Greece - Pt 3

We took the high speed ferry from Mykonos to Santorini, but it was not the romantic relaxing experience we expected. It would have been easier to fly.

Santorini is a stunning island, with its white villages clinging to volcanic cliffs above blank sand beaches. It got its crescent shape when the volcanic island erupted in 1450BC. This eruption caused a tsunami thought to be 500m high, which devastated the eastern Mediterranean, including wiping out the Minoan civilization on nearby Crete. The crescent shape can be seen in the present shape of the caldera - pic below.

We stayed in a romantic suite in the Athermi Apartments. We had problems getting to our hotel and it was not in the main town of Fira as we expected, but 15 min south. We hired a car to get around. The view from our suite was amazing - straight out over the caldera.

Santorini has many wineries and grape vines are everywhere. We visited the Koutsoyannopoulous Winery, established in 1870, the oldest self-planted vineyard in the world. It has an interesting underground wine museum, which tells the story of the everyday lives of Santorini winegrowing families over the last 300 years.

We visited Kamari Beach on the east coast. It has a shopping street which runs along the beach, not unlike Noosa's Hastings Street. The beach with its black sand can't compare with our beautiful AU beaches. See pics below of the shopping street and beach.

Santorini has many white blue-domed churches, like this one near our hotel.

We looked for the famous sunsets of Santorini, but they did not appear in their reputed glory. This pic is the best on offer when we were there, taken from our hotel.

Fira (or Thera), overlooking the calera, is the island's capital. Devastated by an earthquake in 1956, it has been rebuilt, terraced into the volcanic cliffs, with domed churches and barrel-roofed cave houses. The terraces are packed with hotels, bars and restaurants.

This pic shows the scale of the cliffs and the perched township.

Souvenir shops and boutiques line the winding cobbled alleys that run along the top of the caldera.

There are many churches, particularly little white ones with blue domes. We also visited the large Orthodox Cathedral. Example pics are below.

At the northern tip of the island is the beautiful town of Oia, which is designated a traditional settlement, having being reconstructed after the earthquake. It has hotels built in traditional style into the cliff face.

Again there are many churches with blue domes and bells. Don thinks the uniform blue and white everywhere is overdone.

There are many shops where tourists can contribute to the local economy.

Oia's white and pastel coloured houses cling to the cliff face, as seen in these pics.

Next blog update will be Rhodes.