Santorini and Athens

We arrived in Santorini at nightime so missed the spectacular view of the cliffs upon arrival. However we made up for this with a half day sailing trip to the volcanic islands the next day and the caldera is stunning, formed by what must have been the mother of all explosions about 1000 BC (although not quite up there with the much earlier Taupo eruptions back in NZ, as I just read on Wikipedia).

One of the islands in the centre of the caldra is still active and we took a hike over it. Then it was back to the old port from where Graham took the gondola up the hill and Fran a donkey up the 300 or so steps up the cliff face. A mad racing donkey as it turned out, kept trying to cut off the aussie ladies on mules, so there was a bit of competition going on amongst the friendly chit chat.

The island was a lot quieter than expected and I guess this may be due to the unpredictable weather this time of year which was proven by the dust storm, 13 degree temperature dive and rain we had the following day. All the ferries in the greek islands were apparrently cancellled due to the wind, so we were already making contingency plans should that affect our ferry booking to Athens the next day. Armed with a mini (two-stroke) Chrysler instead of scooters, we missioned it up a steep hairpin road to the ancient settlement of Akrotiri from where there were magnificent views out to sea and into the eye of the storm. That evening we drove to Oia for the sunset, dinner and a stroll around the clifftop village.

Yesterday it was an eight hour ferry ride to Athens, the weather was back to normal and we were sad to leave, for one can get quite used to the island life.

Today we have been roaming the new Akropolis museum (and getting annoyed at Lord Elgin's senseless destruction of many of the sculptural elements), the majestic Akropolis itself, a walk down through the Agora and associated museum, lunch and then the Archaeological Museum - all awesome. It is mindboggling to see so much very old stuff in just one day - its like w roamed about 6000 years in one day, what a privilege.

Off to dinner now and very hungry.