Santorini - An amazing home on the cliffs

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04 Aug 2012

Last night we arrived in Santorini. This is an amazing spot. An island that literally blew its top 2000BC spelling the end to then Minoan civilisation on Crete, some 70, miles away as a 100m tidal wave swept the island of all existence. The crater, or caldera, is several miles across and small villages cling to the basalt clifftops. It is not a done deal as only as recently as 1956 a new landform appeared in the caldera. We moored up against it last night and tied to huge lumps of pumice! This morning we moved to main part of the island an Oia and climbed the hills well above the boat in the bluest of bays.

The views from the rim of the caldera are quite astounding. The little Greek villas and restaurants are beautiful white and pastel blues. We walked from one postcard view to another. It is eyewateringly beautiful. I will upload the pictures very soon.

The bus trip was quite hair-raising. Narrow and steep hills - I rate this a "red run" of bus trips. The police must spend considerable amounts of time pulling unwary tourists from the hedges on the hairpin bends that abound. The cruise ships that arrive here mean that, even for broke Greece, Santorini has a non-stop flow of cruise ships pumping heavy-sweating Americans onto the island. The bus was toppers with them. When saying we were on a boat - they asked which cruise line we were with. Duncan Cruises are not a popular one. Those aboard are pressed men and seldom granted shore-leave for fear of them not returning!

Tomorrow we head to Crete and Hania to restock the ship's stores. We spent yesterday afternoon working out what we were going to wear for the ARC fancy dress party and it looks like the front-runner for this will be "English Breakfast" with children and adults dressed as the ingredients! Lisa's fried eggs will need little disguising.

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Comments

[Iain Creer]

Fried eggs?
Presumably your breakfast chipolata was similarly un-disguised.

[Duncans Ahoy]

Pork sword
Of course!

[Charlie]

Glad you are now well on your way!
Hello! Great to hear you are now well on your way and hopefully the teething problems are now beginning to be a thing of the past! It all looks far hotter and gorgeous than here, a non-stop rainy day has meant that we have watched far more of the Olympics than is really necessary, still good to see Team GB doing pretty well, plus weekend camping has meant we are pretty jaded so a day in front of the television is actually pretty welcome!!