Santorini

I could really get used to the Greek way of doing things. All the hotels have port pickups which makes it so much easier especially with all our stuff and the narrow winding streets. We were mobbed by people trying to sell us accommodation at the port so it was nice to see the name of our accommodation waiting for us. We hadn’t realized it yet but Perissa, the area we are staying in was not our favourite part of the island. Our accommodation was cheap, but ok, if not a bit funny. It was a 2-storey apartment with tiny kitchen and bathroom on the lower level and a small bedroom upstairs. We lazed around at the hotel, and went for a walk around town. The reason we choose Perissa is that it is on the beach side of the island. We were not overly impressed by the beach, especially after seeing so many great beaches yesterday. Perissa beach has no sand, rather small pebbles, and it is black. As if that wasn’t bad enough there was earth moving equipment driving up and down the beach moving large rocks around. The front of the beach is dotted with cafés all with sun lounges and umbrellas on the beach. We had a paddle in the water and then returned to our room for dinner. Next day we hired a quad bike from the son of the hotel owner. The hotel (John and Katerina’s Hotel) was nice and they were friendly, but there sons business next door was a bit shifty. Firstly despite staying in the hotel, they made us pay for wifi, they told us that the small supermarket next door (probably another family member’s) was cheaper than the big one down the street, which it wasn’t as we had suspected, and the bike they hired us was old, slow and struggled to make it up the hills.
Nethertheless we did make it up to the monastery and then up the biggest hill on the mountain to an ancient village remains. The ruins were very cool, unlike many ruins which are often only the foundations of one or two buildings, this was in fact a whole town. There were hundreds of buildings, lane ways, squares, a theater and preserved carvings and even an intact 6th century BC church. We had a late lunch in Kamari where again we got taken for a ride. We ordered a couple of cheap takeaway souvlaki’s but somehow ended up eating in, and getting more expensive meat plates. The food was good, but we were still a bit annoyed. After lunch and a walk along the beach we headed to Thira, which is the main town on Santorini. This was when we realized we had stuffed up, and were on the wrong side of the island. Thira is amazing, one of the most beautiful towns we have visited, reminding us of the Cinque Terra in Italy. Thira is built on the side of sheer cliffs that drop steeply into the bay. The whole island is actually a volcano crater, so the cliffs are various layers of volcanic rock. The villages are like postcards, with tight winding lanes, white buildings and blue domed churches. We didn’t stay long as daylight was running out and we wanted to visit Oia for sunset. Again we were a bit short on time here in a village very similar to Thira, narrow laneways and white buildings perched atop the volcanic cliffs. We found a good viewing spot and enjoyed a Frappe as the sunset. It is not peak tourist season yet but there were still a lot of people about, it would be very busy come July and August.
After the ride home, which took ages on our little bike, we grabbed a souvlaki from the place down the road. I think the best bit about where we are staying is that there is a 24hr bakery and good cheap souvlaki shop just down the road!
Next morning we headed back to Thira, our plan of hitting the beach delayed by wanting to explore the narrow laneways. We parked the bike near the main square and headed up the hill. The area we had been in yesterday had a huge volcanic rock formation jutting 200m out from the sheer cliffs. The walk to this took us past blue roofed churches with views of the volcano in the middle of the bay. We also got to see some very nice hotels and pensions, many with pools and spas overlooking the bay. We walked out onto the rocks, which surprisingly at the very end, had a tiny little church. Over the next week or so we started to get used to the concept of tiny Greek churches in the most inaccessible locations imaginable. The rest of the afternoon was most unusual and frustrating! Wandering through the laneways Christine suddenly had to run off to find a toilet, nothing serious, just too much coffee in the morning. It then somehow took us 3 hours to find each other. Damien waited where she had left him, while she waited back at the bike. After an hour Damien walked up the road to the bike in case she was there, but Christine had taken the laneways back into town. Heading back into town Damien grabbed lunch in the main square which was where we were headed next anyway. Then it was back to the spot where we had last seen each other and finally back to the bike where we found each other! Our time in Thira just wasn’t meant to be. Christine had a late lunch and we headed to the red beach. After a coffee and relax in a seaside café it was time to head to the lighthouse at the southern tip of the island for sunset. Christine had quite a successful shot at riding the quad bike, I think she is coming around to letting Damien get a bike back in Melbourne. Sunset was better than the previous night. There was only a handful of people and a clear view of the sun hitting the water, although it was nice having the white buildings in the foreground last night. Another souvlaki near home and a few beers were a good finish to a strange day. Our final day on Santorini we took a boat cruise to the small volcano in the middle of the bay. Again we booked through the place next to the hotel, and soon wished we hadn’t. It didn’t end up too bad, but after heaps of pickups in the bus we were on the boat, for some more pickups. We were on the boat early and got seats, but after the last pick up the boat was so full that some people didn’t have seats. On the volcano we had to wait for everyone (easily over 100 people) to pay the entry fee. This was good in some ways as a lot of the people walked of to start climbing the volcano. There was only one guide, who had to speak in multiple languages. We stopped 2 or 3 times on the climb with the guide giving different talks at each point, despite the big crowds he did do a good job. There are theories that the story of the lost city of Atlantis is based on Santorini. He also gave the history of the volcano’s eruptions and how Santorinin is thought to have looked hundreds of years ago.
The next stop on the tour was another island to swim in hot springs. This was fun but jumping from the boat into the cold water to swim to the warm water was tough! This time of the year the hot springs are only warm, but still about 10 deg warmer than the sea water. After a mud bath we swam back to the boat for our last stop on another island for lunch. We had a quick souvlaki before walking up to the top of town, which again is high up on volcanic cliffs. The tour finished as it had begun, with heaps of drop offs in different ports around Santorini. The ferry from Santorini to Naxos was an early afternoon ferry, which meant that we had the morning to look around Perissa. Since the first afternoon we hadn’t spent much time here. We wandered along the beach again and then visited the local souvlaki shop for one last time. Then it was time to head to the port.