Santorini

We all woke up early for fear of not seeing Santorini before we had to leave. I was at breakfast at 8am. Breakfast was on a lovely little tray with tea, juice, bread, cake, ham and cheese. John had managed to hire the hotel minibus – for the grand total of €6 each.

I was in the first group and we left at about 9.15. John drove us straight to the black beach (Kamari) and while he drove safely, he kept up with the traffic very impressively. We saw the first of his outbursts at other drivers which were very funny. Kamari was a nice laid-back holiday town with a boardwalk, quite a few cafes, tavernas, clothes and tourist shops. The beach has umbrellas and deck chairs set up permanently. The black beach was amazing – the sand gets so hot that they build wooden walkways down to the water so people don’t burn their feet. The sand is quite coarse and very black where the water has been. It makes a hissing noise when each wave comes in. I souvenired some of the sand. We wandered around the shops and then waited for John to come back. Gina and I paid for deck chairs and I got 20 minutes each side of sun before I caught sight of John.

We got back in the bus and John drove us to Santo Wines which is on top of the cliff above the new port. The view was spectacular – looking down to the port was very vertiginous. There was a little protruding deck where the chairs were decorated with bows. They must have weddings there. We went into the gift shop and saw some nice Santorini-shaped bottles of liqueur (we had tasted some at the taverna the night before). I tasted some wine. It was the softest they had and wasn’t bad at all.

John dropped us back into Thira. We got our first gyros of the trip for lunch (not very nice – really salty) and shopped again since the shops we’d wanted were now open. I bought a necklace I liked - €20 for a blue pendant on a black strap. We girls stopped to have an iced chocolate in a gorgeous cafe with amazing views – for €5.50 they’d want to be!

At the top near the church we split up – they went to the pool and I went to find the Megaro Gyzi museum with the 1950s earthquake devastation photos in it. I found it eventually but it was closed for siesta. Instead, I listened to rehearsals for the International Piano Competition next door for a while. I went back to the hotel to get ready for the optional excursion, getting slightly lost on the way. When I got to the pool, I was informed that the excursion was off, and that we couldn’t take the later boat back to Piraeus either. This was bitterly disappointing because we were going to get a boat to the volcano with its hot springs and mud for a bath, then to Ia to watch the sunset. On the bright side it meant that I could go for a swim and could go back to the Gyzi Museum when it was open.

I floated around in a life ring for a while, then lay in the shade. John arrived with the other group and announced that he would drive us in two groups to Ia to see the sunset to make up for the cancelled boat trip. I felt somewhat consoled, nominated myself for the second group and headed to the museum. It was small and quaint but very interesting. There were etchings of the 18th/19th century fashions (think Arabian Nights), archived Diocese records from the 16th/17th/18th century, art works depicting the island, and geological and land strata information. The earthquake photos were sketchy but interesting all the same. There were a few photos of bands and parades in the same collection – I wonder if they were in aid of the clean-up effort. I would have bought a book but they didn’t have a good one. I headed back, hearing the interesting tunes of the church bells, taking some photos on the way.

 I jumped in the shower and put my party dress on. John picked up the second shift at 6.45 and drove us to Ia in time for the sunset. We walked through the utterly beautiful town with no time to take proper photos – here’s where all the traditional blue and white buildings were hiding. There were so many people at the end of the town that it was uncomfortable, but the 1st shift had found a spot on the roof of a half-demolished building (here is John spotting them).  We joined them and watched the sun dip into a haze, turn bright red then sink below the horizon. It was very nice.

The first shift headed back. Those of us left clambered back off the ruin and wandered back through the town. I tried to take some pictures of the red sky and the lights of the town but the wind was quite strong and I couldn’t hold the camera still enough. The shops were quite expensive-looking and I wasn’t tempted to even look in them.

John picked us up and gave us an amusing drive back to the hotel bellowing at drivers doing really stupid things on the roads. The Gap Years sang school hymns making poor John frantic to tune in a radio station.

We walked up to the Romantica Tavern at the top of the street for our included dinner. It was very good – the wine was better than before and so was the main.

The plan was to go out afterwards (it was 11 by the time we were finished). We went to Murphys and it was smoky, packed and had bad music. I had a little dance but by 1.30 I had had enough.