Santorini - Sunday 29 September

It must have been at least 30C in Santorini. We made our way over to shore at around 10 am by way of a tender, after the main crowd had moved on. Luckily there were no other big ships today, and it was quite pleasant in the main town of Fira.

We have visited Santorini before, and love the views across the volcanic caldera (still active), and from towns perched right over the cliff tops. Considering they had a devastating earthquake in 1956, we weren't too impressed with how things were built now! We headed up on the cable car, and walked along some of the paths/streets we didn't have time for last time.

We had a look in the Greek Orthodox Cathedral and then took Rick Steve's advice and visited the Museum of Prehistoric Thira, nearby. It had excellent displays of artefacts found on the island at the ancient site of Akrotiri. This was the largest settlement outside Minoan Crete, 2000-3000 BC! However, the site had been abandoned around 1630 BC when Santorini had a massive eruption, bigger than Krakatoa. This museum was really interesting, with clearly marked displays and good explanations of what we were seeing. We also enjoyed its air-conditioning!

We had a look in some of the shops along the alleyways, rather like those in Mykonos, but a lot more pleasant somehow. We wanted to have a cool drink with a view over the cliffs, and settled for coffee frappes at one place. These were excessively priced, but you pay for the view. We ended up talking to a couple at the next table who were also Kiwis. They were in a group of four who had chartered a yacht and were sailing around the Greek islands, sailing the yacht themselves. They were from Auckland. It was a very pleasant conversation.

We wandered around some more, and were going to head back to the ship when we discovered another walkway right along the cliff-tops, heading towards the town of Oia. We only walked for about 20 minutes - you really had to watch your footing and the views were very distracting (stunning, actually). We ended up taking a very pleasant break in another cafe along the way. I had a Coke, and David had some Mythos beer.

Then we headed back towards the main part of Fira, joined the now long and growing queue for the cable car (we weren't going to repeat the donkey track after last time!), and headed back to the ship for a late, light lunch - arriving about 2:45 pm.

We headed poolside on Deck 15, our favourite spot for relaxing, and in the shade. We read our books and talked to some Kiwis from Orewa who were relaxing in deck chairs next to us.

Sail-away was magnificent, and then we had dinner at a table for two. There was a sale on watches this evening and David bought a new watch, then we headed for the show by an absolutely amazing pianist (he called himself 'Count Dimas'). He also played the piano accordion, a wooden recorder-type of instrument that sounded like a flute, and some other 'instrument' he created himself from rubber balls. His music ranged from classical to modern and he got a well-deserved standing ovation.

Santorini

We've had a glorious day in Santorini today. We had a tour with 35 people from the Cruise Critic group (organised by Nat and Andy ), on a bus. We managed to get off the ship and up the cable car very quickly (amazing considering the stories we'd heard about the crowds trying to get up), thus we were early for our tour, so David and I wandered around the main town of Fira (capital of the island) for 45 minutes first - most of the shops were closed at this time.

Once the tour was under way we made our first stop at Firostefani, an area just outside the main town, where we had a fabulous view over the caldera. We heard some geological and historical background there and also as we travelled to the picturesque town of Oia on the northern edge of the island. There are no rivers on Santorini, houses used to collect water from their roofs but now there is a desalination plant. The volcano/caldera is still active, with a new underwater volcano having appeared in 1707. Its most famous eruption was 3600 years ago (the Minoan eruption or Thera eruption) which is thought to have destroyed the Minoan civilisation and perhaps even Atlantis. There was a devastating earthquake in 1956 that destroyed most of the buildings on the island, many now being new, but built in the traditional domed style according to regulations.

We had a nice time shopping in Oia, and I bought a necklace to share with Michelle. It was a very pleasant, quaint and tidy little town.

Next we travelled to a beach near the airport, and had a lovely Greek lunch right beside the seaside, on what was called a 'black sand' beach - Kamari Beach. David had a fabulous Greek Salad, and I had "Winemaker's Lamb" which was lamb, spinach and cheese all wrapped up in a vine leaf and baked. Very nice. The beach was just gravel, not my idea of a beach really!

Then we went off to do some wine sampling in a winery (Santos Wines). Three tastings, and we came away with a couple of bottles of wine. The views there were spectacular. We had found it interesting, during the day, to see how all the grape vines grow as bushes in the soil, rather than along wires (this is because of the damaging winds), and their only source of water is dew! We had more amazing views when we then drove up the highest point on the island (Profitis Ilias - about 600 meters high) where there is a monastery (couldn't go in there).

David is now sampling the local beer, Mythos, while we sit in an internet cafe back in the main town, and then we are going to join the queue to get on the gondola, back down to the ship. Then we catch a tender back to where the ship is docked. Bev, I can see why you loved Santorini!

Addendum: Hmmmm, we took one look at the HUGE queue for the cable car, and knew that we'd never make it back to the ship in time within the hour and a quarter we had. So, we walked down the donkey track - OMG! It took over 30 minutes because it was so crowded, and stepping around all the donkey poop, and watching our step on the bumpy surface, and also taking care not to slip on the slippery marble (lots of people lost their footing) - my legs were shaking by the time we got down and I was a mess! Nevertheless, it was a 'memorable' experience...

(Video courtesy of Basil and Xenia - Cruise critic username: basiluf)