Today we visited the island of Santorini. What an amazing island! Our tour guide today was Dimos and he made this tour so great! He was very knowledgable and we learned lots about this very unique island. Our tour began at the Santos winery where we were able to some wine tasting. I'm not a wine drinker, so this was totally lost on me, but the rest of my group loved it! We had some amazing views of the caldera and so began the marathon photo session for today!

Santorini is a volcanic island, so you'll find mostly black beaches, but you'll also find a couple of white sand beaches and a couple of red sand beaches. Where our ship anchored, we were essentially over the crater of a volcano! Santorini also has no water on the island, so water is a hot commodity. During the "rainy season", rain water is collected in a cistern. When that cistern is dry, water is brought in from the mainland. It's amazing how plants can grow on this island! They grow due to the humidity at night.....that's the only moisture.

From the winery, we headed across the island to the town of Oia (pronounced ee-ah). This as a very charming town and we were able to see the remains of a cave house, a house built into the side of the island. This is also the best place on the island to view sunsets. The pedestrian area was cobblestone with lots of steps scattered about. After a little shopping and more pictures, it was back on the bus to head to Fira Town. Here we had a bit of a hike, practically straight up hill I might add, to get to our next site, the Greek orthodox church. This was the end of our tour, so it was time to head off on our own.

Dimos was nice enough to recommend and awesome restaurant, the Blue Volcano. He walked us to the restaurant and treated us to a glass of Santorini wine. We had a most excellent meal and I tried all sorts of new things today! We started with appetizers.....saganaki (fried cheese) feta cheese with sesame and honey, and mussels in a garlic sauce. Yum!! For my dinner I had seafood spaghetti and it was absolutely delicious, but sooooo much food, I didn't even cme close to finishing. While eating dinner, we watched a beautiful sunset, even though it was cloudy. The colors were gorgeous!

From Fira Town, there are three ways to get up to the town which is situated at the top of the island. One is by tram, one is by donkey and the last is to walk 588 steps to the top. No, I didn't do the 588 steps or the donkey, we took the tram, but getting there involved enough steps that we all decided we would be sore tomorrow!

After a fabulous day, we got back on the ship and spent a little time in the casino......I'm happy to report at present time, I'm $1.21 ahead!! Tomorrow we are off to Mykonos.....goodnight all!