Exploring Santorini

Wednesday, January 30

After our harrowing experience of the past couple of days we decided to take it easy.  In the morning we explored the town of Fira on foot.  The area is replete with shops aimed at tourists but most of them are closed this time of year.  The only shops that are consistently open are the Jewelry shops.  We don’t usually buy “stuff” in those places but it can be fun to look.

We started our day by having breakfast at a local restaurant.  Because we typically stay in AirBNBs we normally have a kitchen and eat breakfast in our apartment.  This saves time and money.  Our hotel room has only a small refrigerator.

Our choices for breakfast were rather limited but there was a restaurant near the main square that was open and busy.  We figured that was a good sign.  We ordered an omelet with bacon, ham and cheese and a Greek omelet.  Deborah ordered a double Greek coffee and when I saw that they had Illy brand coffee I ordered a cappuccino.  The omelets were very tasty.  When the bill came we saw that the coffees cost €3.50 and €4.50 respectively.  Ouch!  That’s high even for a tourist area.  We won’t make that mistake again.

(A Greek Omelette)

Just steps from our hotel, at the top of the hill, there is a magnificent view of the caldera.  Santorini is much more than your typical island – it is the most active volcano in the southern Aegean volcanic arc and was the site of one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history.  That eruption occurred 3,600 years ago and may have led to the collapse of the Minoan civilization.  It formed the caldera that we see today.

The towns are actually built on the rim of the volcano.  The crater is filled with water.  There are several small islands in the middle of the crater and there is a hot spring that people swim in during the warmer months (it’s actually just a place where the magma is closer to the surface).  If there is a serious eruption at least we will have the pleasure of knowing that the narrow walkway where our car got stuck (and the car itself) will probably perish along with us.

(Yes Folks, That’s a Volcano)

There are a number of churches with great views of the caldera and many of them seem to be of the Catholic faith.  Santorini, which is an amalgam of Saint Irene, belonged to the Venetians for a long time.  In fact, in 1480, the island was given by the Duke of Naxos to Domenico Pizani for marrying his daughter Florenza.  Italian ancestry is apparent in most places.

In the afternoon we got back in the car and made a grocery run to a Lidl.  We bought some supplies including food for breakfast the next day.  We tried to find one of the parking lots that was closer to our apartment but that led us down some very narrow streets and up a winding hill.  When we got to the top we turned around and went back to the first parking lot.  It is just outside of the main part of town and has easy access to main roads.  Our options seem to be to walk a little further to get the car or navigate those mountainous roads.  It wasn’t a hard choice to make.

Distance walked: 3.3 miles

Thursday, January 31

Our expectation had been to go to Crete for 1-2 weeks after Santorini.  This morning we tried to do some planning.  Getting around this time of year is proving more difficult than we imagined.  The ferries only seem to run once a week.  The cost for a ride to Crete was about €400.00 per person which was way more than we expected (we had researched this some time ago but probably had relied on in-season schedules).  A flight would cost well over €100.00 per person and would take most of the day as we would have to travel back through Athens.  We really wanted to see the remains of the Minoan civilization but reluctantly we decided to make Santorini our last stop in Greece.

Where are we going next?  Well, our plan had always been to fly back to the United States because we have several family functions to attend in the coming months.  Our destination is our new adopted home of Las Vegas, NV.  We think we’ll spend a year there before deciding what to do / where to go next.  Given that there were no direct flights to the western US from Greece we decided to make a stopover for a week somewhere in western Europe to help keep the flight to a manageable length.  Our original thought was London.  It is a major gateway between the US and Europe, has great option for flights and is one of our favorite cities.  We were, however, worried about BREXIT and could get no good information about it.  Still, our flight would be in February and we didn’t expect to be affected.  Because London is so expensive we thought we’d use our remaining Marriott points and stay in a nice hotel but we didn’t have enough for a week in even the cheapest hotel available.

We’ve never been to Venice and thought about going there in spite of the fact that it really wasn’t too far west.  The most direct flight would take us from Santorini to Athens to Rome to Venice.  That wasn’t going to work.  We briefly considered a few other places like Madrid and Barcelona but finally settled on Paris.  They, too, have great flight options and we could stay for more than a week in a hotel if we used our points.  We booked our flight to Paris via Athens and our flight from Paris to Los Angeles.  What would retired life be back in the US?  We have no idea.

In the morning we visited the Archeological Museum of Thera.  The cost was €1.00 per person.  We suspected that it would be small but it turned out to be a single room.  There were just a few artifacts from several digs and the descriptions were all labeled in Greek and French.  We thought of it as good practice for when we would be in France in the coming week.  It’s really hard to recommend this museum.

(Vase from Sellada, Santorini from 370 BC)

Next we drove over to the Wine Museum.  Conveniently the museum also doubles as one of the oldest wineries on the island.  We assumed it would just be a ruse to get us to sample/buy some of their wines but that was okay because that’s just what we intended.

The Museum at the Koutsoyannopoulos Winery charges €10.00 / $11.50 per person but that includes a tasting of four wines.  Credit cards are accepted.  The exhibits were more interesting than we expected.  In addition to the usual information about wines it talked about the history of the winery and the unique conditions on the island that contribute to the quality of the grapes.  The volcanic soil and the arid conditions combine to make for much lower yields than typical wineries but endow the wines with unique characteristics.  The strong winds whip up sand which can damage the grapes.  To help with this the vines are twisted into round basket shapes.  The grapes are carefully placed inside the baskets to help protect them.

(Grape Vines Twisted into a Basket)

Of course the proof was in the pudding.  Our tasting started with a white wine that was strongly reminiscent of a riesling.  It was slightly sweet with a fruity flavor.  We liked it a lot.  This was followed by a red wine.  It’s main characteristic was a strong bouquet (mostly oak) and a flat taste.  We really didn’t care for it at all.

The third and fourth wines were both made from dried grapes.  We’d never heard of making wine that way before.  Surprisingly, the wines were similar to ice wines, which are made from grapes that have been left to freeze.  The wines were sweet and syrupy and had a strong flavor.  The first one was made from red grapes and the second from white.  We liked the first one best and purchased a bottle to take back to our hotel room.  It was similar to a tawny port but with an alcohol level of only 10%.  This was the very first product that was produced at the winery when it was started in the 1870s.  We learned that the other one is used for communion at all Catholic churches on the island.

Afterwards we drove out towards Akrotiri.  It’s on the western most part of the island where there is an archeological site that we planned to see.  It was too late in the day to see the site but, wanting to see more of the island, thought we’d go to the farthest point where there is a lighthouse and excellent views.  There were many places to pull off the road and enjoy the view as we went along and we did just that in several places.  When we were finally within walking distance of the lighthouse we encountered a deep depression that covered the entire width of the now dirt road that was filled with water.  We decided not to take our chances.

It was past 6:00 pm when we got back to the hotel.  The manager confronted us and told us that we’d be moving to the other hotel at noon tomorrow.  In an very angry voice I said, “No”, and then explained that we’d planned to take a cruise the next day and would be on the boat at that time.  Deborah stepped in and said the same thing only in a much nicer tone.  The man was very frustrated with us and finally said that he’d make other arrangements.  That was fine with us.

Distance walked: 2.5 miles