From Istanbul I took and overnight flight through Athens down to Santorini for a few days...
Santorini – A slice of Greek Island culture Part 1
I’d been wanting to experience one of the Greek Islands for a while, both to sample one of the island destinations in the Mediterranean area (I have heard good things about the Croatian Islands and the Spanish Islands are also well known) plus as a bit of a photographer I have always loved those iconic photos of the white buildings and blue roof tops on Santorini.
As I had some spare time on my European trip I decided to book a relatively cheap flight from Istanbul through Athens and then down to Santorini on Aegean Air. They use an A321for the flight from ATH to JTR with the flight only taking some 25 minutes and we had barely gotten up to a cruising height before it was time to descend.
The process of getting from Istanbul to Santorini was not without its dramas, however, with delayed flights on both legs and I almost left my camera in the airport at Athens, but it all ended well and these hiccups make for good banter later when reciting your travel adventures.
On arrival and then exiting of the rather small Santorini Airport I jumped in a taxi to the main town of Fira where I eventually caught a bus out to the town of Oia (pronounced ee-a) which is the town with those iconic buildings of Santorini and it sits right on the northern tip of the Island.
A 20-30 minute ride later, with some spectacular scenery as we climbed up into some hills, I arrived looking forward to finding the hotel I had booked for several nights and settle in and start to get my bearings.
Where the bus drops you off at Oia is right next to a little tourist office where someone was kind enough to call the hotel to inform them I had arrived and they sent someone to bring me to the hotel and also carry my bag, which was welcome after not much sleep the previous night and a bit of a winding and climbing route to get to the hotel through the small town.
After resting up a little and getting something to eat I decided to explore the town. Oia really only has one main street with several restaurants, hotels and shops lining it and many narrow passageways branching off to the sides for you to explore before you come to the end where cliffs drop away to the sea below presenting some amazing views as the sun sets in the evening.
After exploring for a few hours and admiring the view together with many other people as the sun sank into the sea it was time to get something to eat (there are quite a few restaurants in the area as well as a grocery store and some cafes to choose from) and go back to the hotel and get a good night’s sleep to prepare for the next few days.
I was up early next morning and went out to get a few morning shots around Oia before going back and having breakfast and getting ready to catch the bus back into Fira and spend a day looking around the main city of the island.
Mid-April seemed to be before the tourist season kicked in on Santorini, with many of the budget airlines not having flights scheduled until May/June, so I suppose this helped during my visit with the island not being overrun with hordes of tourists.
Getting off the bus at the little central depot I walked towards the Orthodox Cathedral of Ypapanti. From there you can get a panoramic view off the cliff side into what was the caldera of a volcano that erupted approximately 3600 years ago leaving the islands of Thera (Santorini), Nea Kameni and Thirassia in a roughly circular shape of where the larger island used to be.
The view is simply spectacular!
Fira is an interesting town and it has a few museums on the history of Thera/Santorini. Like tourist meccas it also has a large supply of shops selling all sorts of souvenirs and novelties. It has a street a bit further up from the bus depot where you have several bars and shops where the night life I imagine would centre around.
It also had a range of restaurants as well as faster food offerings that were good for grabbing something at and continuing to explore. It seemed to be of a sort of size that you could have a good look around it in a day, which probably suits the cruise ship itineraries.
After looking around the town a bit and buying something to eat I decided to descend down a winding path which leads to a small landing down at the base of the cliff. This is where several boat tours leave from and also where passengers arriving from the cruise ships that anchor in the lagoon reach land before ascending up to Fira for the day.
Before going to Santorini someone had mentioned to me about the tradition of donkeys carrying guests from the cruise ships up this steep winding path and not at just at a gentle walk but quite a decent trot and so I thought I might have to give that a try.
But after going and having a look on the internet about exactly what it entails I found that the owners of the donkeys on Santorini have a pretty poor record of animal welfare with several websites talking about how the donkeys are not well looked after and suggesting tourists not use the service.
While I try not to be overly touchy feely when traveling, realising that a lot of the world has necessarily different standards to Western countries about how animals are used for work purposes and even how humans are worked and expected to perform, I don’t see a need to go out of my way to exploit animals if they are being needlessly mistreated.
I can’t see a reason as to why the donkeys need to be driven at such a pace other than to make more trips and earn more money and many of them looked quite sweaty and the shelter etc didn’t look that great, while I’m sure the donkey owners would say I’m not much off an expert in the animal management business so who am I to talk.
Having done a cruise before I know of the copious amounts of food that are usually available and this struck me as a good opportunity if on such a cruise to actually burn off some of those calories by walking up the hill at a pace each individual could handle.
I guess if you were small or had some major issues moving about there might be a reason to use the donkeys, but why a large, healthy person would want to get on one of these things and make it’s life difficult is a little beyond me.
I had it easier though as I chose to walk down the winding path and while it took maybe 15-20 minutes or so at a reasonable pace, I’m sure the climb would take a bit longer.
There is a cable car system has been installed going from the landing up to Fira but at about 6 cars each holding 6 people running every 4-5 minutes some quick calculations meant that it could only probably handle several hundred people an hour which might not suffice when one or two thousand passengers suddenly disembark from a large cruise ship.
I did notice at the end of the day there was quite a long line for people wanting to take the cable car back down so I imagine it was something similar for the cable car up in the morning (I took the winding path down and took the cable car back up a bit after lunch so had practically no wait time as I was going in the opposite direction to the tide of cruise ship passengers).
Anyway, apart from expanding the cable car system or people choosing a bit of exercise at a pace they can handle over taking the easier option of the donkeys I’m not sure what the answer is, but there is some food for thought for visitors.
After ascending back up on the cable car I had a bit more of a look around Fira and taking some more photos before heading back to Oia on the bus, getting some dinner and calling it a night.
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