Day 14 - Santorini

An absolutely gorgeous day on probably the most picturesque Greek isle, the island of Santorini, an island formed by a volcanic eruption!  The volcano, named Thera, first erupted in 1450 BC.  The emptied-out volcano collapsed under its own weight, creating the world’s largest crater. This collapse resulted in a huge tsunami, which travelled to the island of Crete, 70 miles away.  It is believed that this tsunami, as well as accompanying earthquakes, were responsible for the destruction and disappearance of the Minoan civilization. The volcano most recently erupted in 1954, disrupting and completely changing the island again.  The island itself, as well as the surrounding islands and the beautiful blue-green water, sit in the crater of the volcano – known as the Caldera.  The towns and villages of Santorini sit perched high atop the cliffs formed by the volcano and offer dramatic views of the Caldera (cauldron).

Today, because the ship is too large for the port, we were anchored in the harbor and had to ride tender boats into the dock.  The dock sits at the base of a steep cliff, so we then took a cable car to the top to reach the village of Fira, the gateway to the beautiful island of Santorini.

View from the tender as we appraoched the island

Cable cars up the cliff

The village of Fira dates back to 9^th century BC and sits atop the cliff, 1,000 feet above the sea.  It overlooks the bay where the lost city of Atlantis is reported to be.

Fira

Because we had such a successful adventure with the ATV on Mykonos, Jeff convinced me to rent another ATV to explore this island. This time, we had an “upgraded model” which had much more pep, and Jeff was a “highway star”. I had to tell him to slow down at times and we did get the horn beeped at us a couple of times.  But God protected us and Jeff did a great job, once again, of navigating on a strange island where all the signs where literally “Greek” to us.

Did we have trouble getting around? Well, I was, as usual, concerned that we were going to get lost and not going to make it back to the ship on time, while Jeff was more interested in his adventure of exploring the island. But we, as always, made it back in plenty of time, although we did take a few detours along the way.

Ready for another adventure!

First we travelled to the picturesque, cliff-top village on the northern part of the island called Oia. Today Jeff had the camera and I call him “crazy camera man”. Whenever he has the camera, he takes multitudes of pictures. There were SO many absolutely gorgeous views and angles to look at, in every direction (I can easily see why anyone could get carried away in this town).  By the time I got the camera, the memory was full, which caused me to laugh, since I always comment on his going crazy with the camera. But, we had forgotten to erase the pictures from the previous day after downloading them, so we erased them and had enough memory for more pictures.

Oia is a charming, beautiful village town, perfect for just wandering around and taking in the sights. We walked around and simply marveled at the magnificent views of both the east and west sides of the northern tip of the island. On both sides were pastel tinted houses and stark white churches with brilliant azure roofs, the deep blue Aegean Sea on either side, and the colorful multi-hued strata of rock, lava, and pumice cliffs in the distance forming the walls of the Caldera. Once again the pictures are awesome, but do not fully capture the beauty of this place.

Notice the windmills. There was a hotel below the windmills that was beautiful.

The windmills with an old church.

The colorful caldera

The many shops and local merchants were very interesting and it was fun to talk to them, especially for me (Deb). One shop that I ventured into had been a cliff home and the man showed me where the kitchen, living, and bedroom had been. These homes, built into the side of the cliffs, are ideally insulated, keeping them cool in the summer and warm in the winter.  Another shop advertised that we could rent a cat for the day for 5 euros.  We did not!

We had a delicious lunch at a small outdoor restaurant overlooking the sea and the village, complete with free Wi-Fi.

The restaurant

We left Oia and returned a different route along the eastern coast of the Aegean Sea to Fira.  The beaches have pitch-black sand and the landscape is dotted with white churches with blue roofs and characteristics windmills.

This one is for you, Donna. The only 2 of 4 cows we saw the entire trip.

Then, instead of taking the cable cars down to the dock, we decided to walk. I did not mention in the beginning, but upon arrival you have 3 options for traversing the 1,000 foot climb to the top – cable cars, walking, or donkeys (yes, donkeys). The walkway is a long windy, slick, narrow; cobblestones trail that zigzags up and down the cliff. The walk takes about 30 minutes.  It was very hot, hot, hot. The walkway is also the same path that the donkeys use, so it is filled with many donkey “pies” – very fragrant by late afternoon. It is treacherous due to the slick stones and the multiple donkey pies (and I do mean multiple!). But when you get to the place where the donkeys are waiting for riders…it is CRAZY. There are about 50+ donkeys that you had to maneuver around with their masters yelling, in Greek, at the donkeys, the riders, and to each other. They were more concerned about their paying customers, so did not make any effort to ensure that we could get by safely. Remember, the walkway is VERY narrow and we are walking right behind 40-50 donkeys who were not, themselves, having the greatest of times. My Dad said never walk behind a horse or donkey, which might kick for no reason at any time. It was nearly impossible to walk anywhere. We did, finally, make it past the logjam of donkeys and continued down the steps, being passed periodically by groups of donkeys with their riders, tethered together with their leader either on their way up or on their way down. We learned NOT to be on the outside curve at the turn backs of the windy trail because that was their spot. They would press us against the wall if we were walking in their spot. Needless to say, it was a most memorable experience.

The donkey jam

The donkeys were colorfully decorated with muti-colored blankets.

Once again we made back to the ship in time. This was by far the hottest day for me. Santorini is a most beautiful island with some of the most picturesque views we have ever seen. Someone commented that it was almost too pretty to be true.

We had difficulty choosing which pictures to post here, for we had many to choose from (remember, Jeff went crazy).

Once last view...

After having another delicious meal in the Grand Cuvee dining room with our Australian friends, we went to the Silhouette Theater and were very much entertained by a hilarious comedian.  Then we retired for the night. Love you all.

Kali Nichta