(Hardly) Saintly in Santorini!!!

We arrived by ferry from Mykonos and had a very good experience. I had read up on Tripadvisor a number of reviews about the ferry journey between the islands and they were so bad that I was dreading this but I am happy to say that it wasn’t bad at all…. the crew were quite helpful in pulling the luggage on board and as we were now experienced travellers we knew what to do!!! The seats were extremely comfortable and the toilets spotless so we had no problems.

Santorini is absolutely beautiful… the perfect postcard picturesque island. When you fist see the view of all the white buildings with blue domes or blue windows dotted around the coast in little clumps it literally takes your breath away. Our hotel was situated in a town called Fira and was on the side of a hill with all the rooms going down this hill. We had a lovely balcony attached to the room where we were served breakfast every morning. I used to sit for hours just feasting my eyes on the beautiful blue Aegean Sea and various cruise ships used to come and dock there for the day. The weather during our trip was cooler than we expected but at least it wasn’t as windy as Mykonos. There is a lot of climbing up and down not only in the hotel but also in the town so come prepared!!

The first evening we just wandered around Fira town to get a feel of the place and had a delicious meal at a Greek Taverna with a beautiful view of the sea. The next day we had a relaxed morning just sitting in the balcony and then went on a tour of the island. We visited a small town called Pyrgos and then went to Prophet Elias which is the highest point in the island.

There is a Monastery here which is closed to the public and some ruins further up. We then proceeded to Megalochori which is the wine growing area. The ground is made of pumice stone and is rich in minerals and that is the reason they have such good wine. However they only make enough wine for their own consumption and do not export any. The grape vines are all very low and surrounded by branches to make it round like a nest. These vines are planted wherever there is some barren land but surprisingly we never saw anyone tending the vines!!!

There were also a large number of pistachio trees and olive trees. We then went to Oia town which is at the end of the island and is extremely crowded and seems to be slightly more upscale with loads of restaurants.

The next day we went on a sunset cruise on a catamaran for about 5 hours. We saw the black beach, the red beach and the white beach. The rock faces were all formed by lava deposits when the volcano erupted in about the year 1,500 B. C. We passed the second oldest lighthouse in Greece and then docked near the hot springs where we were invited to jump in and have a swim… we all gratefully declined as the water was absolutely freezing!!! Whilst we were docked the crew started up the barbecue and made a lovely meal for us which we devoured as we were starving because we had missed lunch!! It all went down very well with the white wine and we were a merry bunch on the high seas. Unfortunately the weather was cloudy so we could not see the sunset very clearly but that was ok… we had seen this in Mykonos so as they say.. see one see them all!!! We were all missing our Indian food by now so I had found a couple of Indian restaurants but we were so full after the barbecue that we gave it a miss.

On our last day here it was my friend Sonia’s birthday so we started the celebrations from the morning and they are still going on as I write this!!! We are now on our way to Crete so let’s see what this has in store for us!!!