Arriving in Santorini - Sept. 11, 2010

Saturday September 11, 2010

Senne's Summary: Took the ferry to Santorini, got settled in our hotel and did a preview walk of the main town Fira.

Today is the day we head to Santorini on the ferry. While we are waiting for our ferry, another ferry comes in. Steve times how long it takes them from the time they dock to the time they leave. In this time they unload cars and people, and load up cars and people. 4 minutes and 28 seconds! Don’t be late for your ferry… you will miss it (We watched two people run for it as it sailed away… they didn’t make it). We, however, did make our ferry.

As we approached Santorini, I was surprised to see how high up the villages were. I had imagined (in my extremely vivid imagination) that the cliffs were about 20 meters above the sea with houses and buildings up the cliff side. I was not correct. Instead the main city, Fira, is about 200 meters up the cliff side!

Santorini is WAAAAY up!

We debarked the ferry and started looking for our host as he had said he would pick us up at the port. We couldn’t find him. There were however TONS of people trying to get us to stay at their place. They are very noisy and insistent! After a few trips up and down we deduced that he wasn’t coming and managed to get into a mini-van with some other people (some is an understatement, two people sat in the front passenger bucket seat and one lady had to stand)

When we arrived at our hotel, the office was closed. Hmmmm. We wandered around knocking on doors. Just when Steve was about to walk to town to try to phone, Georgio our host showed up. He looked a little disheveled. We think perhaps that he was napping 😀 He thought we were arriving tomorrow, but luckily he had two rooms anyway. Phew. Greek people are a little more laid back about things…

We got ourselves organized in our room, discovered there was wifi (bonus!), and then went out to find some food (I thought it would be lunch… but it was later than I thought 😀)

We walk up a pretty busy, skinny road with speeding cars and attempt not to get run over. So far so good, none of us has been run over yet!

We find a nice little restaurant where we all have pretty good food. The highlight for me was the Santorini specialty—fried tomato balls. Very tasty!

After dinner we take a little stroll through the main town of Fira and enjoy the view from the clifftop. Santorini is definitely pretty, but it’s FULL of people and the main area smells like donkey poop! They have hundreds of donkeys carting people up the steps from the cruise ship port all day long (to be honest it makes me a bit sad).

We are looking forward to more exploring tomorrow!