Santorini

The beach

Now what would coming to Greece have meant if we did not get our butts down on the salty and sandy of the Greek islands. Due to limited time and budget on our part only one island other than party paradise Mykonos truly warranted attention, and that was Santorini, home of the major volcanic eruption of 1950. Puvan, Mike and I got a splendid deal from a travel agent in Syntagma Square in Athens - EUR 108 for 2 nights stay in a 3 star hotel, including ferries and transfer from the port to the main town of Fira. Santorini has such sheer cliffs that Fira is located some miles up from the port. The journey itself was pretty entertaining. We set off from the Athens port of Piraeus at 10 pm on a 9 hour overnight plough to Santorini. We would reach Santorini at the break of dawn. The idea was that the tall cliffs of Santorini look ghostly in the early morning light. On the way out of the port we caught a glimpse of the Queen Mary 2, largest cruise ship in the world, which in just the week before housed Tony Blair and Sultan Azlan Shah, among a host of other dignitaries. The Queen Mary 2 was undoubtedly a glittering jewel at night, but strangely it did not seem as huge as expected from our perch on the ferry, which was several stories tall in itself. On board almost nobody wanted to sit indoors, where there were so-so couches and air-conditioning, but instead most chose to rough it out in sleeping bags (and even a hammock) on the floor and benches of the windy deck outside. Watching the moonlit waves of the black sea I could not resist thinking about my life and reminiscing the months gone by. After a while the cold started to get to me but some hot water in a cup from the on-board café and a Milo 3-in-1 sachet quickly restored the warmth. We had to improvise on stretching our budget, which was by now way overblown. Luckily I discovered a nicely hidden lobby in the “distinguished” area, which was comfortable but only sparsely occupied. There we played cards and had seriously good shut eye till morning.

The island of Santorini ought to be on the list of Top 10 Honeymoon Destinations on Discovery Channel! To explore it we had rented a car which was absolutely worth every cent, as walking the large island in the summer heat would have been tedious to say the least. Everywhere we went the wonderful smell of grapes drying in the sun accompanied us. It seemed that wherever there was a square inch of unoccupied soil on Santorini, man had to plant grapes. Come evening the draw of the ethereal sunset here was evident as tourists left their cars by the roadside for a few minutes of nature at its best. With our car we easily checked out nearly all the beaches on Santorini. The best by far was the Red Beach which was nested in a cove of red rocks, and was filled with colourful round pebbles instead of sand. There were also some places where the sand was a volcanic black!

The next day we booked ourselves aboard a glass-bottom boat. It took us on the waters around Santorini, including to the now dormant volcano, a muddy hot spring and stopped at several coastal towns. It was in one such town where to my surprise a marvellous underwater world existed right by its jetty. The water was incredibly clear, with visibility up to about 20 meters. There were no corals, but coral fishes of all shades and shapes were aplenty, feasting on the moss and weed by the jetty. It was definitely one of the best swims I have had in my life. Elsewhere we saw underwater ruins in deep water through the glass of the boat.

After the boat trip was over I took a donkey (EUR 3.50) ride up the zigzag stairs from the old port to Fira. If you had wanted to ascend the stairs, this was the preferred way. Else it meant trodding on donkey crap and avoiding donkeys with path-finding problems! A shepherd would gather about 3-4 willing customers before herding all those donkeys carrying people on them up the stairs by foot.

Santorini truly epitomized my Greek adventure – discovering beauty in amounts aplenty to bowl me over at every turn! I yearn for the next time when I shall return to this land of goddesses and heroes.