun visible. The possibility of a glorious sunset like the one we saw at Poseidon's temple.. was not going to happen. It was going to rain possibly for the night and the next. Still golden hour is golden hour and we got amazing family photos.
We had to stand in a long line to get to this famous photo spot, which happens to be someones backyard on the hills in Oia village. This is their walking path! How or why it became a famous photo spot and when, we don't know! All we know is that Hindi actress Katrina Kaif runs around this place in movies .. other famous actresses might have shot in same location as well.. my wife and MIL have the exact details.
My promise was to find this location and get pictures in that spot at sunset! Mission accomplished to the best of my ability given I cannot control the clouds. Then messed it all up with some indecisiveness. For some strange reason, picked up a faint orange tinge in the clouds and thought, maybe, maybe the sun will peak out and create magic. The rest of the family was pretty sure that everything was done and dusted. The little one was hungry and I made everyone walk back and forth for no reason for a good 15 minutes.
To top things off, we had to make a dash to the bus stop below the hill before that dude was going to take off!
We did get a few more photos..
We were all happy one moment and pissed off within 20 minutes. Finally we made it to the bus when it was still bright. There were folks who got off in Oia and were not going back to Fira and that confused our guide and driver. So we lost some time in that but eventually the bus made it back to Fira and dropped off people in different hotels on the way.
The approach road was jammed! So our driver took a roundabout route and eventually got us in. We were starving. The kids had noticed a restaurant called Convivium.. so we went there to the rooftop to get seated. Somehow the staff there didn't think we were their customer material and were hell bent on sending us out. We did not feel welcome and walked out. Very rare for us to walk out of restaurants after sitting down.
Eventually we wandered back to the main street in Fira and they got something to go at the McDonalds! I ate fries and made Maggi. That was good enough after a long day! Maggi noodles has become comfort food for me and the little one now!
We were just exhausted after that and crashed. We had one more day in Santorini as a local sightseeing day before flying off.. even planning for it was put off till next morning!
