Santorini

Ok. Other than the fact that my trip here proved trecherous due to a nationwide strike on May Day which NOBODY told me about AND they sold tickets for that day even though they KNEW they'd strike...it was amazing. I could have spent a lot longer here. Everything about this island is amazing. The views, the people, the cool towns, everything.

So i took the high speed ferry to get to Santorini, which for about 20 euros more halves the travel time (4 hours!). Totally worth it. The way back I took a normal ferry which took 10 hours and got VERY tedious. Regardless, when i first saw the island, i was in shock. Santorini is, for all intensive purposes, a volcano. About 2,000 years ago (1600 BCE) there was an ENORMOUS erruption which wiped out the local inhabitants and literally destroyed the island for the most part. If you look at a map of the island, it's roughly a circle with the middle blown out. This middle is the caldera where the volcano used to be. Now, it's just a big hole filled in with water, making for truly spectacular views.

The new port is not the best place to be. It is incredibly crowded when boats dock, as hotels provide free transfers to the hotel which causes a great amount of traffic. Additionally, the cafes/resturants, as you can imagine, overcharge like crazy. I met the guy who owned my hostel and he took me to the hotel. It was a nice place with a pool in a fairly good location. The guy (Stavros) could not have been nicer. I put my bag down, changed into some shorts (it was HOT) and walked into the main town, Fira, which took about 20 minutes.

On my way, i found the Museum of Prehistoric Thira, which is where they house a lot of the famous things that they've found while digging on the island, especially from Akrotiri, an important village which got wiped out with that erruption. It's called the "Pompeii of the Aegean," which i think is accurate. There's quite a bit that has been found here, though sadly the main site is closed. The museum makes up for this by housing a lot of the pots and some of the wall paintings from the excavations. I enjoyed the exhibit, as it was simple but interesting.

I then went on to just meander around for a bit, though i quickly found myself looking at the caldera from the top of the cliff in the town. Amazing does not even begin to describe what i saw. The view was simply unbelievable. I just sat there for a few minutes taking the view in. I proceeded then to walk along the streets, looking into shops and in general being a tourist. The town clearly lives off tourism and nearly every shop was touristy, though i didn't mind, the town was still charming.

After a little while, i went on to see a reproduction of the famous Akrotiri wall paintings, which i'd seen in my art class so didn't take too long to admire. I then decided to walk from Fira to Ia, the other famous town on Santorini. This walk is about 6 miles along a combination of car roads and footpaths. While it was a bit difficult at times (there were 2 hills in the way), the views of the caldera more then made up for the issues. While i had to stop frequently to drink water and rest, i had to conciously stop myself from looking at the caldera and move on. Every new spot was a new view, more beautiful then before. The sad thing was that nobody does this walk. I did not see a single other person walking it. Instead, everybody drives or takes a taxi/bus, which is really depressing. Oh well, their loss.

Arriving in Ia, i was obviously tired, so i sat for a little bit and again meandered around the town. After meeting up with a friend, we went to dinner which was very yummy (mmm...garlic dip!) and then went to see the sunset. Sadly, it wasn't the best day for it as the clouds/haze made it less then spectacular, but it was still worth going to see. My friend had rented a car, so we drove back to my hotel, whereupon i simply passed out.

Waking up the next morning, my friend picked me up and we went on to see Ancient Thira, which is on top of a huge mountain. Word of warning...the drive up was very steep and while not trecherous, it wasn't easy. The site itself was not that interesting either. Other then the spectacular view, there's not a lot of famous buildings or other such things to make the trip that worthwhile. Also, some of the sections were closed off, which may have had the cooler things.

We then drove down, and proceeded to go to the southern tip of the island. Here, we saw the Pharos lighthouse (named after the one in Alexandria) and the Red Beach. Both were very cool, the Red Beach was amazing with the colors. You have to hike a bit to get here, so as a beach it's not that impressive, but walking part way just to see it most certainly is.

After this, we had to return the car and wait for a bus to take us to the other famous beaches, either Perissa or Kamari. The buses, however, were not running at their full schedule, so we waited for a while, then after an hour we decided to walk. We got most of the way, then a bus came so we hoped out. The beaches of Perissa and Kamari are composed of black sand and divided by the mountain on which Ancient Thira is built. We went to Perissa, which was fabulous. The beach was nice, and what was interesting was that the bedrock began after only a few feet into the water. The water was fairly warm and actually a lot of fun to play in. I proved my dorkiness by building a sand castle in immitation of Helms Deep (yes, there are pictures) and we had a lot of fun.

The bus again didn't come, so we called a taxi back to Fira. We had dinner, enjoyed the tail end of the sunset, then i went back to my hotel and passed out again. Woke up the next morning, packed my bags, hoped on the ferry and came home. Long trip on the ferry on a not-so-nice boat and got dropped off as far from the metro as possible...not fun. In any case, i made it home and had a really fantastic time. Santorini is the kind of place where you can spend a long time and not get bored. I prob. only did a few things and could easily have done a lot more!