We arrived in Santorini early on Halloween: I had to get up early to catch
my tour of the island. After a quick breakfast, my tour group and I took a tender
into port.
Santorini is interesting just for its geology: It's a set of small islands
in a ring formation. The place is volcanic and the islands were formed when the most
recent volcano blew itself to pieces around 1640 B.C. The most recent eruption was
in 1950, but it's fairly quite now. (I sure hoped so!)
Our first stop took us to Akrotiri, where there was a large archeological
dig going on. Minoan ruins discovered on Santorini are being examined for clues on that
period. There is some speculation that the 1640 eruption of Santorini is the basis
for the legend of Atlantis. At least our guide thought so: he was very enthusiastic
about the finds and seemed like he couldn't wait to get back to digging. Nice to see
someone enjoying their work. :-)
Afterwards, we headed for the town of Thera (a.k.a. Fira) to do some
sightseeing. Thera is a very beautiful town of whitewashed stucco overlooking the
central caldera of Santorini. Fantastic view: we could see the central volcano and
the ship in the distance. There were cats everywhere (as I would find out in later trips, this seemed to be a common feature of
Mediterranean islands) When the sun came out (it was rather overcast that day)
everything seemed to shine!
All to soon, it was time to head back to the ship. To get back down,
there were two choices: a mule ride, or a cable car. Not wanting to have a sore ass
(hah!), I elected for the cable car, which went almost straight down
the cliff back down to the dock.
We departed that afternoon for Mykonos. I decided to try and get a
little exercise in the ship's gym while we headed out: it had a nice selection of
equipment, I found!
We arrived in Mykonos that evening. It's a popular resort area, and
was filled with shops and nightclubs. I wandered the streets for a while, looking at
the people and places. The whitewashed buildings seemed to glow with all the lights.
It looked like people were having lots of fun!
I picked up a small ice cream snack before I headed back to the ship.
One thing I *didn't* get (which I now regret) is a pin from the
Hard Rock Cafe on the island! It's become a habit with me on my trips to pick up a
pin from a Hard Rock if one is around.
I grabbed some dinner after I got back on the ship. Afterwards,
I decided to head to the ballroom to see what the toga party was like! There
were lots of people dancing in a Conga line, laughing up a storm!
I hit the casinos that evening to try my luck at the slots. I ran
into a girl I'd met on the Santorini excursion: she somehow got to tell the story of her
life (unfortunately, it hadn't been going so well) She also claimed to be good luck
at the slots: people near her would win (although she wouldn't!). I gave this theory
a test, and while it seemed to work for a while I still ended up poorer than when I
started!
Feeling a little shell-shocked, I cashed in my chips (or actually, what
was left of them), and headed off to bed. Tomorrow: Rhodes!
Santorini & Mykonos, Greece