At the beginning of the semester, my friends and I discussed our possible weekend trip dates and destinations. Of course, Santorini, Greece, came up in our conversation. After talking, we knew we wanted to go to Greece but were still determining the best ways to get there, where to stay, and what to pre-book.
A few weeks into the semester, I heard about a traveling company named “Bus2Alps” from the Great Vine. I heard they did traveling tours with many study abroad students for a great price. After talking to peers and current and past study abroad students and researching, I quickly realized that Bus2Alps offers so much!
Bus2Alps hosts trips around Europe for students ages 18-29. They offer many locations, including Barcelona, Interlaken, Munich, Tuscany, Vienna, and, of course, Santorini (these are just a few). These trips range in length of stay, accommodations, and optional travel and excursion packages.
After researching and talking to my friends, I realized booking a Santorini Bus2Alps trip was a no-brainer! We booked a meet-us-there deluxe package for the first weekend in April. Our trip included a trip leader, airport transfer to and from the Santorini airport, a dorm-style accommodation, breakfast every morning, a private island tour of the Red Beach and Black Sand Beach, a wine tasting at Santos Vineyard, a sunset watching at Oia, and a half-day catamaran boat tour.
Thursday, April 4, we departed from Rome to fly to Athens. After landing in Athens, we had a layover and shortly resumed our travels with a flight to Santorini. We arrived late at night, got picked up by our private airport transfer, and eventually reached our hostel.
Friday morning, we were up early to get breakfast and explore Fira, Santorini. We met our trip leader and 13 other students who were also on our trip studying abroad in Italy. We departed for our private island tour shortly after breakfast. We toured the beautiful beaches and ended the afternoon swimming and eating lunch on the water.
After returning from our tour, we quickly changed and got ready for our wine tasting. My favorite part of the day was the sunset that evening in Oia, which was Pinterest-worthy. The white buildings, the blue domes, the sky—it was everything I ever imagined Santorini would be and more! To top the day off, we ended with a lovely traditional Greek food meal with some of our new Bus2Alps friends.
We started the next day with a quick breakfast and departed for our catamaran. I was expecting this tour to be a regular boat tour. It was not. It was terrific—we had stops to jump in the water, snorkel, and even eat lunch on the boat. The clear water, the fish, and the sights were indescribable. Everyone was smiling ear to ear with happiness. It was a wonderful experience; I hadn’t seen or experienced anything like it before.
We ended our journey with dinner, shopping in Fira on Saturday night, and early flights from Santorini to Athens and Athens back to Rome. This was an unforgettable weekend that I and many of my peers on the trip will never forget. Life changing.
Regan Reilly is a student at Rowan University and an ISA Featured Blogger. She is studying with ISA in Rome, Italy.