We flew less than an hour to the islands that I hoped would bring us sunshine and warmth. I had continued to be cold throughout most of Greece, I think because it was so bone chilling cold in Paris for soooo long– under the guise of being warm and spring-like enough that we turned off the furnace much too early for me. In fact, as I sit here writing this on the 13th of June it is still cold in Paris.
We arrived on a beautiful sunny day to an amazing hotel located several miles away from the airport and from the cruise ship passengers that came and went out of Santorini every day. We spent a good 3 hours in the sunshine getting well burnt before we started to get really cold as the sun went down. Our hotel, the Regina Mare, has the most amazing sea view you could ever imagine, as do most of the hotels on this tiny island, so everyone sits out waiting for the sun to set, gradually adding layers of clothing to ward off the cold breeze that accompanies the sunset.
A week on the road was also starting to set in, so we opted to walk to the nearest restaurant we could find (now bundled in virtually every piece of clothing we had) in hopes of finding a good meal. We hit the mother lode! We found a great little local place that we proceeded to eat at every night we were there! The conviviality of the staff, the location and the price were too good to pass up.
We spent one day on a boat with 200 other tourists traipsing around the local volcanic island and the other two smaller islands.
If I thought things in Greece were not exactly cosmopolitan, the world on Santorini was even less sophisticated. We had climbed quite a long distance twice that day, once to the top of the volcanic crater and a second time opting to eat lunch at the top of the second small island. So by the time we reached the third harbor with another 300 stairs high to climb, I didn’t think I could do it. Pat, the ever resourceful, hired donkeys to carry us up the incline. I would rather have crawled to the top of the precipice on my hands and knees. For those of you who know my true discomfort on horses, you can’t imagine my terror on this donkey who was pushing those ahead of him and careening up the stairs erratically ramming into the walls often towards the sharp cliffs below. I thought I was exaggerating until I saw the shell shocked and blood covered face of my husband who assured me that we wouldn't have to do that again. I came away with bruises on my legs, Pat had cuts on his face from where he was driven into the thorns on one wall by his beloved beast of burden. It wasn’t pretty.
Albeit at the top of the hill sat Oia a lovely little artist town that was nearly worth the ordeal. The sun setting over the Agean Sea from the point is supposedly legendary, and I am happy to say that the photo from my cell phone at sunset is a just reward for the terror. All in all, I would highly recommend these islands to someone who wants to relax for a few days, but I would choose carefully my modes of transportation.
