aliholli: SANTORINI, GREECE.

I think we have just about recovered from our day in Santorini.

What a crazy day.

Everyone on the ship was buzzing when we arrived. We had all seen the brochures with the stunning photographs of the blue and white houses on the hilltops of the cadera, and having had the disappointment of missing Mykonos, we couldn't wait to get off the ship and see Santorini for ourselves.

We looked over our balcony and saw the tender ships were ready.

We also saw waves.

Choppy choppy choppy.

The shuttle boat pilots weren't concerned though, they needed to get the cruise ship passengers on to their beautiful island to buy some crafts, so we boarded the boats and oh dear Lordy,it was choppy.

We had 2 choices to get up to the town of Fira. The cablecar? Or the zigzag footpath?

The cable car queue was ridiculous so we went for the energetic option.

Husb was feeling decidedly ill and seasick after being bounced about in the shuttle boat and I wasn't feeling too grand either, so it didn't help that when we started climbing up the zigzag path, we came face to face with a herd of smelly donkeys hurtling back down. I couldn't risk a photo of them as there were tens of hundreds of them all thundering towards us as well as the next lot of donkeys coming back up again.

Thighs were being squashed, we were flattened against the wall, there were donkeys everywhere. Add to this some little old men urging the donkeys down.

At one point, no, at several points, gusts of wind blew dried donkey poo into our faces, along with hay and straw and all I could think about were my eyes.

MY EYES! :/

and Husb was getting sqwiffier by the minute.

This gives NO INDICATION WHATSOEVER of how fast the donkeys were running down.

After about 45 minutes of being sandwiched in the middle of a donkey derby we got to the top.

And to be fair it was stunning.

An enormous volcanic explosion created this current geological caldera.

The explosion caused the entire centre of the island to sink leaving a giant central lagoon, surrounded on 3 sides by steep cliffs, 300m high. The cliffs are topped with gleaming white houses and churches, it looks like icing sugar has been sprinkled all over the top of the volcanic rock.It is quite spectacular, and even more so against an intensely blue sky.

The entire center of the circular island sank into the sea during the tremendous volcanic explosion of 3.500 years ago. The eruption caused tidal waves which virtually wiped out the advanced Minoan civilization of Crete 70 miles to the south. Some scholars believe that the island is part of the legendary lost continent of Atlantis which supposedly slipped underwater during the disaster.

What remains today of Santorini is a large cresent-shaped island enclosing a vast bay, the largest caldera on earth (7X14 miles).

Santorini from the air. I didn't take this. :)

We went straight to the bus stop to Oia and just as we were beginning to feel better, we were faced with a bus journey like never before, windy roads, bottle necks, sheer cliff drops and drivers who wouldn't give way :)

There were arty shops, crafts, handmade goods, the usual tourist fayre but so much more classy, almost designer goods.

You could see the houses with swimming pools from miles away.

Oia was fabulous, but with time pressing we returned to Fira. The shuttle boats were still doing their job. The Santorini coastguards weren't going to let a few waves stop the shuttle boats bringing cruise passengers on to their island.

There was time for a Greek yoghurt with nuts, nuts and more nuts, and a beer in Murphy's Irish pub on a seat SO HAIRY it MUST have been sat on by a donkey handler...

...and then the walk back down the zigzag path. The donkeys had, by now, done their day's work so were being fed (well fed) and watered and rested so the walk back down was a little less alarming, thank goodness.