Our first official holiday together and we choose (at length) the tiny, volcanic island of Santorini.  It seemed warm enough for an early May holiday, romantic enough for couples and most importantly, there were direct flights from London.

We had an amazing 5 days, zipping around the island in our cabrio Smart car visiting the various historic sites and shopping centers.  I think this was the first place I’ve been to where the souvenir stalls were almost all unique, so I actually enjoyed browsing the shops for once.  Usually tourist destinations have hundreds of copies of two distinct shops: t-shirts in one & location specific memorabilia in the other.  Think fridge magnets and shot glasses.  Though I shouldn’t complain about shot glasses, as I try to pick one up from every place I go to.  Santorini had them as well, but I managed to get a unique, hand painted one here.

Our hotel was brilliant!  The owner was more than helpful and you could really feel his love for his island in all of the small details of our 5 day home.  The pool was constructed to resemble the shape of the island (complete with raised bits to stub your toe on), he’s created copies of the famous churches (pictured below) and windmills, and even went so far as to create a three dimensional scale replica of the island itself.  All of the towns were labeled and the roads depicted with great care.  We’ll definitely be staying there again when we return.

Anyway, I took a LOT of photos during our trip.  So much so that my battery died on the second to last night (halfway through a 2 hour star trail exposure).  Of course I didn’t have a backup battery or a charger, so we made ample use of Danni’s little point & shoot camera for our final day of excursions.  I’ll know better for next time…all of the time spent reviewing images sure puts a drain on ones battery.

Here are a couple of my favourite shots from the short week.

There are a lot more photos in the gallery here.

In the ongoing effort to introduce new slices of culture into my life, Danni picked up a pair of tickets to see the ballet performance of Cinderella.  Having done years of ballet she’s an obvious fan and has talked about taking me for some time now.  I think choosing a familiar storyline was a good idea as I’m not artistically minded enough to extrapolate any meaning from interpretative dance (or any other subtle forms of expression for that matter).

As we were getting all done up for the evening, I thought I’d take a couple of quick photos of us looking shiny.

If you’re wondering whether or not I enjoyed myself, I did.  I would go again, but mostly due to knowing how much joy Danni gets from attending than for me.  Give me a hockey game any day!