Fantastic 1 and a half day in Santorini !
Knotty Girl
Tanya/Roberto
Fri 6 May 2022 18:00
| 36:26.3N 25:21.1E We arrived in Santorini the day before yesterday from the North entrance (coming from Ios) with a wind of 17 - 18 knots and I must say that the view of Oia - a village on top of the Northern tip of volcanic Santorini Island is absolutely breathtaking ! We then we entered the “Caldera” and again we saw, perched on the caldera cliffs, the villages of Finika, Imerovigli, Fira, Mesaria, Megalopori and Akrotiri and went round the volcanic island of New Kameni - impressive you would NOT want to have been there when the volcano last erupted in 1950. We then moored (with the kind help of Manolo - the young guy who works for the restaurant “Captain John”) on Thirasia Island (opposite the island of Santorini - also called Thira island) between 2 buoys that belong to that very restaurant. Thirasia Island is another world from Santorini Island (even if at some point it was part of Santorini). We decided to walk up UP to Thirasia village and as is mentioned in the guide, we discovered that the village is mostly inhabited by…cats !! Except for the cats, it is like a ghost village, yet very authentic and charming, and the view from there on the caldera is magic !! When we came down all the stairs again and from there we saw that a charter sail boat was moored next to our boat and when we saw the guys on the boat we were worried that they would be a noisy crew, yet as it turned out, we were wrong (and possibly also because the nights are still cold hence when they came back from the restaurant they directly went inside of their boat which I was happy about since our cabin was not far away from their cockpit !) The next day we had a VIP day to Santorini - which Tanya very much enjoyed ! Namely : We asked our friend Manolo to pick us up on our boat to bring us to the Captain John restaurant. From there we took a tourist boat (the only boat that crossed to Santorini Island at 12.15 pm) to Oia (Ammoudi Bay) In Oia we picked up our car rental (all organised by my special tour operator Roberto !!:) We drove to Fira - the Island’s capital - were we visited the very charming, yet touristic village, admiring the hotels built on the cliffs with a view on the caldera and the many shops (from highly luxurious shops to the “Greek bazar” ones) and were we had an amazing lunch on the terrace of “Kalya” restaurant - we ordered a hummus to share and discovered that not all hummus are the same, this one was just exquisite (it had a bit of truffle oil in it) and I took a tuna ceviche with an asian sauce, sooooo delicious !!!) We drove to ancient Thira. The road to get there made us drive through the wine area - we knew the wine business was big in Santorini and had the proof right there - so many vineyards) ! . The ancient Thira site was closed, yet the road and landscape of the area is well worth it (we could see through the gate the “ancient Thira”, yet you could hardly see anything, I do not think that these are amazing ruins). If we had had time we would have walked up (probably 1.5 hours steep walk). Driving down we could see the “black sand” beaches on the Southern coast We drove back to Oia were we left our car rental in a parking at the village entrance and then wandered in this very VERY charming village perched on the cliffs again and full of private villa rentals and hotels in the most amazing places ! We took an aperitif in a beautiful spot with a view but full of tourist waiting to see the sunset (and of course the drinks were awfully expensive and really NOT very good). While people were literally “migrating” to that part of the island to watch the sunset we went the other way inside the city for an early dinner in a charming wine bar called “Oia vineyart” where our waiter made us taste different local wines (none of which I really liked - but I am difficult to please according to Roberto !) with some very good food (Roberto tried the sheep meet which was not bad at all - I really liked it !). The restaurant’s motto was : “A day without wine is like a day without sunshine” which we kind of adhere to :). When we came out of the restaurant it was night time and the illuminated city was like in a fairytale, really beautiful and so charming ! We went down the stairs to Ammoudi Bay where a water taxi (Manolo again) picked us up to bring us to our boat (the view of all the villages lit on the caldera was magic) ! I just loved that day :) The next morning before sailing to Anafi (where we arrived today around 2 pm after a beautiful sail - between 15 and 22 knots with an average speed of 8 knots), we passed in front of the Southern beaches - outside of the Caldera and saw a festival of different volcanic rocks colours and the red beach - all very very special ! In sum - do not MISS Santorini island !!       |