Greece: Folegandros

We woke up bright and early so that we could catch the ferry to our second island destination:  Folegandros.  The ferries are known for following 'Greek time', which may or may not be the time printed on your ticket.  Not wanting to miss the ferry, we ordered a cab early in the morning to get to the port way ahead of time.

Since we flew into Santorini, we had not been down to the port yet, and the cab ride there made me never want to do so again.  Santorini drivers are known for taking the steep, winding roads at high speeds, but I seriously thought this guy trying to kill us.  We spent most of the time barreling down 20% inclines on the wrong side of the road.  I was so traumatized I failed to take a single picture until we safely made it to Folegandros.

Safe at sea

September is the low season on the islands, so we ended up getting a great deal at a resort just outside Folegandros' capital city of Hora.  This place was a-mazing, check it out.

This place had it all; a swim up bar, a plethora of comfy pool chairs, mini golf, and a little bridge over the pool, which I know is completely useless, but it looked cool.  Since it was the end of the season, most of these things weren't open, but it also meant we had the entire place to ourselves.

Our room was equally impressive, with an elevated bedroom.  Unfortunately, an elevated bedroom means you have stairs down to the bathroom, which are extremely hazardous in the morning when you forget about them and almost break an arm and ankle (yes, this happened to me).

This church was just behind our hotel and had an impressive set of stairs.  I'm sure the views were impressive from the top, but we didn't make the hike.

We took a few minutes to enjoy the resort before heading out to explore a bit of the island.  Folegandros is very small island, known for it's little white buildings that are said to look like sugar cubes on the landscape.

We took the very short walk into Hora to find some food, where I got Greek coffee for the first time!

The before and after

We started with some tzatziki, but we decided to try the local specialty, matsaka, as our main dish.  Matsaka is a dish of thick noodles with red tomato sauce, traditionally served with rabbit.  Brian chose the traditional fare, whereas I opted for the vegetarian version.

After getting our fill of lunch, we set out to explore more of Hora.  We walked around taking in the adorable details of the town.

Is this not the most adorable door ever?  Ah, love it!

As we walked around, we kept noticing these stone walls lining the steep hills of island.  It turns out these terraces are used to grow barley on the otherwise barren hills.

Practically experts at the self timed photo.  Just sayin'.

Once we were done soaking in the beauty of the island, we headed back to our resort to spend some quality time with this:

Bliss.  I will have a replica of this at my house one day.

We only had one day on Folegandros, and I wanted to make sure to catch the sunset while there, so we headed back to Hora where we had staked out a site earlier in the day to watch the sun go down.  Before that, we stopped for a snack, a traditional sesame honey cake.

And Brian's reaction to the sesame cake.

We quickly found out that we weren't the only ones waiting for the sunset.

Kittehs!

Hello, perfectly timed cloud.

We stopped for dinner in town, where I gorged myself on fried foods (cheese, potatoes) and Brian picked out his fish from a drawer full of fresh catches.  We were also treated to free dessert, which is how I wish every meal ended.

We headed back to our hotel, which was just as beautiful at night, glistening from lights all around the property.

Our day in Folegandros was quick, but I was very happy we got to experience this beautiful little island!