Santorini

Our next stop is Santorini.                                                                                     Roger has never been to Greece and although I came here when I last travelled, Naxos was the only Island that I visited.

The house that we have booked is unique. Most of the picture postcard part of Santorini is built up above the caldera (the volcanic rim); the majority of houses that are at sea level, are on the other side of the island where there are some volcanic sand beaches.  Having spent quite some time last year trying to find the ultimate Santorini house but being a bit dismayed by the prices, I found a house on three levels at the foot of the cliff below the traditional village of Oia, on the caldera . There are 300 steps to descend to reach the house.
We can’t wait to get there!
Rachel’s son Issa and his girlfriend Tegan who left NZ in April, have decided to join us for the week. We are all very exited as it is the closest to a family reunion that we are going to get for a while.

The six-hour ferry trip from Piraeus to Santorini is very full and everyone seems to be chain-smoking. We have an awful lot of luggage, as added to what we normally carry, we have bought groceries in Athens in the hope that they might be a lot cheaper than the food in Santorini.

After five hours, the boat stops at Naxos, where Issa and Tegan board. We have a happy reunion then carry on for another hour to Santorini.

The volume of people coming off the ferry is overwhelming and we struggle to down the three flights of stairs to the ground floor of the ferry.
We have a taxi – donkey connection to the house but perhaps the volume of our luggage causes our host to rethink the donkey transport and organise a boat, which will drop our bags to us later, instead.
We descend the 300 stairs in the hot sun, from the overcrowded village of Oia, to the sea, pressing up against the walls of the walkway as unwieldy, overworked donkeys make their way up the stairs with tourists on their backs.

Our house is amazing. Small and compact, on three levels, there is enough room for us all to squeeze in. We have a little terrace which steps down to the pebbly beach and two kayaks to use. Despite the very lucrative rental of most of the Santorini houses at this time of year, Armeni Bay is quite undeveloped and the houses next door are both old deserted fishing houses.

Roger and Issa, who have obviously both been starved of male company, get quite drunk, quite quickly and paddle out to a concrete mooring where they spend quite some time whooping and carrying on, before kayaking around the corner to watch the famed Santorini sunset with 2000 other people on boats.

The next evening, I go with them to watch the sunset from the kayaks which is very special as we can see the hundreds of people up on the cliffs and hundreds more on sunset cruises but we are just bobbing around, the only people on kayaks.

Our days at Santorini pass very happily. Issa is the ultimate child-entertainer and plays endless games of Backgammon and handball with the kids and together, they make a daily journey on the kayaks to Saint Nicolas church, which sits on a rock around the corner from Amoudi Bay, an old fishing village now covered in restaurants. As it is possible to drive down to Amoudi Bay, there are a lot of people who have made the walk further around the rocks to reach the church and people spend all day challenging themselves to the six metre jump into the water.

Louie, who loves a jumping challenge, insists on going to the church at least once a day for several hours. I go along on one occasion and spend more than half an hour standing on the edge looking over, while more and more people do a count down. Eventually I jump but land with my mouth open from screaming and swallow about a litre of water. But when I come up, everyone claps.

It is an unreal setting, floating in the clear blue water, below the huge looming cliffs of the Caldera with their frosting of white houses.

Santorini is, however, one of those places to whose demise you know you are contributing when you come as one of several thousand tourists a day. But that didn’t stop us complaining about all the tourists!

It turns out that the little sleepy bay of Armeni, with its one Seafood Taverna and six houses, was actually the main port of call for a string of day cruises which would pour in from 3pm. While we sat on our sun loungers, metres away hundreds of people poured off boats and either made their way up the 300 stairs on donkeys or made the exhausting walk themselves. Those that stayed behind propped themselves all over the rocks and sunbathed or swam.

Spying on the enormous luxury super-yachts that sit out in front of our house is another favourite pastime. I figure that if I can get a topless shot of someone famous, we can fund the rest of our trip. The excessiveness of these enormous boats is pretty sickening. Because the caldera is very deep, anchoring is not possible, so the boats keep their engines running continuously to remain stationary.

My first visit up the stairs, which I made at 6am to photograph the rising sun on the famous Santorini buildings, seemed to be the only time that one could move freely around the pedestrian streets.

Already there were three Asian wedding couples having photographs, to avoid the crowds. I’ve never seen someone fully made up for a wedding at six in the morning. I assume perhaps they were on their honeymoon and were having photos in retrospect. They have obviously also come to get photos of the famous blue-domed churches and they look rather impatient that I am there too.

Up in the town of Oia the crowd scene was even more crazy.
Each day some of us would go up the stairs to bring food, wine and beer down the 300 steps. Luckily Issa, Tegan and Rachel like a bit of exercise and we made the trip less often as it was one of those hot climbs that make you want to throw up.
The number of people on Santorini made getting around less desirable but we took a bus to the end of the island to see the buried settlement of Akrotiri, now an archaeological site, which was destroyed in a massive volcanic eruption, probably the same one that created the huge Caldera. My friend Elisa told me how much she had loved all of the mosaics, but like so many other ruins we have visited, all of the frescoes, mosaics and treasures have been moved to a museum somewhere nearby and we’ve come to the wrong place, although the site itself is very interesting.

What is more interesting is this wig, that we discover in a shop near the bus stop. It has been a while since we’ve seen Issa with hair.

We stay up in Oia to wait for the sunset and have a glass of wine in a little restaurant looking over the caldera.
Anywhere that looks over the caldera is exorbitantly expensive, although when we get it into perspective, it is still cheaper than going out in Ponsonby and the view is better.

The sunset experience is truly a crowd scene. It seems that everyone has come to the very end of the Island to watch the sun go down and there is a steady stream of foot traffic towards the end point of the village which makes moving forward very difficult.

Jasper and I find a little spot on a wall next to a violin and guitar player who are busking to the crowds. It feels like we’re at a festival and for a moment, sitting watching the crowds around us and listening to the music, it’s as if we’re part of a huge collective, except for the total lack of camaraderie between people, most of whom are gathered around us with selfie sticks and are so busy photographing themselves and the sunset that they are completely oblivious to the people around them.

A number of people have obviously treated the occasion like a photo shoot and have full make-up, heels and a hairdo, despite the cobbled streets which make walking in heels very challenging.  In fact, the whole Island is one continuous photo shoot.

Let’s take a small intermission and look at Roger, ready for his own Santorini photo shoot

We don’t stay for the sunset; after all, we have seen many sunsets and I am more interested in photographing in the opposite direction where the last of the light is falling on the cliffs.

Look, these people are having a photo shoot too. Don’t they look romantic?

On our last morning, we make the climb back up the hill. Luckily our bags have gone on a boat, although we are carrying the instruments which adds a difficulty factor of about 500 to the climb!
I realise that there are no photos of me in Santorini, just as we reach the top of the stairs and Stella takes a photo as we are leaving. There is sweat pouring down my front and pooling near my belly button and I can’t open my eyes as they they are full of sweat and sunscreen.

Issa and Tegan are catching a plane out of Santorini directly to London and we are going back on the ferry to Naxos where we will spend a week. Hopefully we will see them again in London in October.