For the final episode of our Couplemoon in Greece, we bring you to the Red Beach in Akrotiri, visit the Archaeology Site believed to be the lost city of Atlantis and go shopping in Fira before heading home.

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Red Beach

The Red Beach earns it’s name from the iron-rich sedimentary rocks and sand in the cliff. Like how Perissa is covered in black sand, Red Beach got it’s colour from being in the vicinity of a volcano.

We rose pretty early this morning as we had so much to do and wanted to go into the Archaeology Site right when it opens. Turned out, we arrived very early so we decided to explore the Red Beach first.

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Akrotiri Archaeology Site

In the end 19th century, the volcanic earth was excavated to provide first material for the construction of the Suez Canal. There have been traces of a prehistoric settlement in Santorini but it was not until 1967 when the excavations at ancient Akrotiri started. One of the most important excavations, it brought to light multi-level buildings and masterpiece-wall paintings dating back to 5th millennium BC (Neolithic age).

After the eruption of the volcano in the 17 century BC, the once round island Thira (now known as Santorini) was mostly sunk by a massive tsunami. The caldera is formed from this and parts of Thira was covered with volcanic material. These material played a major role in the protection of the ancient settlement including paintings and pottery and is one of the best preserved all over Greece.

Many have speculated that this could have been the lost city of Atlantis due to the advance structure/skills found on this site and their similar fate. What do you think?

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Fira

Fira is the main town of Santorini located on the top of a cliff of the caldera. It has a few museums, the cable car, a few bars and clubs and it’s central location is the base for the public buses to go to and from many other parts of the island.

Shine and myself decided to spend the rest of the day here to shop for souvenirs and to eat. We’ll miss the yummy Greek food. We arrived at around 1130am but most of the shops and eateries were still closed due to the low season. Most of the shops and restaurants opened at around noon or later but closed early at about 4pm to 6pm. But fret not, just look to the locals! We ate at this little place just by the road where the locals dined and the food was great! Then again, almost everywhere we ate in Greece was great.

We kept walking in circles! Its like every alley and path we turned, we somehow end up back at the same spot. I was in search of a shop that sold clocks but we found this awesome shop instead.

I ended up buying my clock here and Shine got himself a Poseidon figurine.

While we were still walking in circles, we came across an alley we haven’t been through. At a corner was a little shop that had more light up figurines I was looking to buy as souvenirs while Shine waited outside. The shopkeeper asked, “What are you doing smoking outside? It’s cold! Come in, I have an ashtray“. As Singaporeans, smoking just about anywhere was unheard of, let alone smoke inside a shop. The souvenir in his shop was reasonably priced and added that he was so hospitable, we decided to get the rest of what we needed from his shop. I asked if I could take a picture of his shop and even asked if he could be in the photo with Shine.

Most of Santorini’s shops and restaurants don’t have an address. His shop is somewhere towards the steps to the Cable Car.

After all that walking and shopping, we were hungry again and decided on a light snack. Found this place that sold hand wraps that Shine was tempted to try. He ordered this lamb kebab wrap for like 2 Euros! This would’ve cost a bomb at home for the quality and portion! And my grilled chicken stick cost only 1 Euro and tasted like heaven!

Clearly very satisfied with my grilled chicken. Next door, there was this…KFC uncle? Is that you? *Confused.

The shops started closing at around 530pm and our driver came to pick us up.

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Not long after we arrived back at our room, Mama came by to serve us a traditional home cooked meal! There wasn’t any eateries nearby that was open in Perissa so she had offered to make us dinner.

We noticed that the food in Santorini was very fresh and that fast-food joints were non-existent. The vegetables were sweet and juicy and the fish smelt good unlike the kind I smell at home. Thank you Mama for your thoughtfulness. We wish you will always be well for your family and Blue Diamond Bay and hope we can come back to Santorini again and visit you.

The next morning, we had to be up early again as we were taking the first plane out of Santorini. Since we had packed our bags the night before and still had some time to spare, we decided to take a morning stroll by Perissa beach.

I don’t think he knows I took these pictures of him. It’s so hard to get him to pose in pictures so I have resulted in taking candid snaps of him.

We have come to the end Our First Couplemoon. Thank you everyone for being so patient with the posts and for being supportive by reading the blog and liking the photos on Instagram and Facebook.

And of course, thank you Shine for bringing me to Santorini and Athens. Although it was meant to be your 30th birthday trip, you wanted to surprise me by bringing us to this place that I’ve always talked about since we’ve started dating, that’s very sweet. I love you my Sunshine.

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