Santorini

Hello everyone. We are now in Santorini. We arrived yesterday by highspeed ferry. It took an hour and 45 minutes. Since we have backpacks we were able to avoid the chaotic luggage loading and unloading of the ferry. We then took a winding bus right up to the top of the cliffs to get to Fira Town. The scenery is unbelievable. Unfortunately I can't post any pcitures of it as we put a new camera card in our camera and left the old card at the hotel. We didn't expect to find internet access today.

Anyway...the story of Santorini is this...Santorini used to be a round island with an inland sea. There were people living here as early as 3000 BC. In 1650 there was a big volcanic eruption that wiped out all human life (the Minoans) and sunk most of the land surrounding the inland lake. Since then there have been a series of eruptions that have continued to alter the landscape of the island including building new offshore islands. The last eruption was in 1956 that destroyed the towns of Fira (just down from where we are staying) and Oia (above where we are staying). Hopefully no eruptions while we are hear! Below is a pictures showing how the island has changed shape. The picture on the far left is Santorini today.

Anyway...now that we have arrived in Santorinin it actually feels like we are now in Greece. Rhodes and Crete were wonderful but the hotels we were staying at were like Mexican resorts so it really felt that we were in Mexico or the Dominican. The hotel that we are staying in now is a small bed and breakfast with few amenities. It is very Greek and the owner is a very friendly and helpful man. The bathroom is a typical style with a small tub that you sit upright in and spray yourself with a spray nozzle attached to a hoze. The windows are complete with locking shutters and we have a small balcony with a clothesline....perfect considering last night was round two of laundry. From the balcony you can see the sea from both parts of the island. There is a Greek church with a blue roof where the bell rings every hour on the hour. We really like this hotel unlike some of the other Canadians who are on similiar travel itinaries. Like the owner says.....you don't come to Santorini to lay around at your hotel.....it is not the Bahamas.

Yesterday upon arrival we decided to hike the 12km along the caldera from Firastefani (where we are staying) to Oia to see the sunset and have supper. It took us about 3 and a half hours but it was the most scenic hike We have every been on. We hiked along the sea cliffs the entire way and often times we were hiking on volcanic rocks called pumice. There were many churches along the way and many hotels with patios looking over the cliffs and the sea. We saw one hotel where the people were sitting in a hot tub over looking the cliffs and the sead drinking a bottle of wine. We decided we were going to stay there on our 20th anniversary!

In Oia there were many craft, art, jewllery and pottery shops. We settled down in a lounge overlooing the sea to have a drink and watch the sunset. The lounge definately likes to take advantage of people wanting to sit and watch the sunset. Keith had a beer and I had the smallest glass of wine ever for the cost of 25 Canadian dollars! Pricey but the sunset was fantastic. I had read about the wine I ordered in my book. It was called Vin Santo and it was the best wine I had ever tasted.

After the sunset we went to have supper at Skala...a restaurant recommended in my book. it overlooked the caldera but it was getting dark and quite windy and cold so we sat in a warm spot. I had chicken and Keith had lamb. Both were good. We then took the bus back to our hotel where we relaxed for the evening...watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit with Greek subtitles.

Today we were to take a tour to the volcaone, the volcanic hotsprings, as well as the island of Thirassia that rose up from the sea after one of the majr earthquakes. However, the weather was quite windy and there were some dark clouds to the north so our excursion was cancelled. In fact....all ferries leaving the island were cancelled! Out trip will run tomorrow if the weather is fine and otherwise we will be refunded as we leave on Thursday for Mykonos.

Instead we walked into Fira where we went to the Prehistoric museum to view some of the findings from the ancient site on the island called Akrotiri....which was also inhabitated by the same Minoans from the Knosses site we visited in Crete. In fact...the two cities used to trade with eachother. The site here is closed as walls collapsed in 2005...killling a visitor...however the museum holds many artifacts from the site that is only 3% excavated. There were lots of clay pots. They had ovens, furniture, tools, and bathtubs. I would post some pictures but apparently....the camera just went dead. I will post more later.

From there we took a bus to the Santo Wine factory....to see how the Vin Santo wine I had in Oia is made. We toured the production factory and then were served a sample of 6 wines with cheese, olives, and bread. It was awesome. We made sure to visit the shop before leaving to purchase some wine.

We then joined 2 Asian couples to share a van taxi to Perissa to see the black sand beaches. We are now in a small cafe enjoying a nice drinks that cost about $11 Canadian which seems expenisve but we get to use free internet for as long as we want and free beach chairs on the beach in front of us.....probably the best deal yet!

Anyway...that is what is happening here. The weather is starting to cloud up and get windy again...we will probably hang out here for a while and then take the bus back to the hotel.

Tomorrow...hopefully our trip will go...if not we will head to Kamari...another black sand beach area.

Sorry no pictures....should have charged the camera....I will try to post tomorrow. The ones posted here are not the ones we took but they look alot like them.

C