Goodbye to Paros and Spectacular Santorini
Trip Start
May 23, 2008
1
9
54
Trip End
Ongoing
Santorini,
Cyclades,
Greece
Monday, June 9, 2008
So the new group arrived in Paros and we did our traditional first night dinner. My new guide is laura and she is really nice. The group dynamics are so different between the different tours, this group is mainly late 20's and aussie couples, where as the last group were mainly american and canadian girls with a couple of aussies, and the first group all aussie girls. its good, it means that i meet a really diverse group of people, but its funny how different each group has been!
I spent the Friday in Naoussa, a small fishing town up the north of Paros. The morning started off grey and rainy, but by the afternoon it was beautiful and sunny. It was very relaxing, i ended up sitting down in a cafe at about lunchtime and didnt leave till 4pm, sitting on some couches reading and watching the tourists and villagers walk past. I may or may not have consumed some crepes as well. A little interesting fact about greece: if you order a meal eg. club sandwich or savory crepe, and it says it comes with chips, dont expect hot chips, its usually a handful of potato chips. its incredibly random!!!
Paros was not as interesting as Mykonos, and i feel like 4 days there was a waste, after the amazing boat tour there wasnt much else to see. The island is used more by greek tourists, so it doesnt have as much traffic through the streets and is a lot quieter than Mykonos. Their biggest export, and main economy, is the rare marble found on the island. they dont survive so much on the tourism, not like Mykonos or Santorini do.
I am here now in Santorini, and out of all the islands so far this has to be the most spectacular! The scenery here is AMAZING.
Donkey in Parikia
The island is very unique out of all the islands in the Cyclades group, as it is mostly the creation of an active volcano. the island is a half moon shape (check out the map) and this was caused when the volcano erupted and blew the centre of the island out, creating a half moon shape. there are a couple of islands in the middle, one of which is the cone and the reminants of some less devastating eruptions (the most recent being 1950). the volcano is now quiet, although it is not sure when the next eruption will be. The area is also prone to many earthquakes. None yet so far!!The ferry ride from Paros took about 3 hours, i sat with an aussie couple and a nz couple from the tour and we played cards to pass the time. Sailing into Santorini was pretty spectacular, nearly everyone crowded onto our side of the boat to take pictures of the cliffsides lined with houses. That night we did a group dinner in a resturant on the cliff-face looking out over the crater of the island. The sunset was amazing, and the views here are breathtaking. We also were celebrating 2 birthdays, so afterwards we headed to a bar where we had 2 for 1 coctails and danced the night away.
Yesterday i went on a bus tour of the island, first was a guided tour of the museum here which houses archeological pieces dug up from an ancient town buried under pumice and ash during the eruption approximately 4000 years ago. The original name of the town is not known, but they call it ancient Akrotiri , due to its proximity to the newer town of Akrotiri.
Side street Parikia
It was only discovered in the 1960's and so far they have uncovered only about 3% at least, they approximate it will take 200 - 300 years to fully uncover the city. But so far what they have uncovered is almost perfectly preserved. the museum houses mostly ancient pottery and fresco paintings. some are broken and have been pieced back together, but most of it is intact. when they do restorations or rebuilding of any pieces, they make it clear what is the ancient part and what is new, so that you can clearly destinguish between the 2. to see pieces which were from 4000 years ago is amazing, especially because we have nothing like that back in Australia. And the way that they lived is incredible, they were so civillised in the way that they lived and worked. From what has been discovered, it is believed that these people were very wealthy, and very smart. When excavation on the site began, most of the houses were completely filled with the pumice and ash, but they came across some areas where there were gaps or holes. they filled these with plaster, and found that they were actually the shapes of the timber furniture, which did not preserve the way the pottery had, and subsequently rotted or disintergrated over time. they had plaster casts of some pieces, like small tables and the back of a chair featured in the museum. it was amazing to see.After the museum we drove up to the top of the highest peak on the island, Mount Prophitis Ilias, where during the last couple of centuries had housed a monastary and only until tourists started coming to the island, was run by monks.
