Travel Diary Day 8
Santorini, Greece
1. We spent the entire day in Santorini and had a blast!
2. We got very lucky as to how many ships were in port today. It can get busy with up to 8 ships in port at a time. Today it was only us and one other ship anchored near the pier.
3. Our plan for today was to hike a volcano, swim in the hot springs, tour a winery, and then spend some time in town shopping.
5. We got off our ship and hopped onto a smaller boat. That boat took us to the lava inlet of Nea Kameni where we hiked up to the top of the still-active volcano.
5. This hike was not a highlight for me. It's along lava fragments and the views are great, but I'm over any kind of exercise by now. The tour guide said it would be a 20 minute (approx 1 mile) hike to the top. It was WAY longer than that. We kept going and going and going. Thankfully there were no steps and it was just a never ending continuous up hill slope. So the views were great, but I think I've hiked so much uphill in the last week that I'm just done with it.
6. Once we left the volcanic island, we sailed towards the thermal springs at Palea Kameni. Our boat anchored and we jumped into the green sulfuric waters.
7. The thermal springs were actually the highlight of my day for many reasons. 1) we actually anchored in the sea, jumped from the boat (7ft) into the sea not knowing the temperature, and then had to swim to the thermal springs area. No life jackets, no lifeguards, you were on your own. 2) Brent is crazy sensitive to water temperatures. It took him 30 min to get into the Aegean Sea the other day because it was too cold
for him. But today, he had no choice. There was no testing the water before you jumped in. You have to jump from 7 ft up straight into the water. And that water was cold. He did it. He had too. It was great to watch and 3) seeing several OLD men DIVE off the boat into the sea was very entertaining.
8. It was quite a swim from the boat over into the thermal springs area. So you jumped into cold water that was 20ft deep and swam to the thermal area. You could feel the water getting warmer as you got closer to the thermal spring.
9. As you swim into the thermal spring , it starts looking like orange dirty water. The water is full of iron and rust but it's not dirty. They even told us to wear dark swimsuits because the water may stain them. 10. When we finally got out and dried off with our white towels, you could see a slight rust color stain on the towels. Which reminds me, we should probably shampoo our hair twice tonight before dinner time.
11. I've talked before about how much Brent loves to swim in different bodies of water. He can add the Sea of Crete to that list because that's what we jumped into today.
12. The boat then took us back to the pier where we boarded a bus and drove up the hill to Santos Winery. We sampled three wines, snacked on cheese, bread, and olives. Well, Brent ate the olives. Olives are one of my least favorite foods. The wine was good but we didn't purchase any.
13. The excitement at the winery happened when a waiter was walking by Brent carrying two trays of clean sample size wine glasses (he had around 40-50 stacked on the trays). Something shifted on the tray and the glasses went flying. 40-50 glasses shattered about 2ft behind Brent. He could feel the glass pieces hitting the back of his leg. The waiter looked terrified, embarrassed, and in shock. The whole winery went silent and everyone seemed to freeze. Thankfully, I only
pulled a couple small glass fragments from the back of Brent's leg. No blood so he was fine. But that poor waiter!!!
14. After the winery we took the bus into town. All the towns are up on top of the mountain. There's not much of anything at the shoreline. The shops and cafes are wonderful. There's a good mix of souvenir stores and upscale stores. Every where you turn in town, there's a fabulous view. There's a rooftop terrace on every building. It's almost magical.
15. We've been to Mykonos twice before. Absolutely love it there. But we also knew Santorini had great reviews too, so we were excited to compare the two since they are very much alike in terms of white houses, blue doors, blue roofs, etc. Turns out, they are quite different. Santorini has the views due to its location on the mountain. Mykonos is mostly on the shoreline. They both have a majority of white buildings but we feel Mykonos has more blue accents. Both have great shopping. Realistically, we now love Santorini just as much as Mykonos. These Greek islands are just stunning, clean, and little slices of paradise in our opinion.
16. We bought a pita gyro (lamb) while shopping in town. Best pita gyro we have ever had!
17. I can't believe we forgot our selfie stick on this entire trip. Felt like we would have used it quite a bit today had we brought it along from home. On another note, I've not had any eye makeup on this trip either (which is just mascara and eyeliner since I don't wear eye shadow) I never go a day without mascara and I've now gone a week. I'll actually go the whole trip without it because I'm not wasting good trip time shopping for mascara.
18. At the end of the day, we took the cable car down from the town to the pier. Could have walked or taken the donkey, but it was too hot plus I wouldn't do that to a donkey. So cable car it was.
19. Back on the ship and the first thing I grabbed before going to the room was a Pina Colada. And then we get to the room, and a cheese platter is waiting for us. Score!! It was a great day and I hope we can come back here soon. It's just as beautiful as everyone says it is.