Today was the day that we were scheduled for a short cruise to a volcanic island and then to another nearby island that featured some hot springs.
But first, we were presented with breakfast by Coskun, our host. Today, breakfast featured chickpea omelets with a salad on top, chocolate pudding with blueberries, bread with homemade PB & strawberry jam and the lemon/mint-infused watermelon juice. Once again, the breakfast was delicious and very filling.
After breakfast, we got ready early because we had to be at the Old Port of Fira before 10:30am in order to board our cruise boat/ship by 11am. We debated going down to the Old Port using the steps versus the cable car. Finally, we decided to try the steps and then decide if we had the energy to climb back up or take the cable car when we returned from the cruise. The path down to the Old Port featured around 600 steps. That may not sound too bad when you're going down but there are two big problems that make it very unappealing, as we were to find out soon. First, because the slope of the path is very steep, your legs start shaking as you approach the end of the path. Each step is very wide, so you walk a couple of paces and then take one step down and you keep doing that almost 600 times. It can play havoc on people who have bad knees or hips. For me, it was more that my legs were shaking by the time we hit the 500 step mark. The second and more important point is that you share the entire path with donkeys that are used to cart people up and down the steps. Each entourage, if I may call it that, consists of about 10 donkeys and they don't walk in single file. They're probably super disgruntled about what they're forced to do every day, so they walk randomly across the entire width of the path. So, you have to dodge and weave among the donkeys as they cross you and it's even worse if they're going in the same direction as you because you just have to pick one side and hope that none of them chooses that side and crushes you. These donkeys, by the way, are not your standard issue donkeys that you see in India. They are as big and heavy as medium-sized horses. Each entourage of horses has an owner but he doesn't really bother to keep them walking in an organized fashion or anything. And, oh, did I mention that these donkeys are frequently crapping all over the place, so we are treated to the splendid aroma of donkey crap while we are walking down. Plus, we need to be really careful about where we're placing our foot because, of course, donkey crap!
Anyway, it took us way longer than planned to reach the Old Port of Fira and our next step was to find the counter or office of the cruise company where we had to register or check in. After a bit of a search, we found the place and confirmed our registration for the cruise. We had a 20-25 min wait before we boarded. Our ship was a schooner-type of vessel but without any sails deployed. It ran using a regular set of engines, I presume. We boarded the ship and immediately moved to the top deck which was open to the elements. We didn't mind the sun and felt that we would get a better view from the upper deck. There were probably about 80-100 passengers in total as we set off to the first stop.
The first stop is Nea Kameni which is a volcanic island with several different vents or craters but only one of them is active in terms of some sulfur gas emission. The climb is about 400 ft and the trail gets a bit rough at times (gravelly or mix of gravel and loose, large stones). The guide from the ship accompanied us and gave us a brief introduction to the history of the island and how Santorini was formed several centuries ago. Compared to the 10km walk on the previous day, this climb was relatively easy and we were able to get some very nice views of the main island of Santorini and the Aegean Sea around us.
We headed back down to our ship and proceeded to the next stop which is Palaia Kameni. Here, the ship would not be docking at a pier but stay anchored about 200ft from shore. Any passengers that were strong swimmers would dive off the ship into the water and swim the remaining 200ft to the shore where the water was of a different color due the presence of sulfur and iron from a hot spring. The temperature of the water is also reported to be higher than the surrounding sea. Obviously, neither Sahana nor I ventured into the water because we don't know how to swim. Half of the passengers on the ship did opt to dive into the water and swam to the hot springs. They stayed there for about 30 min before the ship captain tooted the horn to signal departure back to Santorini.
The journey back to the Old Port of Fira was relatively uneventful and we chose that time to just relax and enjoy the breeze and the color of the sea. By the time we reached the Old Port of Fira, we had already decided that we weren't mentally prepared to endure another round of donkey crap and watching the donkeys being abused for the convenience of human beings. We paid for the cable car ride which took us up to the top in just a few minutes.
The next time on our agenda was to pick up a rental car. I had already booked the rental car in advance and we had arranged to meet at a local supermarket parking lot in Fira to pick up the car. After a fairly long wait, a guy turned up with the car and had us sign the paperwork and do a quick inspection before handing us the keys. The first thing we did is to head back to the hotel to freshen up a bit. Fortunately, we found a parking spot in the public parking lot next to Ethos Vegan Suites.
We were on our way in about 15 min, heading to the first sightseeing point, the Akrotiri Lighthouse. The lighthouse is on the southernmost tip of the island of Santorini so it was a fairly long drive. The road to the lighthouse meandered along the west coast of the island frequently giving us gorgeous views of the ocean and the caldera. By then, we had stopped trusting Google Maps and were finding it more reliable to use Apple Maps. We reached the lighthouse and walked around, taking in the views and taking pics. After spending about 15 min there, we drove to a nearby town called Emporio. Like Pyrgos on the day before, Emporio is a small town with charming, narrow, winding lanes. Like Pyrgos, there is a castle (ruined, of course) at the top of a hill. We found a public parking lot with one free spot and parked the car there and began our climb. In these narrow lanes, neither Google nor Apple could help us with directions. We aimlessly wandered around the different lanes looking for the castle but gave up after 30 min. Thankfully, we had remembered to save the location of the parking lot else we would have had a real problem on our hands! We mostly relied on our memory to guide us back to the parking lot.
Now, it was time to go to Oia where we had made reservations for a sunset dinner (following the fiasco of the previous day!) at Oia Gefsis. It was a long-ish drive by Santorini standards and it took us a while to reach. None of the public parking lots had any empty spots and there were cops that were forcing people to keep moving and not wait for a spot to open up. Since our reservation time was coming up, we had to make the painful decision to use a paid parking lot (12 euros for 5 hours!). We parked the car and walked to the restaurant. We were a few minutes early but we were pleasantly surprised to find that the restaurant had upgraded us to seats on the terrace although we had reserved seats indoors. So, we could hope to see the sunset, after all. The seats that we were shown to were not ideal in the sense that they were not against the back wall of the restaurant which would give us an unobstructed view of the sunset. Instead, there would be several tables and customers in between us and the view of the sunset. But, oh well, better than nothing, I suppose. We made our selections on the menu and waited while sipping on our mocktails. Since sunset was still an hour away, we ate at a leisurely pace and took our time to order the main course although it was overloaded with mushrooms which I don't mind but Sahana doesn't really care for them. Watching the sunset was a wonderful experience and we enjoyed it. We asked the waiter to take a few pics of us with the sun going down behind us. It didn't come out great but wasn't too bad either.
It was past 8pm by the time we finished dinner, so we decided to head back to Fira and try to grab a dessert there. We found a parking spot in a public parking lot in Fira that was slightly farther from our hotel than we were hoping for but we decided to park it there anyway. We walked back towards our hotel and stopped at an ice cream place called Zotos where we got a pistachio sorbet. We had tasted it on the first day in Santorini and found it to be delicious.
Then, we headed back to our hotel room to crash.
No comments:
Post a Comment