Santorini / Greece

Santorini has always been on my bucket list to visit and it did not disappoint, I loved every minute of our visit. This was one of two excursions we booked through Oceania Cruises.
From landing by tender at Athinios Port we hopped on a bus and went up a very steep very windy hill to reach the first village we visited Pyrgos. On our journey the guide explained that Santorini was formed after a major volcano 3,600 years ago, this eruption sank most of the land where the Greek Islands are now located and killed over 35,000 people and the thriving Minoan civilisation. The last eruption was in 1950 and it is still considered an active volcano.
In January-March this year Santorini had a series of earthquakes, happening every few minutes with the largest being 5.3. They thought a hidden magma flow may have triggered them. Apparently tourism stopped to the Island and 10,000 people were evacuated. In April cruise ships returned but there has been less tourists than normal. We knew nothing about this, just as well as I may have struggled to get Neil off the boat. Even with all the earthquakes the structures had minimal damage. All the buildings have rounded roofs and are no taller than 2 stories. Apparently the rounded roofs make them very stable.
Other Info: Santorini gets 100ml of rain a year!!! They have no fresh water supply. The primary source of drinking water is a desalination plant. They also rely on water delivery from deep wells. He did say they get sea fog in the winter which waters the vines & plants they have on the island otherwise they survive with no irrigation. They are small bushes, growing very close to the ground, Santorini wine fetches high prices due to the scarcity of the grapes. There are 16,000 permanent residents but they welcome 3.4 million tourists a year.
All churches have their domes painted blue so no matter where you are you can see where the churches are otherwise they would be lost in a sea of white.

The 3 villages we visited were Pyrgos, Oia (pronounced Eea) and Fira, which is the capital of Santorini. They were all so beautiful, this visit was everything I thought it would be.
Yes, there were crowds in places but that did not detract from our visit.
In Pyrgos Neil and I were rebels in our group and walked right to the top and visited the old castle then popped into a local cafe who were not actually open but made us a coffee and said, go on up to the roof for the view. Stunning. Greek coffee is the best so far! So many colourful doors, bougainvillea plants with their colourful display & cats.
In Oia Neil, Kipp, Carol & I had to pop into a bar for a Greek beer, a bit of local research.

In Fira we had lunch at a rooftop cafe and once again had authentic Greek food. I had Tomatokeftedes, fried tomato balls, made from crushed tomatoes & onion fried in oil, the batter is tomatoes and flour kneaded into a dough along with spices, parsley, onion & mint, the dough is then fried in oil. This was a lot healthier than it sounds 😆
Once we had our fill of looking around we then headed down to the boat. We did get cable car tickets with our excursion but the line was very long - 45min to an hour wait. Kip went on the cable car as he has a bad knee but Carol, Neil & I walked down the 600 steps to the bottom. There were donkeys (mules actually) we could have ridden but I felt much happier on my own two feet. There were so many mules on offer, it wasn’t unusual for 2 or 3 to come trotting up in front of you with no riders, they were just heading back to base. I have added a video of about 5 of them kicking & bucking their way down (with no riders) we made sure we were out of the way when we heard them approaching. The path was actually quite slippery in places because of the marble, shiny concrete and mule dung which turned to chaff. We made it safely to the bottom after about 40mins and Kip had just arrived in the cable car.
Neil did a good deed with one mule who refused to move out of the middle of the track and people were scared to go by, he used the old horse breaking trick of holding his tail which stops them kicking, he ended up being there for quite a while as people filed gratefully past.
I do shake my head at some women, I am a practical person so wear comfortable clothes and shoes fit for hiking but some women heading down the track had high slip ons on their feet with long dresses, looked pretty but man were they struggling and falling!

I have so many photos, I hope you enjoy.

What a fantastic way to end our cruise. We have thoroughly enjoyed learning the history of Turkey and the Greek Islands, sampling their cuisine & beer/wine, meeting wonderful people along the way. Unfortunately we will now have to go back to fending for ourselves. We got used to having our room tidied up while we were at breakfast, then our bed remade and turned down while we were at dinner with bonus chocolate on your pillow, so much food available at all times, pool for cooling down, afternoon tea with bonus music.
Luxury part of the trip over, back to reality.Baca lagi