Oia: postcard perfect Santorini

Santorini was supposed to be the relaxing, pampering leg of our Greece trip, but things turned out differently. Not only did Marlon and I get sick, but Tala came down with her first flu on our last three days in Santorini—not a first any new parents want to have while on holiday. Heavily medicated and confined to our hotel room in Imerovigli, we could see Oia winking at us from a distance. So near, yet so far.

“Oia is the postcard Santorini,” I croaked weakly, after sucking out gobs of snot from Tala’s nose while Marlon coughed his way through three boxes of tissues. “We can’t have come all this way and not see it. We have to make it there. We just have to!”

It almost seemed we would never make it to Oia. That we’d have to come back for it when Tala reaches a more manageable age (when she’s 15 and just wants to party in Mykonos, not hang out with her parents in Santorini). But on our last day in Santorini, we finally felt well enough to venture out to Oia.

Did we push it a little? Probably. Was it worth it? Definitely.

Oia is probably the most photographed village in the Cyclades, if not in all of Greece—and for good reason. It is just unbelievably photogenic.

The colors of Greece leap out at you from everywhere. Whites just seem whiter and blues seem bluer in this cliffside village of whitewashed buildings and blue-domed churches.

They don’t have windmills like these in Holland… and not such stunning blue  skies, either.

My personal award for “Best in Branding: Country” goes to Greece. Everyone gets the brief here: blue and white, period. Such dedication and consistency makes everything look amazing. The colors are so crisp, I bet everyone is constantly repainting. Marlon has said he would like to change careers, move to Greece and become a supplier of white paint; we’d be set for life!

By the way, I’m kind of fanatic about doors. I take way too many pictures of them when I travel; I pose with them like they are Hollywood celebrities. There are many gorgeous doors (blue ones, of course!) in Oia, and in Greece in general. It’s a door-lovers paradise.

Word of warning for parents traveling to Oia with babies: it can be done, but it’s definitely not stroller country. Check out these crazy steps: all of Oia is like this.

We do have an Ergobaby carrier for situations like these, but it was simply too hot to use it.  So we were the crazy parents who did all these crazy steps with a stroller. In fact, we were the only parents we saw with a stroller (or a baby, for that matter).

We were such a rare sight that at sunset on the kastro, a guy blurted out “Whoa, it’s a guy with a stroller!” Yes indeed, Captain Obvious. Thankfully, Tala slept all throughout the sunset show. And for all the hassle that it poses, the stroller is good for some things—like barricading people from your chosen sunset spot. We’re crafty, parents are.

Looking at these pictures, the stress fades into a hazy memory. All I’m left with is dazzling beauty in blue and white: picture-perfect, postcard perfect Oia.