Eastern European Vacation Day 13

Tuesday November 9th, 2010.
Today we visited the Greek island of Santorini – which is a fascinating place. The ship is anchored in a huge bay that is actually the crater of a gigantic sunken volcano – the biggest in the world. Several islands surround the crater and compose what is left of the rim of the volcano. Santorini is one of these islands and the town is perched on top of sheer cliffs that are 200 to 300 meters high. Almost all of the buildings in the town are painted white and so, from a distance, the island actually looks like a snow capped mountain ridge.

After breakfast in our room looking out on to the island, we headed ashore via one of several tender boats – there is no dock in Santorini big enough for a cruise ship. There are three options available for getting to the town at the top of the cliffs; a donkey ride up the narrow stepped switch back road, a walk up the same road or a cable car ride – the vote was unanimous, we headed for the queue at the cable car terminal. We waited about 20 minutes then got to glide to the top of the cliffs in an exhilarating 5 minute ride.

The town is very small, even smaller than the Old Town at Rhodes, but the white buildings – many with bright blue roofs perched on the edge of the cliffs – make for excellent photo opportunities. The streets are narrow and lined with the usual array of tourist shops and restaurants – although Santorini does have more original art on display than we’ve seen at other stops. It was crowded; thankfully the weather was very nice – not too warm, I can’t imagine what the place would be like at the peak of the tourist season with much larger crowds and blistering heat.

We wandered through the shops and all the way to one of town; taking about a million pictures. I often wonder how we managed before digital photography; worrying about running out of film, saving the shots for the absolute best views, wondering “if that one would come out ok?” Many of the best photo spots were so busy that you had to actually queue up and wait your turn to take the picture. We also had many occasions where a “damn rude tourist” would come and stand right in front of you while you were lining up a shot – I harbored thoughts of easing a few of these ignoramuses over the edge of the cliff, that would teach them! But then I remembered we actually live in a “civilized” society and let the moment pass.

Convinced we had now catalogued the entire town in multi-megapixel digital glory we headed back to the cable car terminal and joined the short queue feeling tired but glad we would soon be back on board enjoying a pub lunch; if only we knew what was about to unfold. As each cable car arrived at the top our line moved ahead and we soon found ourselves in a long narrow stone tunnel leading up to the exit door that led to the cable car. In took a while to realize that the line had actually stopped moving – something was wrong but there was no information explaining what was going on. We waited, and waited, and waited. The air became very stuffy and to top it off we were surrounded by groups of Italians and Greeks who were deep in conversation – apparently both of these nations only know how to converse by shouting at extremely high volume. We waited and waited – folks began to sit on the ground, still no information. After close to an hour the exit door opened and the line started to move again – which was just as well because my head was extremely close to exploding, which would have made a mess. With images of the Black Hole of Calcutta flashing before my eyes we shuffled out and onto a waiting cable car – God be praised, I will make the buffet tonight!

On the way down we realized that it was very windy and Sandra had correctly speculated that the cable car may have been shut down due to excessive wind. Never mind, we’d soon be scooting back to the ship – not! We discovered that, because of the wind, the tender boats had temporarily been halted while the ship was repositioned to allow safer tender access. We wandered along the dock looking in the couple of shops and came upon a tiny restaurant right at the far end; since we had time to kill we sat down at one of the tables out in front of the restaurant.

This serendipitous discovery saved the day; the restaurant was run by a husband and wife – she waited on the small number tables and he cooked on an outdoor rotisserie and in a kitchen at the back. We order a few appetizers to share; tzatziki, baked feta cheese and chips - thinking these would be pita chips or something of that sort, but of course they were french fries. Everything was excellent – even the chips were hand cut and came doused with Greek herbs. By now the tenders were running again, so we lined up and hopped on and were back at the ship by noon again.

Spent the afternoon on the balcony reading and writing – glorious. I have also just learned that our experience waiting for the cable car may not have been so bad after all. Apparently when the cable car was closed down due to the high winds, those further back in line (including our friends Kat and Mike) were told that they should walk down the donkey road – a particularly strenuous task, especially avoiding the donkeys and their droppings!