Santorini By Land

Saturday, September 9 – Tuesday, September 12: Fira, Santorini

We were sad to see our boat leave but Amanda was already in love with Santorini (so she quickly got over it). That morning we checked into a swanky new hotel just on the edge of Fira (thank God for John’s connections). It was good to be on land again even though Amanda was still swaying as if she was still onboard. We were going to take it easy the first day but we ended up walking into town, having lunch, and then renting a papaki so we could motor around the island.

We stumbled upon three wineries blessed with spectacular views and mediocre wines. After many wine tastings, we headed back to the hotel and then out again for more food. We randomly chose the Archipelago restaurant, where we ran into Len and Joanne, a couple of honeymooning Americans whom we had met the day before while shopping in Ia. They invited us to join them for dinner and we had a great meal, followed by some drinks at Fira’s famous Koo Club. We also made plans to meet at the cable car in the morning so we could all go down to the Old Port to catch a boat to the volcano island, Nea Kameni.

Kameni was formed when Santorini erupted in the mid-1600’s and is still an active volcano; it most recently erupted in 1950. As a result, the entire island is still composed of smooth, black, igneous rock, and there are craters where 90oC air is still escaping from the inside of the island. We hiked to the top to take in the great view back at Santorini, and later jumped off the boat into the hot springs that ooze out of Kameni’s cliffs. We ended the excursion with some grilled seafood on Thirasia, Santorini’s little sister island.

Len and Jo were so much fun. We spent the day exchanging rugby stories and Dewey Beach memories. They live in Philadelphia, just up the road from D.C., so we hope we can get together once we return to the States.

Because Santorini is such a tourist’s island, its restaurants offer many different cuisines. After over a month of a strictly Greek diet, we decided to go to dinner at Senõr Zorba’s, Santorini’s lone Mexican place. The fajitas were actually not bad and our view of the sunset was, as it is everywhere in Santorini, marvelous.

On Monday, we decided to have a beach day. We jumped on the papaki and headed east to Perivolos beach, with its famous black volcanic sand. After a couple hours there, we motored south to Kokkina Paralia (the “Red Beach”), aptly named for the red clay cliffs surrounding the water. Had a nice nap on the beach before heading back to the hotel and then out to Koukoumavlos, a restaurant that featured some tasty and really creative cuisine—our moussaka was completely wrapped in veal carpaccio!

We spent the morning on Tuesday doing a little shopping and wondering if we were actually going to be able to leave the island. Rough seas had forced many of the ferries to the mainland to cancel their departures. Luckily, we were scheduled on the Naxos, the largest of the Blue Star ferry fleet. It was able to make the trip despite the huge swells, and we made stops at four other islands to pick up stranded travelers before pulling into Piraeus at 2 a.m.

The entire trip was wonderful and all too short, but it was great to see Iro and Dimitri again (John was traveling to soccer matches in Milan and Krakow) for a couple days before driving home to Thessaloniki. We looked forward to settling into three weeks of living in the city before our next trip to Italy and France in October.

Hope all is well back home…we miss you all and hope you are enjoying this blog!

Love,

Bill & Amanda