Santorini is an island with many faces - yet the one that is most known, and where we spent most of our time is the romantic Oia. The most beautiful greek island photos come from this island. Another beautiful view around every corner !
We were lucky to be collected at the port by our guesthouse owner. It is such a narrow strip of land at the bottom of a huge cliff and total chaos with masses of people and cars - leaving and arriving ! We marvelled at our driver - his left arm had been amputated below the elbow - yet he managed to light a cigarette, smoke, talk on his cellphone - all while driving along extremely narrow and windy roads at breakneck speeds - missing oncoming cars and scooters by millimeters (or so it seemed)! I just thought - ok...he has done this before ...and all was fine !
Our accommodation had a wonderful view over the ocean and the famed Santorini sunset and just 10 minutes walk at most to the centre of Oia - with its quaint houses, small alleys, pedestrian zone and fortress area where everyone (!) on the island comes to see the sunset.
Need to just reflect on the Santorini sunset - it is quite a phenomenon ! At about 17h00 people start to arrive en masse to get a spot on the old fort - the tip of the island . Every inch of ground is covered by people trying tomget the best perch to see the sunset. I'd love to have the value of the photographic equipment on that spot in my bank account ! Never seen such huge cameras before and so many of them ! The sun only sets around 21h00 - so it is a long wait in the heat. More and more people arrive until the last minute - so the people watching is great, as it looks as if everyone gets really dolled up for the occasion. People even arrive in their wedding outfits for a whole photoshoot ! I mainly enjoyed the string trio that played every evening - 2 violins and 1 guitar. Beautiful music in a beautiful setting - rather romantic. And then the very strangest thing happens - as the sun sinks into the ocean, everyone frantically takes photos of the setting sun ...and only the sun ! No buildings or cliffs or anything else to identify the spot of the sunset ! How weird ! The sunset seems to be totally staged (as is the whole town of Oia - like an open-air museum) - as it is exactly the same every evening - the same red hue - no clouds (or it was the 6 nights we saw it !). And then - as soon as the sun has set the great majority of people rush out of Oia - and it becomes again the very quaint sophisticated environment.
Santorini is spoken about as the lost city of Atlantis, as the present island is the rim of a cauldron of a volcano - with the centre of the island having sunk beneath the sea when the volcano erupted. There is still an active piece of the volcano on an island in the centre of the cauldron. All this volcanic activity makes for very interesting cliffs and rock formations. From Oia there are 250 steps which lead down to a rocky ledge - from where one can swim to a small island which has a chapel on it. The water is beautiful and clear - such a pleasure. For those that dont want to walk back up the hill, there are the traditional donkeys, that ferry up goods and people. We preferred to walk !
From Oia there is a walk of about 3 hours to Thira - the capital of the island - all along the edge of the cauldron - with amazing views of the countryside, cliffs and villages all along the way. Definately a highlight of our trip.
Once Ricki and Dylan arrived, we hired a Suzuki Jeep to drive around the island to look at all the different beaches - the red beach, the white beach and the black beach ...all described according to the colour of the cliffs behind them and therefore the colour of the pebbles on the beach. Along all of them the water was just beautiful - fantastic visibility and azure blue. Picked the black beach to spend some time on ...with swimming and snorkeling.
Thira is the place for the young crowd with lots of bars and clubs, wheras Oia is the more sedated area of the island. We spent an evening there, doing the tourist thing, but were then quite happy to escape from the mass tourism again.
Many cruise liners come past Santorini and as soon as they discharge all their guests on the island, the main spots all get filled to the brim and you can't even think of moving against the stream of people. Not much fun...so made an effort to avoid those times and areas.
Another interesting aside. It seemed to us, that many of the shop attendants and people working in the restaurants and hotels are from Russia. The woman responsible for the rooms in our Guesthouse was also Russian (Anastasia) and such a hardworking, helpful and friendly person. She made our stay so very special. There is also a direct flight to Santorini now - from Moscow. Now I understand why there are fur coat boutiques on this island.
We left Santorini for Rhodes - with the ferry leaving Santorini scheduled at 00h15 in the morning for a 11 hour trip. Our guesthouse owners offered to take us to the ferry port at about 22h00 - so we were anticipating a long and boring night. Far from it !! We shared the taxi with a young couple from the USA - Philadelphia - and we laughed from beginning to end (which was at about 02h30 - as the ferry arrived rather late !). We had supper at a restaurant at the port - and one of the waiters was from Philadelphia - and the same suburb as Greg. So that caused loads of chirps and laughter. Then Greg and Clint found that they had so many phobias and dislikes in common - well that got all of us laughing ! Clint's double - 25 years younger and American ! His wife was widely travelled and they both work as teachers, so that they have enough holiday time to travel. Such an amazing couple - all 4 of us really enjoyed their company.
Luckily we had booked a cabin for the trip - which proved to be much nicer than we had imagined - with an ensuite bathroom and shower. A great night's sleep was had by all, so that we could enjoy our few hours in Rhodes, before getting on the next ferry to Marmaris ! End of the greek island holiday and onto the Turkish sailing trip !