Santorini

We cruised over to the remarkable volcano that became the islands of Santorini.There are several chunks of land that mark the outer cinder cone resulting from the explosion/eruption followed by a devastating earthquake in the late 1900’s that destroyed most of the remaining structures on the islands. They have , or are, rebuilding the entire island infrastructure as faithful reproductions if their history. When we first arrived on the cruise ship we witnessed the sunrise as it lit up the stark white buildings up on the rim of the cliffs when viewed from a thousand feet below. It was very dramatic! And as we first saw the trail up to the town with its’ extremely steep switchbacks with people and donkeys carrying tourists up the cliff it was very intimidating, and impressive.

We took a boat tender across the l island to a port where large buses could negotiate other steep switchbacks, but nothing like the donkey trail! We visited a winery briefly and then toured the rest of the island. Gorgeous scenery, but way too crowded for its 15,000 residents’ infrastructure. Especially with 4 huge cruise ships anchored off shore and all tendering in at the same time. IRead more