(FYI this photo is a Photoshop virgin!)

My sister turned forty this year, woo hoo!  She organized a trip to Santorini a year and a half ago, rented a villa, and invited her closest friends to join her.  Kristen and I were obsessed with the movie Summer Lovers, with Darryl Hannah and Peter Gallagher, when we were in high school.  It would come on on The Movie Channel in Mom and Dad’s room and we’d watch it over and over.  A lovely tale about a threesome during a summer in Santorini.  It was the perfect 80’s flic with a great soundtrack that I’d dance to in front of the mirror.

Kristen and I went to Greece in 1995 with our parents on a cruise and cruises are such a tease.  You are only on an island from 9-5 and herded and bussed around the island, eating at the tourist locations.  The next youngest people on the cruise next to my sister and me were our parents.  I hooked up with our tour guide the night before on Mykonos, so by the time we got to Santorini I was experiencing major el hangover from ouzo.

But THIS time it was everything I’d ever dreamed of.  We flew to Athens and then took a ferry the next am to Santorini.  We stayed in Oia, the smaller village on Santorini known for its picturesque views and sunsets.  Our villa, www.whitehousesantorini.com, was a beautiful classic Greek villa.  I think it was bigger than the Acropolis and could easily have slept an orgy baker’s dozen.

Our villa just happened to be surrounded by the Relais Chateaux hotel on the island, so all the hotel guests kept asking us where the bar was.  We met this couple that was in the presidential suite next to us.  Apparently Brad and Angie had been there the month before.  It had a pool that you could swim up into your bed through a cave.  The young woman was Italian and wore white tanks with no bra and he was from Saudi Arabia, quite the pair.  We were chatting with them during one of our sunset booze fests and asked them where they were going to eat, to which all 80 pounds of her replied “We don’t eat much.”

Our friends Karen, Craig, John and Robin joined us and we had fun times just hanging out on our deck, drinking wine and taking in the sunset.  I’ve been around the world and I think I’m 100% certain that Santorini is the most mesmerizing place I’ve been to.  It’s the only inhabited volcano in the world, formed in 1660BC.  Oia is perched high on the cliffs and you can just stare all day long at the turquoise water, ships coming in and out of port.  White villas cover the cliffs like snow and the sunsets come in an array of shapes and colors, depending on the cloud formation.

Our days were spent eating Greek yogurt in the am, (Craig always made coffee), tooling around the island, hitting up a beach for a few, going to the grocery store to buy our smorgasbord of Greek delights for our sunset du jour, wine tasting, and staring at the sunset.

I obsessively found most of the Summer Lovers movie locations, including the Summer Lovers house, Perissa Beach and the ancient town of Akrotiri.

If you haven’t been yet to Greece, you must go.

Here is the info for Zak who we rented the lovely villa from:
Zak Zagarelos
Zoe traditional houses
www.zoe-aegeas.gr
www.whitehousesantorini.com
Work: 0030 22860 – 71466
Mob :  0030 6936182304
Fax : 0030 22860 – 28057
Ia 84702
Greece