Thursday, September 13th:  

Woke up early enough to see the sunrise over Akrotiri.

It was a bit windy this morning, so we opted to have breakfast inside the villa.  

We decided to shoot the Mathios Luxury Homes promotional shots afterwards so we rushed down to the Villa Hotels to grab more breakfast foods to use as props hoping to get back before Vitalie picked up the trays.  We didn’t make it back in time. Fortunately, he didn’t go far and was able to set up a new tray for the us. He also stuck around to help out with entire shoot.

Obligatory Pre-Shoot Selfie

Some Shots from our Mathios Luxury Homes Promotional Shoot

And for the Grand Finale...BAM...this should get the Villa more vistors I'm sure...

The trek up and down the hills to the Red Beach are a little treacherous and definitely require the right shoes.  We had sandals. Nicole nearly died a few times with her wedged sandals. The gravel on along the paths were loose and we slid quite a bit along the away.  

Red Beach Church

This is where we attempted our third shoot. It was pretty uncomfortable getting the proper footing and for Nicole to get any type of positioning on the ragged rocks.  The water was also pretty turbulent to get any good shots underwater. The waves generated by all the boats coming in and out of the cove crashed us against the surround rocks.

Some Shots from our shoot down at  Red Beach:

I had gotten pretty sick from swallowing so much of the ridiculously salty water and alternatively jumping into the cold waters and directly out onto the hot rocks.  This sucked. We felt this underwater shoot was a bust.

We stopped at Taverna Glaros for lunch. Of course we had to have a Frappe.  I ordered the Moussaka as usual, but it came with a little surprise this time. I found a wound up strip of foil in the center. I pulled it out and had the intent of eating the rest. The waiter took it away and replaced it with an much larger cut of Moussaka. YaY! Double yay was when they told us our entire meal was free. Nicole insisted on paying. I even tried slipping money into our waiter's hand when I shook it to say thank you. They even chased us through the restaurant to give us back the money as we tried to run away! The owner was super nice and the place was really inviting.

More Site Seeing on the way to Fira...

It was advised that we had to visit Fira to soak in the culture and browse the shops for souvenirs...

What we discovered was More American Music...

We stumbled upon this Kissing Fish Spa while wandering the shops in Fira. This is nothing we've seen in the States (where I'm certain it's banned due to some animal rights laws or health concerns) so of course we succumb to life's curiosity . We were ushered through the facility to the back where we thoroughly cleanse our dusty ground pounders in cute little feet showers. Then we were led to tanks of Garra Rufa fish where we slowly dunked our hoofs. The fish gave us pedicures by nibbling away at all our dead skin. Much like how I imagine our post apocalyptic world.

The fish obviously found my wife's feet much more deeerishush 

I may never do this again... but I didn't know this was a thing until now and in hindsight I've discovered in the past that there are actually little fish in the creeks up in Alexandria, VA that do the same, if you're interested. I'd just be wary of diseases...

Let's Catch the Sunrise on Day 07 - Oia!