Our Greek Isles/Mediterranean
Crown Princess Cruise May 2009
Santorini Greece
We had to turn our clocks up one hour last night before we went to bed
as Santorini is one hour ahead. We were up at 5:30am but still weren't in
time to make it to breakfast before meeting up with the rest of the tour
group. This was a large group. There were 35 people on this tour.
We met at the International Cafe and then went on into the Davinici Dining Room to get our tender tickets. We didn't wait long before they called our tender ticket number.
We
paid our 4 euros per person to ride the cable cars up to the top. We were
there early and wasn't to meet up with the tour company till 9:15am. The
shops started to open while we were there waiting.
Once our guide was there we made our way down to the bus. We didn't travel far before we were out of the bus and walking down the steps to a magnificent view. We were walking amongst some of the hotels on the island. They are very intimate. Our guide, Maumua, I'm sure that is not spelled correctly but anyway she told us about some of the history and gave us a geological lesson too.
Santorini is made up of five islands. There is a volcano that vents from time to time and they expect it to erupt in the next ten years.
We had to climb back up all those steps to get back to the bus. Maumua said this was the hardest part of the tour today. She wanted to get that out of the way first. We were glad. We did get some good pictures and some good video from up there.
Our first set of pictures on Santorini.
We went to the town of Oia where we were able to shop and wander the street before meeting back with our group in front of the church in the square. Jerry and I went back toward where we started from and had a glass of the local white wine. It was very good. It was quite different as it was darker than white wine usually is unless it has gone bad. I left Jerry relaxing while I went shopping.
We
went to a little village for lunch that was on the beach. The airport was
not far from us. We could order anything but they told us to stay away from
grilled food as it would take longer to make. Jerry ordered one of the local
dishes and I ordered the Santorini pizza. It was very good. My pizza had
capers, mushrooms, olives and tomatoes on it...YUM, YUM, YUM!!
After lunch we were back on the bus headed to the winery. We went for some wine tasting and a chance to purchase some wine. We passed on the purchase since we still have some wine back in our cabin.
We are almost done for the day. We have one more stop the monastery on top of the mountain. We went up there. The view was beautiful but there was no going into the monastery as the monks have taken a vow of silence.
We were dropped off and made our way to the cable cars. This was a 
different
way from how we went down to the bus. There were quite a few beggars along
the way. Once we got to the shopping area where we had begun the queue was
very long. It snaked back and forth quite a ways. We hadn't bought our trinkets
so Jerry decided he should get in line while I went and got the trinkets
and t-shirts. He told me which one he wanted and I was off. I got our t-shirts
real quick like and then headed back to find Jerry. Oh my gosh, there were
so many more people and the line had gotten longer. I was unable to find
him at first and finally ducked into a little shop. I bought our trinkets
there and was off to figure out how to find Jerry. I finally was able to
spot him and got in line with him.
By the time we stepped onto the ship from the tender it had been a little more than one hour from the time Jerry had gotten in line. The last tender is at 5:30pm and it was a little after 5pm when we stepped onto the ship.
There
were a lot of people who ended up walking down instead of taking the cable
car or donkey. We did the cable car for 4 euros per person and the donkey
ride was 5 euros per person. Those who we talked to that walked down were
telling us how smelly it was and some times the donkeys are coming right
at you not to mention you were dodging the donkey pooh. I'm glad we passed
on that one!!!
We had a couple passengers that didn't come back till late, they were on the last tender that had the crew and all their stuff from portside. They were a bit embarrassed as they came back to the ship. I guess we were about 30 minutes late in leaving Santorini.
Santorini is a great island and somewhere we wouldn't mind coming back to stay for a while.