Day 12 - Tuesday, June 25 - Santorini
Our excursion this morning starts at 7am so we are up bright and early. Today we are anchored in the harbor as there aren't docks large enough to host cruise ships and we need to use "tenders" to go to shore. Santorini is actually a collections of 5 islands which are the remains of a huge volcanic caldera that collapsed thousands of years ago. For centuries, Santorini was controlled by the Venetian empire and subsequently by the Ottomans.
Santorini had been mainly supported by olives, grapes and fishing but with the boom in tourism the income is now 80% from tourism. It is a bit sad as one sees many abandoned terraced vineyards.
We were fortunate to see the sun rising over the Santorini caldera while we were eating breakfast - it was quite a spectacular site. We could see the tour buses making their way down to the dock where we will be landing - it looked like a series of caterpillars moving down a tree!
The process of getting onto the tender and to the shore was straightforward, only taking about 5 minutes.
Our first stop was in Oia (pronounced "eee-a") which is famous for the white buildings and churches with blue domes. In historic times, most of the houses were in caves that were cut into the soft pumice stone. Most of these are now occupied by hotels and shops. The views were quite spectacular, with the blue Aegean Sea and other islands in the background. Unfortunately, it is exceptionally crowded and difficult to get by on the narrow streets. There is a profusion of jewelry, souvenir and other shops that aren't of much interest to us.
While we were in Oia, we saw a number of models in photo shoots which was interesting to watch.
From there we took the bus most of the way back to the south end of the island to the small village of Pyrgos where we climbed up many stairs to a picturesque church and the ruins of a Venetian fortress. We were interested to see the plants the produce "capers" which have beautiful flowers.
The growing of grapes is very different from other places we have visited. Instead of the vines being trained on stakes and wires between the stakes, they grow on the ground and the vine is coiled around on itself. This way the leaves shade the ground and keep the moisture in the soil.
We stopped for an unimpressive wine-tasting followed by buffet lunch at a restaurant. The lunch included traditional music and dancers. At one point the diners were invited to join in the dancing and many people participated - it was like the "ring" dancing at Italian or Israeli weddings.
Our final stop was in the capital city of Fira which is similarly famous for the white buildings. The trip back to the ship was frustrating and unpleasant. The only way down to the tenders in Fira is to either take the cable car or go down the donkey path. Our tour guide highly discouraged taking the donkey path as it is covered with donkey manure so we decided to take the cable car. When we got there, the line was already long and when we joined it quickly expanded behind us. It took 1 1/2 hours to get to the entrance. The ride down only took a few minutes. At the tender dock there were other boats spewing heavy diesel fumes. After about 15 minutes we were able to board and were soon back on the Viking Star.
Interacting with our technology has been rather frustrating. When we got to Venice, I set our time zone to GMT+2, 6 hours ahead of NY. My laptop and tablet determined that we were in Italy and subsequently, news headlines and other information started coming up in Italian. The messages on my Fitbit have been coming up in Italian. Even after leaving Italy, I continued to get information in Italian. After changing to Greek time which is an hour earlier, it took two days for the time on my Fitbit to synchronize. It was even worse in Italy as I had to add 6 hours each time I checked the time. Hopefully this will all reset once we get back home.
Santorini had been mainly supported by olives, grapes and fishing but with the boom in tourism the income is now 80% from tourism. It is a bit sad as one sees many abandoned terraced vineyards.
We were fortunate to see the sun rising over the Santorini caldera while we were eating breakfast - it was quite a spectacular site. We could see the tour buses making their way down to the dock where we will be landing - it looked like a series of caterpillars moving down a tree!
The process of getting onto the tender and to the shore was straightforward, only taking about 5 minutes.
Our first stop was in Oia (pronounced "eee-a") which is famous for the white buildings and churches with blue domes. In historic times, most of the houses were in caves that were cut into the soft pumice stone. Most of these are now occupied by hotels and shops. The views were quite spectacular, with the blue Aegean Sea and other islands in the background. Unfortunately, it is exceptionally crowded and difficult to get by on the narrow streets. There is a profusion of jewelry, souvenir and other shops that aren't of much interest to us.
While we were in Oia, we saw a number of models in photo shoots which was interesting to watch.
From there we took the bus most of the way back to the south end of the island to the small village of Pyrgos where we climbed up many stairs to a picturesque church and the ruins of a Venetian fortress. We were interested to see the plants the produce "capers" which have beautiful flowers.
The growing of grapes is very different from other places we have visited. Instead of the vines being trained on stakes and wires between the stakes, they grow on the ground and the vine is coiled around on itself. This way the leaves shade the ground and keep the moisture in the soil.
We stopped for an unimpressive wine-tasting followed by buffet lunch at a restaurant. The lunch included traditional music and dancers. At one point the diners were invited to join in the dancing and many people participated - it was like the "ring" dancing at Italian or Israeli weddings.
Our final stop was in the capital city of Fira which is similarly famous for the white buildings. The trip back to the ship was frustrating and unpleasant. The only way down to the tenders in Fira is to either take the cable car or go down the donkey path. Our tour guide highly discouraged taking the donkey path as it is covered with donkey manure so we decided to take the cable car. When we got there, the line was already long and when we joined it quickly expanded behind us. It took 1 1/2 hours to get to the entrance. The ride down only took a few minutes. At the tender dock there were other boats spewing heavy diesel fumes. After about 15 minutes we were able to board and were soon back on the Viking Star.
Interacting with our technology has been rather frustrating. When we got to Venice, I set our time zone to GMT+2, 6 hours ahead of NY. My laptop and tablet determined that we were in Italy and subsequently, news headlines and other information started coming up in Italian. The messages on my Fitbit have been coming up in Italian. Even after leaving Italy, I continued to get information in Italian. After changing to Greek time which is an hour earlier, it took two days for the time on my Fitbit to synchronize. It was even worse in Italy as I had to add 6 hours each time I checked the time. Hopefully this will all reset once we get back home.
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| Fira, Santorini from tender |
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| View in Oia |
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| Cathedral in Oia |
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| Models in photo shoot |
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