| Erin's Santorini Journals 5-12-02 Our second day on Santorini dawned bright and sunny again, and we looked forward to exploring the island on motor scooters. After breakfast, we dressed for warm weather and left the hotel to go to the rental agency a half block away. Once we stepped outside though, I noticed clouds sitting on top of the mountains to the north (Perissa, where we stayed, is on the southern point of the island), and wondered if we should get our rain jackets, just in case. The rental agent also suggested a car instead, as drivers in Greece are scary and there are often accidents with inexperienced scooter drivers (like me!). So we rented a jeep instead, and while Glenn filled out the rental policy, I ran back for our rain coats. We set out for Akrotiri, an ancient Minoan town that has been in the process of being excavated for the past 50 years. Thriving in the 17th century B.C., this town was very modern in its setup, down to having clay pipes to take sewage from 2 and 3 story houses down to an underground septic system under the road. The town was destroyed by earthquakes and then buried by volcanic eruption, and thereby preserved. Some wonderful wall paintings and huge ceramic storage jars, elaborately painted, were discovered there and excavations continue every summer. After marveling at the archeological dig, we walked around an outcropping to see the 'Red Beach,' which is another volcanic beach of stunning red cliffs and sand. It was still sunny out, which kept it from being cold, but we were not inclined to spend any time sunbathing there, so we headed in our jeep up to the main town of Fira. We stopped and picked up a young couple who were tired of walking, giving them a ride into town. There wasn't much to see on the main roads, and long distances between towns. We came almost suddenly to Fira, dropped off the couple, and drove on through town - I didn't much want to shop, and we had seen many postcards from towns a bit further up the coast and wanted to find those views. The island was much smaller when driving through than it appeared on the map, so we were quickly driving past one of the towns we'd planned to stop in, but felt that was fine as we'd hit it on the way back. We drove into more clouds, and when we did stop for some views, it was mostly obscured by mist and clouds. Not a great picture day! We went to Ia, the place where most of the photos of Santorini are traditionally taken. It abounds in scenery, and was gorgeous, especially after we'd had lunch and the sun came back out. We walked around for a couple of hours, finding new great views every few feet, taking photos as we went. We ended up rounding a corner and seeing a shop with lots of paintings of Santorini, and found one we really liked. It was larger than we might have preferred - we already have lots of 'fireplace' pieces at home - but once we'd seen it, none of the others impressed us and we knew it would be the perfect memorial of our stay there. So we got it - we'll figure out how to get it home later. Shipping is very expensive!!! After about 3 hours in Ia, we went back via the coastal route towards Fira, and picked up another couple of lady hikers from Germany who had found the road to be a lot longer than they'd planned. They were glad we'd stopped, too, because the road up to Fira was a very steep, long climb! I made sympathetic noises for the poor jeep! Back on the road to Fira, we stopped in the town we'd driven past, Firostefani. This town was the other most favored place to take views for postcards, as it looks down tall cliffs to the still-active volcano of Nea Kameni and several other islands right off the coast. But it was completely covered by a low-hanging cloud that had sat over Fira all day, and our views were not great. The camera was mostly useless here, and the wind made it absolutely chilly out, so we planned to call it a day. We'd been out driving for almost 7 hours by then, and our only other must-do item for the day was to call our moms at a pre-arranged time (Mother's Day back home!). We drove back out to Ia in hopes of catching a sunset and finding gas for the car, but the clouds had moved in there and all gas stations on the way were closed, so we turned back to Fira, filled the tank, made our phone calls (short calls with the crappy phone cards of Greece), and made it back to Perissa just after dark. We dressed a little more warmly back at the hotel and went out for dinner. We found a great place for pizzas, and went back to sleep as early as possible, since we had an early shuttle back to port for the ride back to Athens in the morning. This was my first instance of stomach disorder on the trip. Whatever I'd eaten on that pizza that didn't agree with me, it decided to leave me sweaty and uncomfortable, so I spent a mostly sleepless last night on Santorini. |
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| A beautiful church at the base of red volcanic rock near Akrotiri |
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| A look atop an Ia church at the volcanic islands off Santorini |