I have travelled to the Greek Islands many times, and have always enjoyed every trip, so when my lovely new wife and myself decide to tie the knot, there was only one place in our minds Greece.
After countless weeks of researching the web, travel agents etc, we decided not to go to our favourite Island Cephalonia, but to an Island that we always look at but never quite got around to visiting,
Santorini . We booked two weeks, staying at the Hotel Kastelli in Kamari, and our wedding at the Santos Winery at Pyrgos. All of this was arranged through our travel agent Going Places Maidstone branch, they have recently been taken over by Thomas Cook, and to be honest, they were much more customer orientated when they were the old Going Places/My Travel. Although Sam our lead agent at the Maidstone branch was well on the ball.
The Hotel Kastelli is amazing, the staff attended to your every need, and any issues are dealt with immediately and effectively, not that we had any. The rooms are all exceptional, and comfortable. The hotel boasts five pools, one main, and three smaller shared pools, plus one semi private pool for the suites. The Kastelli’s restaurant is very nice but a tad expensive compared to the many restaurants just minutes away on the main beach area, so apart from the hotels food/bar prices the place is just perfect.
Kamari itself is on the main flight path to the airport, which is only a couple of km up the road, and I have had people ask about the aircraft noise. Ok. There is some noise, more so on some days than others, but lets get things into some kind of perspective here. We are talking about a little Greek Island, not runway No2 at London Heathrow. You do hear the planes coming into land but after a while I did not even notice it.
Now a little about Kamari itself, the beach is black volcanic sand, and the water is deep, its about 2 km’s long, running for most of the length along side of the beach are all of the shops, bars, and restaurants. The restaurants are reasonably priced and the food is of excellent quality, we never had or heard of anyone else having a bad meal whilst we were out there. Some of the restaurants off the main beach, up the side roads offer excellent value. The Byzantio, and Lasarda for example are both family run and very traditional, serving Greek favourites like Kelftiko, and Stifado. For nightlife try the Albatross or the DOM beachside clubs reasonably priced cocktails. Overall Kamari is well laid out, clean, and very friendly with easy access to all the other parts of the island either by bus or car etc.
Oia, Imeroglivi, Thira. These are what you see on the post cards or in the brochures, beautiful views overlooking the famous Caldera, cruise ships moored up at the bottom of Thira, donkeys walking up the 598ish steps to the top. I’ve got one word for you WOW. It is breathtaking, I have seen many photos of Thira and Oia, being a photographer myself, I could not wait to get my camera out and start snapping away, but no camera can ever capture the glory of the views from above the Caldera. Best viewed by your own eyes. Now things do get a little crazy when the cruise ships come to Thira, prices go up and some of the restaurant owners do get a little cheeky with their prices, so top tip always look at a menu before ordering, or like me you may get charged 30€ (that’s £24 in old money) for three iced coffees, which the owner pointed out on the menu when it came to paying the bill, naughty but very nice. I did not get the name of the restaurant; we were in a hurry to leave in case he added a service charge or something. It is the restaurant overlooking the Caldera with the empty wine bottles lined up on the fence, so look out for him. Other than that we had no problems at all, our favourite restaurant in Thira was the Zafora, which is up the little cobbled streets towards the cable car. We ate at the Zafora on two nights, one of which was for a wedding meal, the food was exceptional and so was the view of the sunset from the balcony, their staff were excellent, and very friendly. Try the Karidopita (sorry about the spelling) Walnut Pie and Ice Cream to you and me. It was fabulous. The little villages of Oia and Imeroglivi again these are stunning little places full of charm and beauty, amazing little white houses and windmills, with a hand full of blue domed churches, and a splash of colourful buildings thrown in for good measure. I would best describe them as little Dolly Mixture Villages, just like little colourful sweets perched on the cliff tops. Imeroglivi, with its exclusive suites, and private infinity pools on the edge of the Caldera, beautiful little holiday apartments for those at the luxury end of the holiday market (and why not). Then there are the little streets of Oia, littered with all manner of Jewellery Shops, Artist Studios and Galleries, selling paintings and sculptures from local, national, and international artists. Following the streets downwards towards the cliff edge are some lovely restaurants, we ate in a lovely taverna over looking the tiny harbour at the bottom of Oia. From there we witnessed the most spectacular sunset of them all, us along with hundreds of spectators who all gathered to witness the world famous Oia view. I am told it is in the top 50 things to see before you die guide and so it should be.
