Day 229 - Friday, Sept. 7
I was a little worried that Santorini was going to be filled with a whole lot of couples. Luckily, I had gotten a recommendation from some hostelmates in Athens about a hostel/hotel in Santorini that wasn't filled with honeymooners,
Anny's Studios. It ended up being a great spot, right at the beach in Perissa with quite a few other non-couple travelers.
Arrıvıng in Santorini, I was stunned to see how different it was from Mykonos. After many of the Croatian ıslands were quite similar, I guess I expected the same to be true ın Greece. But whereas Mykonos ıs just a pretty normal looking island, Santorini is a stunning archıpelago created by a long-ago volcanic eruption that resulted in a huge crater (technically a
caldera) filled with water in the middle and surrounded by a circular sheer cliff face, with all the whitewashed buildings perched on the edge.
Friday I didn't do much: explored Perissa, got settled in, socialized a bit with others in the hostel.
Day 230 - Saturday, Sept. 8
College football Saturday was here yet again. Games didn't start until 7pm and Clemson's game was at 7:30; so, after tending to some laundry, I spent the afternoon relaxing at the beach, where the popularity of Santorini as a romantic couples destination became more apparent. Perissa beach, where I was staying, is a cool black sand beach, and thanks to a stiff breeze and fairly cool temps, it wasn't too hot to walk on/lıe on (I wanted to say "lay on" because people use the term "lay out," but I thınk that might be wrong and it should be lie out, but I don't really know.)
I then, of course, spent the entire evening watching college football, as others at the hostel questioned my odd behavior, but at least a few of them seemed to understand and were themselves trying to figure out how to watch some games. Unlike like last Saturday (and the Thursday before and Monday after), this Saturday, I decided to call it a night before sunrise, and crashed after the second set of games were over at about 2am.
Day 231 - Sunday, Sept. 9
Sunday I did an organized boat tour of Santorini that included a stop at the "volcano" at the center of the crater/caldera/archipelago, with panoramic views of Santorini.
Then to the "hot springs," where the seismic activity heats a shallow inlet of ocean water:
Next stop: Therasıa, one of the islands that form the Santorini archipelago. As seen from the volcano:
Vıew of the bay from the top of Therasia:
No shortage of cats on Therasia:
They even have little white and blue boats to match their white and blue houses:
Then we headed over to Oia, which is the quintessential Santorini town that you see in most the stunning photos. It is incredibly picturesque - these pıcs hardly do it justice:
We stayed there for the sunset:
Day 232 - Monday, Sept. 10
Monday was another very uneventful day. I was planning to take a ferry that didn't leave until later that night. After sleeping in, I chilled out by the pool, watched a couple of movies, made plans for future travels, caught up on some emails, caught up on the blog a bit, and got some photos uploaded. I guess this is what passes for a productive day in the life of an unemployed homeless backpacker.
My ferry was delayed a couple of hours, but it finally showed up a little after midnight, and I was off to my last stop in the Greek islands, Rhodes.
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