In Athens this morning. We caught the ferry from Santorini last night arriving in a sleepless daze to try and find a hostel. Athens is another massive European city and we are not keen to stay too long. In its favour though there are not too many places in the world where you can stay under ancient monuments like the Parthenon and Acropolis and I am looking forward to seeing these.

Our remaining time on Santorini since my last email was very chilled out and relaxed. We went to Perrisa which is on the other side of the island from the busy touristy Fera town. We stayed in a Studio appartment with a pool that ended up being even cheaper than the hostel! I love travelling out of season!

The beach at Perrisa consists of black gravelly stuff so you would feel like you are laying in a big rockery if it wasn't for the ocean and the massive cliff that rises up on one end of the long beach. From Perrisa we also did a day trip to the red beach which is the best beach I have seen in Greece. You have to walk in and when you walk over the headland it lives up to it's name with a cliff of red volcanic rock and beautiful deep green water. We spent most of the day basking in the sun here.

When we first arrived in the islands we were shocked to see people laying in the sun all day trying to get the ultimate tan (mostly all over!) After realising how hard it is to get burnt here we actually started to see the attraction! It was funny talking to some Aussies on our last night and we were all comparing tans! Something I would never even consider doing back home. I hope my tan lasts till I get to Dublin!

Today we are shopping around for a cheap tour to Egypt today but it seems that the only people that want a tour of Turkey are loaded! We have become very accustomed to shopping around though and will push on.