Our wedding in Santorini was the most amazing thing of them all. As I have already mention earlier we arranged most of the wedding through Thomas Cook, the booking of the Santos Winery, and the service etc. I was very pleased with our wedding Thomas Cook Rep, Tess who took care of everything, even when the booked time came back as five O’clock in the evening, she managed to get it changed to a better time when it is cooler and the light is less harsh for the photography, I recommend any time after 7pm. Now you can book your wedding car, photographer, reception etc, through your Holiday Company, and pay for it all locally. However Thomas Cook were very late sending through the extra’s list and one week before we were due to leave for Santorini, they sent us through an internal company copy listing things like wedding cars, photographers, and reception prices. This is where they got a bit silly with their prices, they were charging 400€ for the wedding photography. Which is quite good until you look at the second column on the page 200€ goes to the photographer, and 200€ they keep for the booking, and it was the same for everything else i.e., the wedding car, hair and makeup, reception. There was even a 1kg ice cream cake listed for 8€ with a mark up of 60€, now we did not mind spending the money, but it should be going to the local people providing the service, not to the holiday company, so we decided to look for locals not linked to the company. It is very easy to do and does not take to much time to organise yourselves. Firstly the wedding photographer we used a local man called Nikos Sirigos he is just outside of Thira, you can get a bus there from Kamari in 15 minutes and ask the driver to stop by the football stadium, just walk 5 minutes up the road and his office is by the motorbike hire shop. He is a really nice guy, we paid him 300€ for the photography, and a further 150€ for a nice new white Mercedes wedding car. On our wedding day his driver was at our hotel and we travelled up to the Santos Winery in style, there waiting for us was Nikos and his assistant they covered all of the ceremony and took us around the Winery for a wedding photo shoot, the very next day we collected our album and CD with all of the images on it from his office. As a photographer myself I think Nikos did a wonderful job of capturing our wedding. Now please remember that this is Greece, and the way the photography is done is not as up to date as it is in the UK, it is more basic than the type of work you would expect over here, but never the less the quality of capture that Nikos produced is far better than a lot of so called photographers here in the UK. As you get all of your photos on CD you can always have them edited professionally when you get back home. NOT that I am saying his work needs editing in Photoshop. We wanted a special flush mounted wedding album, and me being a bit of a Photoshop wizz. I have made only a few changes, like converting some images to black and white, and some resizing some of the images so they fit into the album’s layouts. That’s it though they are perfect and ready to go. Nikos owns a company called Pixel Tours and if you put that through an Internet search engine you find his site. (Have a look at the web cam at Santos Wines) you can see where the ceremony takes place, and people at home can watch, it is a little slow though. To sum up then, pay for the basic wedding package from your travel agent/holiday company and then either sort the little things out yourself, or get a package from a wedding planner, like Nikos and let them sort it all out for you.
Don’t forget all of the paper work you must get completed before travelling like having your birth certificates and certificate of Non Impediment arranged and translated into Greek, and get it stamped, and then checked by the Greek Consulate. All of which does take time to turn around, so don’t leave it to the last minute.
The Santos Winery is a lovely little place perch very high up on the cliff tops about 300 metres above the port of Athinios, it has an amazing view of the Caldera, and the Volcano (Nea Kameni and Palia Kameni) Old and New Burn as they are referred to by the locals. The area where the ceremony took place was decorated with white ribbons and flowers. Coupled with the beautiful view, and the setting sun you cant really ask for anything more. Our registrar Yannis who conducted the ceremony was very friendly and made you feel right at ease. Basically our Santorini Wedding was the best day of our lives, you could pay ten times as much money the get married in the UK and still it would not be anywhere as nice. I have been to Weddings here and abroad, but they just don’t come close to what we had. In one word a Santorini Wedding is Perfection.
I must also mention the stray cats and dogs on Santorini, we are both animal lovers and there are so many little stays wondering around, they find it hard especially in the winter time when all of the tourists go home, so if when your are out dinning in many of the fabulous restaurants and you have a some leftovers please feed the stays. A good restaurant will always have a couple of cats near by they help keep the all of the nasty pests under control. If you take a tour up to the walled town of Pyrgos like we did there is a little animal sancty half way up to the top, with a couple of very cute ginger cats outside wanting some attention, on the gate is a little rusty tin. If you can spare a couple of euros that will go a long way to helping sick and injured animals on Santorini.
I hope my review has been of some help to all those who are thinking about taking a trip to Santorini, I can and often do talk about Santorini all day long. It is a very special place and although I am probably biased I don’t even think my review can do it the justice it deserves. Although we did not stay in the very expensive and exclusive parts of the Island, I felt very lucky to have been able to visit Santorini and enjoyed every single minute of my stay. There still are many little places I did not have the time visit on this trip, but I am looking forward to visiting Santorini again in the future. It is just amazing, so if you are planning to go for a well-deserved holiday, or you fancy a magical Santorini Wedding like we had, then enjoy, you will not be disappointed, that I can guarantee. If I can be of any help to perspective future Santorini travellers, you can usually find me on the forum pages on this site.
Ps before I go I would like to thank Nikos Sirigos, Yannis, Tess, Nikos and Family at Byzantio restaurant and Nikos at the Dolce Bar Kamari beach for taking good care of us. Gabriella and her staff at the hotel Kastelli, Kamari, The Zafora waiters, Thira, and the staff at the Santos Winery. I look forward to seeing you all in 2010.
J S Aston
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