Santorini- The Volcano Island

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Untitled Thursday, (Friday we went on an All Day Tour- that's on the next blog), Saturday, Sunday, Monday

If you ever travel to Greece and only have time to see one island, make it Santorini. It has the most spectacular vistas I've ever seen. The island was born from the eruptions of a volcano, leaving behind what they call the caldera, the outer edges of the crater. We traveled from Mykonos to Santorini on a high-speed hydrofoil which took about 3 hours, less than half the time of a regular ferry. And it rides just like a plane. All the ferries arrive at the new port at the bottom of a cliff. After gettting off we then took a taxi to Perissa on the other side of the island. The ride to the top up the sheer side of the caldera gave us an unbelievable view of the west side of Santorini (the first pics below).

Perissa is a small, quiet town on the flatter side of the island. It was a great place to relax and just walk around. It basically makes its money when the sun shines during tourist season. Fortunately, for us, the season was a bit slow, making things even less hectic than they otherwise would be. Perissa has lots of restaurants with friendly staff, quiet bars, hotels (all mom and pop operations from what I could tell), various tourist shops, a few tour shops, and, of course, a car/scooter/bike rental store on every block. I was hoping to rent a scooter the last day of the trip but found out I couldn't because I needed an international motorcycle license. I have to give credit to the people/government of the Greek islands for keeping them as traditional as possible. You will never find a McDonald's, KFC, Safeway, or dare I say it, Starbucks. Somehow I survived without my Java Chip Frappuccino. How did I manage? (I think I'm going to write to Starbucks and see if they will give me a dollar for each time I mention them, and $5 dollars for each picture.)

Unlike the hotel we stayed at in Mykonos which was so far from town, the Porto Perissa Hotel gave us the opportunity to walk around and explore. We were also 1/2 block from Perissa's Black Beach. Sometimes we ate in a restaurant across the alley, sometimes we ate across from the beach. Sometimes they played Greek music in the background, sometimes house/club music. The food was good and cheap compared to Mykonos. Except for the dust (it was everywhere, even on the computer keys- it drove me nuts) and the heavy winds that blew from time to time, I loved it. It was a good thing that most of their beaches aren't sand because I was told that Santorini was experiencing one of the windiest seasons ever.

About their beaches. As I already mentioned, Perissa has a black beach. We also went to the Red Beach which was a little more difficult to get to than the other ones we had been to. The stones seemed a bit bigger and part of the beach, a big part, is made of dried seaweed that resembles wood shavings. Across the middle where the umbrellas and lounges are, it's at least 2 feet thick and feels like, for lack of a better description (and you have to understand that I grew up with horses) a manure pile. It is very spongy, but surprisingly it didn't smell. The dark red cliffs above the beach are immense. You could see where some of the rocks had fallen, which made me think if it was possible for the cliffs to collapse. Not taking any chances, we sat to the left side. Like Mykonos the water was cool there as well.

To get to Red Beach, we had taken a bus. Noticing a boat arriving on the beach picking up sunbathers to take them away, we thought we could take it back to Perissa at the end of the day, instead of using the bus again. WRONG! After getting on the boat and after it took off, the "driver" explained in his worst English that they didn't go to Perissa. Where we ended up was where we had gotten off the bus in the first place (a five minute walk), only 5 euros poorer. Then we just missed the bus back to Perissa. Waiting for the bus wasn't bad though. Heh, looking out at a beautiful blue sea, watching sailboats bob up and down, while sipping cola under the shade of a big patio umbrella ain't anything to complain about.

Because it was so warm and I was tired of buses and boats, and not knowing for sure where I was going to end up, I decided to stay in Perissa Sunday and Monday and not venture to another beach the rest of the trip. But transportation didn't stop Bruce from visitng White Beach, a 45-minute walk from our hotel. For me I was happy to go to our beach and lay on a lounge chair under the shade of a thatched umbrella. And when I got tired of the beach and it got hot, I dropped into an internet cafe to work on my blog. I didn't go in the water much because right as you get in there's a rocky shelf that's very uneven. Also this was the only beach that had waves. So negotiating the rocks AND the waves was a bit more than I wanted to try. It didn't stop many people though, but I was scared of breaking my neck.

My next blog is about our ALL DAY TOUR of Santorini. It turned out to be more of an adventure than either of us had planned on.

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