Wednesday, June 13, 2018: Port of Call – Santorini, Greece

Today was a partial travel day as we didn’t arrive in Santorini until 2:00 PM. I woke up and went down to Versailles for breakfast. I sat and drank several cups of coffee and read my news feeds before ordering. I had eggs over easy, hash browns, and bacon along with another melon plate.

I then went up to the pool area and was going to do some blog writing and people watching. Don and Frankie showed up and sat down. We chatted and people watched for an hour or so. It was a pretty comfortable temperature-wise until it got close to noon. We had an excursion and had to be at the theater by 1:30 so left to get things together.

There were 900 people going on excursions that day so it was a bit of a zoo in the theater. The excursion guy that announces the tours and what to do was getting a bit frustrated, I think, because people just don’t listen. We ended up getting boarded on a tender sometime after 2:00. We were boarded onto tenders and then put onto buses.Cliff

Cliffs up to towns on Santorini

The bus had to go up switchback narrow roads to get to the top of the island from the embarkation point. Those bus drivers deserve medals! They don’t seem to get frustrated or swear, at least out loud.

It was quite a ride to Oia and again along narrow roads. The island is so popular with tourists that most of the apartment rentals are now AirBnB type rentals so it is almost impossible to rent anything to live in as a local and cheaper to buy. And depending on where you look to buy it can be outrageously expensive. Sound familiar, Seattleites?

When we reached the town of Oia the bus pulled into a parking area where there were probably 15 buses packed in together. Again, those drivers are amazing the way they navigate the roads, avoid the people and cars not paying attention, and then maneuver into tight spots haphazardly in a parking lot. I wished I had taken a picture of it.

By this time it had been a couple hours since I left my stateroom and I had to pee! The tour guide said the toilet was about 10 minutes away which was fine. However, once we climbed up the hill and through the very crowded, narrow walkways she wanted to show us a couple of things before releasing us.

Well after a few minutes, I took off to find the bathroom. Frankie was out by the entrance to the area she had taken us into and went with me. The bathroom was another line up, of course, and you had to pay €.50 to use it.

We went back the way we had come so Frankie could show me a view area, we figured we had lost the rest of the crowd so we found a little place and sat and had a glass of wine.

The waters here are so blue and crystal clear. The buildings are all white and, for the most part, domed. They use domed or curved roofs because they don’t have the wood for beams. The structures look to be either brick or cement covered with something like stucco. Absolutely breathtaking vistas all around.

Town of FiraTown of Oia

We needed to be back to the bus in about 10 minutes and figured we had plenty of time but there were so many people and tours that it was a challenge to get through them. Finally there was a tour leader who was by himself and he just started clearing a path through so I got behind him and Frankie was behind me and we made it back to the bus in time. Of course, there were several others that were up to 15 minutes late. Very inconsiderate.

Next we went to another town for a ‘photo op’ stop. We parked and were taken up a hill where the guide pointed out a couple of picturesque buildings and said it took 10 minutes to walk up to them. Well, we only had 15 minutes to be back to the bus so only a couple of people went up there. We went to a little shop looked around with some purchases made.

Next it was off to a restaurant for our Greek celebration dinner. The place was huge. There had been 200 people from the ship going on this tour. Each bus had about 40 people led by a guide.

We were served 3 types of spreads: tzatziki, a Fava bean one that was similar to hummus, and a fish roe one. Then there were dolmades, shredded spinach salad and one like coleslaw with olive oil and vinegar to add, tomato fritters, slow cooked pork in some sort of sauce, and rice. The food was pretty good but we were all starving by then so that might have helped.

Then came the celebration part. Three women and one man came up in traditional Greek dress and performed some dances. They proceeded to pull up a lot of the guests to dance also. The guides brought out plates made of some sort of clay and then it was time to throw the plates on the floor around the male dancer. Opa!

Greek dancingPlate breaking dance

We boarded the bus again and were taken to a parking lot and dropped off. We had been told that it was a twenty minute walk to a cable car that would take us down the cliff to where the tenders would pick us up. It was all uphill and when we got close to the top the line stopped.

There had been at least 200 people dropped off at the same time and the line for the cable car stretch on for at least a quarter of a mile. We shuffled along there for around 45 minutes until it was finally our time to get on a 6 person car and go down the steep embankment.

Cable Car lineup

After getting into a hot, enclosed tender and back onboard ship, I was ready for a cold drink. I headed straight to Gatsby’s Bar and sat for a couple of drinks. Rachel and John were there so we did some pictures. All the bar gang wanted to get in on the action.

The tour was supposed to have been back by 7:45 but we didn’t get on the ship until almost 9:00, so it had been a long day. It had also been another hot one in the upper 80s. I went back to my room and took a shower and went to bed. My legs and feet were very tired from all the stairs, hills, and walking we had done.