R&R Day 10 – Santorini, GR

Arriving into the crater of Santorini, Greece was special. The water was a color blue that I have never seen before. There is no port here, so the ship anchored/kept station in the harbor and all passengers were ferried ashore. We got one of the early ferries and got to shore, faced with a 300m vertical climb from the dock to the town of Fira.

Our cruise ship and one of those ultra expensive sailing cruise ships at anchor.

About 2/3 up our climb, we started questioning why we didn’t just pay to get up the hill.

One option was the gondola, which was uber expensive, and about 95% of the people took this means of transport.

The other option was a donkey ride, and I should have listened to my wife and just paid to do this for the experience, but I was too much of a cheapskate.

This is the Cliffside village/town of Fira, which is the largest town on the island. Where the gondola and path reach the top are many tourist shops, so we made our way through them and finally found what to do.

Another view of the cruise ship in the harbor.

A Greek Orthodox church right on the edge of the cliff.

We rented an ATV in Fira and set out, soon ending up in the winery part of the island. The volcanic soil makes it difficult to grow the grapes, but also gives them a peculiar taste. We stopped at this winery and did a quick tasting before heading further into the island.

Wen and I got some shots of us from atop this winery.

The black sand beach on the back side of the mountain. The sand was blistering hot, and the water was icy cold, so it was fun to lay on a towel, then run into the water to start shivering. The other cool part of this beach, it was a topless beach; you have got to love Greece.

This was as far as we could take the ATV, from here we hiked to the red beach.

The red beach, named for the volcanic rock beach behind it.

One of the many tourist sail boats that motored past, touring the island for all the cruise goers.

You can see the path down the hillside to get to the beach, which was nothing but ball bearing sized scree.

Wen on the hike back out to the ATV.

A workboat in the harbor with a small church in the background. I swear that the churches almost outnumbered homes on this island.

After enjoying some treats and beers at a couple of small restaraunts on the way back, we hiked down the path in the blazing afternoon sun, making us very happy the hike up had been in the shade of the cliffs.

The donkeys we should have rode up the mountain.

A shot of the cliffs as we motored back out to the cruise ship. We found out one of the ferry boats had caught fire earlier, but the other boats came to assist in removing all passengers and sending fire extinguishers over to put it out.

A look back at the gondola, which we know didn’t have anyone from our cruise ship on it since we were on the last boat again.