View in Parikia
The views from the top were amazing. The monastary is now closed, but the views still remain.Our guide also told us many things about Santorini as we toured the island. Apparently the islands real name is Thira, and Santorini is only its adopted name. It began when the Venetians came and heard the locals refer to one of the churches here, which was Saint Irene. They took it as Santorene, and the name then evolved to Santorini. So the name is originally Italian. But all the legal papers call it Thira.
There are over 600 churches in Santorini, most are private churches used for family events such as weddings, christenings etc and tend to be very small. Only a few are public churches. All feature the whitewashed walls, and most have a blue dome, which represents the heavens and the sky. on some of the other islands, they also feature red (the blood of christ), green (nature), brown (the earth) or yellow (the sky). same applies to the shutters and door frames of the houses, although blue is the most used colour here. The whitewashing of the walls is used to reflect the sun and keep the houses cool, as the sun here is very hot and the Greeks hate it! haha.
The tour took us through a traditional village, and then to one of the famous black beaches on the island, Perissia, and we had lunch here and spent some time relaxing on the beach (as the photos show). Santorini has a black, red and white beach. Although the red beach isnt actually red, its the cliffs that are red from the sulfer, but this is one of the main tourist attractions of the island.
Naoussa waterfront
along with the spectacular views. The resturant we stopped at was overlooking the beach, and its name was "The Best". Greeks seem to have trouble thinking up inventive names, so they come up with very basic english ones! for lunch i had a chicken souvlaki and it was delicious.After lunch and a relax we went to our last stop, a winery for a tour and tastings. This winery is perched on top of a hill overlooking the crater and the rest of the island. In greece they grow the grapes a lot differently to back home. the vines they use grow on the ground, and they train the branches to wrap into a nest shape, to protect the grapes from the strong winds. We enjoyed our wine and took some amazing pictures off their balcony.
last night we took a bus to the town of Oia, which is famous for its spectacular sunsets. The lookout is perched on the top of the ridge at the top point of the island, and our group hiked the 10 minutes through the winding streets to set up a picnic and watch this famous sight. To be honest, i think the whole of Santorini was up there, as it was so busy and there were people everywhere. Pretty much this is one of the most photographed places in Santorini, so all the photographers with their tripods head up there, along with your amatures and then the tourists. you pretty much try to get the best spot available, so there were people sitting on top of walls and roofs of houses. We got there reasonably early, so we got some bench space and Laura set up our picnic of bread, greek salad, cold meats and cheeses, dips etc along with some vodka and softdrinks/juices to make our own cocktails. It was really nice food, but the ammount of people detracted from the whole experience. To be honest, i enjoyed watching the sunset from our restaurant the night before better. But it was an experience!
We got back into town at about 9.30pm and a few of us headed for the bus station as we were going to a town on the other side of the island to see the new Sex and the City movie. it was shown in english with Greek subtitiles, this is one of the first things i have watched since i have been in Greece as everything on tv is in greek!!! It was a nice night out and we got home about 1.30pm.
I had been sharing my room with 2 really nice scottish girls, and they left with the group thismorning so i had to say goodbye again! Tonight the group that i will be finishing with arrives, so we will do dinner again. Oh yes and if you havent heard, there was an earthquake about 200km west of Athens on Sunday, a couple of people were killed, but it hasnt affected us here and i am fine :)
hope you all had a good long weekend!!!
Comments
life is funny like that..
hey katie! glad to hear u've been having a good time. i've only just cuaght up on ur last 4 entries so i've had a good little read tonight! thought u might like to know that mum n dad went away for the weekend up to licola and on their way home this arvo they have done a wheel baring on the caravan and are currently stuck on the side of the road waiting for a tow truck! i laughed! at least it was on the way home! hope you enjoy the rest of ur time on santorini. it sounds great. love all the pics u've added as well. it all looks so pure and fresh with all the white buildings and blue ocean. beautiful. have fun. miss ya. luv tara
Luv the pics
Hi Kate, luv all the new pics you have posted. Looks like a spectacular place to be, no wonder you are enjoying yourself. Licola didn't have views quite like yours (nor the weather). Keep up the good work. Luv Mumxox