Santorini

As we awoke this morning our ship was sitting in the caldera of the once great volcano of Santorini. When it blew it's brains out in around 1600 BC, it not only wiped out most of Crete with its gases, but it also put an end to life of any sort on Santorini for a couple hundred years. It also ceased to bear any resemblance to a volcano. The last eruption was in 1944, but the earthquake of 1956 was more of a setback to the island. Today the layer of ash covering the island is up to 160 feet deep. Fortunately this ash is somewhat fertile. You sure wouldn't know it by looking at this bleak landscape, which has become a hot spot for tourists only since the 80's. There is an offshore volcano still brewing. Good to know. Let's get the hell out of here.

Of course we weren't the only ship in the caldera, with three others including Oceania's Riveria with Bill and Brenda Fraser on board. See, we weren't the only stupid ones in harm's way.

Today was a holiday in Santorini which made for a bit more congestion than usual for this time of year. Like our last visit here, we were tendered to shore by the Santorini Boatmen and then bused on the intersting road up the cliff. Most of the towns are hanging off the cliffs, with many homes dug into the hillsides.

Dawn has this thing about Greek men. She thinks they are generally very handsome, but our guide Zina wasn't too shabby either.

Our first stop was Oia - pronounced E-ah - which may be the most photogenic village on the planet. What do you think?

Along our walk Tony made a new friend.

Even though it wasn't the bright pristine spot it was on our last visit, the sun peeked through long enough for some memorable photos. What a spot!

Our second visit was to the only Wine Cooperative on the island, Santo Wines. We and all the other bus loads were given samples of a white - which I've purchased in Ontario - a red and a sweet wine. The red was a little thin, but this was remarkably good wine given the scraggy vineyards from which they harvest.

Yes, the photo above is indeed a vineyard. Our last stop was the capital city of Fira. They had just had a holiday parade - not sure what holiday this was - but it seemed that the whole population of Santorini was in downtown Fira. We saw these little boys returning from the parade.

Fira is a pretty cliffside town, but after Oia, it kind of pales in comparison.

At this point, most people on the tour headed back to the dock and the tenders via one of three methods: cable car; stairs; donkeys down the stairs. Guess what we chose? It was neither the neverending stairs or the "smelly at best", donkeys.

Once back at the waterfront we waited only a few minutes before the next tender took us from this paradise. We lunched in Terraces because the Grand Dining Room was closed. We had happy hour in our room tonight with wine purchased on excursions and played some cards as well. Then we dined back at the GDR. Our ship was by now well on the way to Athens.