Hi Everyone,

 

The Cyclade Island of Santorini is the iconic island that everyone thinks of when we imagine Greece, white cube houses and blue domed churches perched on the edge of a ridge formed by a volcano.

 

We had a good look at the charts and pilot book, also taking advice from other sailors.  The nature of the crater ( steep vertical shoreline ), means there are no shallow anchorages for a yacht and the marina on the island has an entrance which silts to shallow water of 1.6 m--- hopeless for our 2.3 draft needed to float !

 

So we did as other sailors have done here-----we took the ferry !!!

Tioram sat happily on the dock for the day whilst we took the high speed ferry the 50 mins from Folegandros to Santorini.

A sharp intake of breath for--- the 110 euros for the 2 of us for the day return, but safer and stress free. We chatted to a group of Americans from San Francisco, chartering a yacht---- they took the ferry too.

 

The ferry ride was very good on the fast speedjet cat and a bus from the dock speeded people to the Chora called Fira—the town on all the great pictures.

 

Santorini was formed from a series of volcanic explosions from around 1450 BC which destroyed the Minoan civilisation --- and perhaps Atlantis. The main eruption was one of the largest explosions in the history of the earth.  Thirty cubic metres of magma spewed out of the explosion with an ash cloud possibly 36km high into the atmosphere.  The centre of the huge mountain collapsed and the sea roared into what is now known as the Caldera, also creating a Tsunami wave.

There has been activity since, recorded through time with the most recent in 1956.

 

Today it is a spectacular tourist attraction and the views from the high village ‘Chora’ across the caldera to the inner islands and to the sea far below is truly breath taking.  The Chora  village of Fira set against the rim of the volcano is a photographers heaven. 

We really enjoyed the spectacle of the place, however we did feel that we were in a ‘tourist Disneyland’ in comparison to the less developed Chora’s we have seen of the other Cyclade islands.

 

Santorini is stunning and perhaps thirty years ago it would have been even more beautiful without the thousands of visitors it now has unceremoniously transported by cable car/ donkey/ or bus from the ferries and cruise liners.

We walked past the little streets, full of expensive jewellery shops and tourist souvenir shops with people avidly buying things , whilst the spectacular view sat behind them------???

 

No one can say anything about Santorini other than it is a wonderful place.  We were really pleased to have visited it-----especially in early season before the ‘crazy’ season kicks in.

 

The tiered houses, bars and restaurants nestle on the edge of the cliffs together with some very beautiful exclusive boutique hotels. Can you imagine small ‘infinity swimming pools’  looking out over the caldera ?

We walked to the highest point to get some lovely photographs away from the busy areas and you can see form the photographs just how spectacular it is--- and the photographs do not convey the huge panoramic view.  However, we hope in the future, Fira on Santorini can reclaim itself a little----- and we really hope that the other Chora's such as Serifos, Sifnos and Folegandros don't diminish into ‘tourist’ Disney.

 

Photos of........

Stunning chora and views of and from Fira, Santorini

 

and Tourist Disney-land Santorini.

 

love to all

 

Tina and Tony x x x