Greece

Santorini. Partially destroyed by a volcano over a thousand years ago. We stayed in a small family-run motel underneath this sky-high cliff church. You couldn't drink any of the tap water because it was brackish. It was within about a 10 minute walk of a small town on the ocean, and the beach was rocky, not sandy. It was beautiful. While we were there, they had a huge local festival, so the church was filled with singing that, through microphones and the acoustics of the cliffs, boomed out across the whole area. Our host, a cheerful old man, tried to describe the festival as best he could:

"First, they dance. Then singing. Now, they drink!"

Ouzo, an alcoholic drink, is very popular in Greece. It's customary for hosts to serve up a small glass after dinner. Cut with water, it turns cloudy, and tastes like licorice. You can also mix it with orange juice (that's what Bruno likes to do). We liked to sit outside in the shade and hold our glasses to our foreheads to cool down in between sips.

On our second day we joined a cheap tour. A charter bus took us down the steep switchbacked hill into the port town and we boarded a boat headed for the volcano. We walked to the top of the volcano (not the easiest of treks) and listened to our tour guide give a talk on the area. He dug his hand into a hole near the top and came out with a handful of steaming sand/pebbles to prove the whole place was still active. Here's Bruno on the trek up:


After we came back down and boarded the boat, we sailed to another tiny island where we all dove off the boat and swam from the cool Aegean waves into the reddish warm waters of a volcanic spring. The waters are supposed to be good for your skin, but we didn't stay long. Here's me (center-ish) swimming out to the warmer waters:



As we dried off, the boat took us to...




Thirasia, population ~200. The land in the distance is Santorini itself. Thirasia was one of the land masses left standing by the huge volcano that obliterated the middle part of Santorini. Because of the volcano, the port areas are very narrow, so getting up to the top can be difficult. We visited Thirasia on our second day, sailing with a tour group first to the (still active) volcano, then to Thirasia where we had lunch and rode donkeys up to the view in the picture above. The road switchbacked on itself multiple times, carved out of the dark rock of the hill itself, but the donkeys were pretty agile.

At the end of the line. There wasn't much up there. Just a mostly-empty town and a few restaurants.

On the third day, we took the ferry to Naxos. Our local beach (Plaka):


We spent most of our time lounging on the sand with occasional dips in the Aegean. After our long train trip and hectic touristing-around on Santorini it was nice to relax. We did go into the port city, however, to see the sights there.

Resting on the steps leading toward the top of the hill. The port city was built with defense in mind, so there were lots of narrow steep streets and little curving alleyways.


Portara, at sunset. This is what remains of a very ancient temple - the doorway. Through a mixture of erosion and global warming, the hill it's on is slowly shrinking, and it's now pretty much an island, linked by a stone causeway that errant, enthusiastic waves splash over. It's beautiful.

That's all for now. When the mood strikes me, I'll see about posting pictures from other trips.