Wednesday, April 29th: 2009, Santorini, Greece

Bob:

Shortly after dawn our ship eased into the huge central bay of Santorini Island. Something I had eaten in Turkey the day before wasn't agreeing with me, so I had had an uneasy night. The next morning I had to decide whether it was going to continue, in which case I should report to sick bay, or whether it was basically all over, in which case I was free to take the tour of Santorini Island that we had signed up for. I gambled that I was on the mend and fortunately that turned out to be the case.

But just in case I had a very light breakfast of milk and cereal, after which we prepared for our tour. The tour was called "Volcano and Hot Springs" because it included a walk up to the top of the volcanic cone in the middle of the huge caldera. Santorini Island itself is in several sections that roughly form a big "C" around that bay plus a small volcanic cone pretty much smack dab in the middle of it. The basic story is that the island pieces are the remains of a large volcano that exploded around 1600 B.C., leaving a big hole in the center that was filled with sea water and the remnants of the rim wall sticking up above the water.

While the Splendor of the Seas hovered in the harbor, the Hermes, an old wooden sailing ship that looked like it had been converted to ship tourists around, picked us up directly from the water-level gate. The Hermes then chugged off to a very small and very crowded dock on the volcanic cone in the center of the bay while the Splendor moved over to be nearer to the main port, Fira, a town located dramatically on the top of the cliff that plunges straight down from the crest into the sea.

The Hermes had two masts and appeared to still have all the rigging necessary to sail, but much to my disappointment no sails were set and we motored all the way over to the island. Once ashore we started walking steadily upward for about a mile, gaining about 400-odd feet in elevation until we reached the highest point. Our guide stopped at a couple of places to let us catch our breath and to explain the geological history of Santorini.

The climb itself was fairly strenuous, in part because the trail was basically an underlying layer of uneven rocks covered by a surface coating of small pebbles of pumice and basalt. Often it felt like we were trying to walk on marbles or slogging along through deep gravel, which is very hard walking. We seemed to be bringing up the rear rather consistently, but whether that was because we were stopping to take a lot of pictures or whether we were simply the oldest and slowest folks in our group I don't know.

Once at the top we could look out to sea where another tiny wedge of an island with a bright white cap of pumice on it. Our guide mentioned that the entire island had been covered with up to 80 meters of pumice after the big explosion, and until recently pumice had been quarried and exported from Santorini. Nowadays, of course, the main business was tourism.

We circled back past a an active volcanic vent spewing out sulfurous smoke and then very carefully picked our way downhill back to the ship. Walking downhill on a treacherous surface is always more dangerous than uphill, and so it proved in that case. By the end, I had helped Monika avoid falling three times and she kept me from falling once.

Back on the Hermes, we motored around to the next small volcanic island, where about half of the passengers changed into their swim trunks and jumped into the waters to swim over to a muddy little hot spring at the head of a small cove. Monika, of course, was one of the first ones in the water, but she informed me it was very cold. When a German who is used to swimming in the North Sea tells me the water is cold, I believe it! So I elected to stay on the ship and take pictures. A couple of people actually had trouble making it back to the ship and had to be towed by others, but in the end everyone did get back (safely?) on board and we chugged over to Fira for debarkation.

There are three ways to get up the cliff to the city of Fira at the top: walk up the switchback path on the face of the cliff, ride a donkey up that selfsame path, or take a cable car. We were too tired to walk, too cheap to take the donkeys, and too impatient to wait for the long line to use the cable cars. So we developed a Plan B where we would first go back to the ship, take a shower, and have lunch, after which we would return to the dock and try to take the cable car up to Fira.

Plan B worked like a charm! Monika got all the salt water and mud from her swim washed off and then we had a nice, leisurely, and inexpensive lunch before tendering back to the dock. The tenders used by all the cruise ships in Santorini are local Greek craft, by the way, and I suspect that there was a strong political pressure from the union of local boatmen to have some kind of legal monopoly on that trade.

The line for the cable car had completely dissipated by the time we returned, so we just gave them our ticket, walked on, and were whisked smoothly and quietly up the hill to Fira. The trip seemed to take just a few seconds, but that was probably because we were so entranced by the dramatic view unfolding below us. I suspect the actual time was probably a minute or two, but still far quicker and less odiferous than taking a donkey and far, far quicker and much less tiring than walking up the cliff on foot.

If you every get to Santorini, by the way, do make sure that you get up the cliff one way or the other because the views from the top are magnificent and well worth the effort. We first walked northward through the narrow streets of the town, following the cliff top walkway as closely as possible. The street was lined with boutique shops, many featuring fine jewelry and all rather high-priced. One exception was a music store featuring instruments plus many CDs of Greek music. I dithered a bit but finally picked up a CD with traditional folk music plus some pictures of Santorini Island for 10 Euro.

On our way, we passed an unassuming little Greek Orthodox church. From the outside it was plain white, but the inside was just gorgeous with color filling every niche and cranny with colorful mosaics and frescos.

But the main reason you should walk along that top street of Fira are the views. The views of the street and houses were always interesting and occasionally the views opened out onto striking vistas of the blue waters of the caldera with the white cruise ships just off shore and the islands scattered around the periphery, and that was breathtakingly beautiful. After three or four tiny blocks, we reached a point where the town seemed to be petering out so we reversed course and walked back along the next street over, which also was filled with boutiques.

Coming back past the cable car station we continued on to the path along the crest to the next town in the chain of three towns on that part of the caldera rim, Imerovigli. Imerovigli seemed to be less commercialized than Fira, with businesses consisting mostly of small hotels or bed and breakfasts, plus restaurants and cafes. We also found one of the blue-domed Greek Orthodox churches that are often featured in pictures of Santorini. True to those pictures, the blue was a vivid shade of royal blue that contrasted starkly but rather pleasantly with the pure white walls of the church.

By that point we were starting to be careful about having enough time to get back for the last tender to the ship, so we turned back and retraced our steps to the cable car station. Walking back was mainly downhill, however, and we weren't taking as many pictures so as it turned out we had plenty of time to spare when we finally reached the station. We had also feared facing a big line of people waiting to return to the ship, but there was no line at all so we just glided quietly back down the face of the cliff, hopped onto a waiting tender, and were back on the Splendor of the Seas in a total of maybe 30 minutes or so. I vowed the next time we visit Santorini we would take the bus out to the picturesque town of Oia, which lies at the end of one arm of Santorini Island. From there I would like to walk back the 10 kilometers or so to Fira, trying to hew as closely as possible to the top of the cliffs. I expect that walk would take several hours, but I'm sure we would see some magnificent views.

Dinner was another formal night, but the Russian emigres decided not to show up, apparently because they had expected lobster to be offered on formal nights and were bitterly disappointed that it had not been on the menu for the first formal night and was also not scheduled to be offered on the second formal night. Nevertheless, we had a rather pleasant meal by ourselves and then returned to our cabin. Monika worked on backing up pictures and then selecting ones for our periodic emails and compacting them so we don't go over the 10 megabyte limit for sending attachments in Hotmail. I read Sue Grafton's "E is for Evidence", a real page-turner of a mystery that kept me engrossed for the evening, and then we turned in for the night.