Island Paradise- Oia

We've found the newest addition to our favorite locations.

We loved Santorini, especially Oia. I'm trying to convince Tony to buy a little cave house!

The October temp was nice and sunny. A little windy though and not warm enough for me (Gabriela) to get into the water (about 75 degrees), but we loved it! We ended up renting a car to tour the island. It was amazing.

Enjoy the pictures!

gabriela


For those interested, I've added some history of the island. The following information came from (www.ifestio.com):

Santorini was created by a volcanic explosion many years ago.

In Akrotiri was a Minoan town of the 16th century BC, and found a Bronze Age town of some 30.000 inhabitants. Volcanic ash has preserved two and three-story buildings with walls decorated by Minoan paintings. No skeletons, precious jewelry or gold have been found in Akrotiri, indicating that the residents must have been prewarned of the catastrophe, probably by earth tremors.

After the great eruption, which destroyed what civilization was found on the island, Santorini remained uninhabited for a long time.
The ruins of ancient Thira, excavated at the turn of the century by German archaeologists, have tombs and inscriptions that indicate that the capital of the Dorian colonists was situated there from the ninth century BC. The Ptolemy’s set up an important garrison here to keep watch over the archipelago.
During the eighth century BC a Theban hero, Thiras, left Sparta where he was reigning and brought a group of noblemen with him to settle in Santorini. The island was subsequently called after him, Thira, and is known by that name officially ever since.

Herodotus writes that Santorini had seven towns during that period and was governed by King Grinnas, who upon the advice of the oracle at Delphi sent an expedition to Cyrene in Africa where many Thirans settled and prospered. During the Persian wars, Thirans were on the side of the conquerors and in 476 BC refused to join the Athenian alliance as they considered themselves Dorians. Santorini joined the tributary of Athens, however, a short time later and was forced to pay five talands (ancient Greek currency) as a tribute. Not satisfied with the Athenians, the Thirans then submitted to the Spartan sovereignty and obtained independence only with the Antalkidios pact. However, this independence was not totally respected by the Sparta.

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