Day 22 - Santorini in winter...with a toddler: The Hotel

Santorini in winter...with a toddler

Santorini is one of the islands in the Aegean Sea, The whitewashed houses of its 2 principal towns, Fira and Oia, cling to cliffs above an underwater crater. They overlook the clear Aegean and beaches made up of black, red, and white lava pebbles.

This is winter and that means gray skies, cold weather, wind and rain. Few hotels and restaurants are operating. Ferries and flights have very limited schedules.  But as I mentioned earlier, our plans changed, and I did not do enough research before booking the trip.  It was probably the day before we left that I realized we were not going to have the blue skies and incredible sunsets that are pictured in every Google search.

The Hotel:

We booked a clean and cute room at the Lilium Villas, with an incredible view of the caldera (volcano crater).  The hotel is outside of the city of Fira,  We arrived around 8pm to howling winds and driving rain.  The hotel was great at getting us (and our luggage) to our room, without getting too wet.  As we were learning, the island was really not yet opened to tourists, so the hotel recommended that we rent a car to get ourselves around.  They called and arranged for a car to be delivered to the hotel.  Loved that!

It was getting late, and we had not yet had dinner.  We were not venturing out into the weather again so we ordered room service, and the food was delivered with a smile.  (even though they had to walk through the wind and rain to deliver!)

The bed was comfy.  Jackson enjoyed sleeping in the portable crib they had set up without me having to request it.  The room was all white, with pops of blue.  Nice and clean.  The water pressure was good.  Unfortunately, we had brown hot water for two of the three nights we were there.  The hotel staff was helpful and asked us to just run the hot water until the brown went away, which it eventually did.

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The included breakfast buffet was plentiful.  Lots of breads, muffins, croissants, eggs (fried or hard boiled), cereals, fresh squeezed orange juice, yummy Greek yogurt, sausages.  We certainly did not go hungry.

Jackson and Elmo enjoying the view from their bed

We enjoyed our stay here.  There was a snafu at check-out, but the hotel handled it very professionally, and exactly how I would have wanted it to be handled.