Thursday, June 28, 2012

Amoudi

Amoudi is a small port near Oia. It is a collection of houses, a couple of restaurants and a few boats. It is accessible by road and by a set of 250 stairs, which you can see here.





The stairs are traveled by two-legged and four-legged pedestrians. The donkeys leave obstacles that prove particularly challenging when climbing the stairs after nightfall.




One morning, we took a path around the point of the island. It was once a road that has since been destroyed by landslides so that passage is exciting.






We ate dinner one night in Amoudi, where the restaurant patios are at the edge of the water. Cats frequent many restaurants around Santorini, hoping for scraps of fish. We enjoyed Greek salad, calamari, octopus and Greek yogurt with local honey.



Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Beaches and beyond

The are about a dozen beaches in Santorini- most of them are black sand beaches. We explored several. During our explorations we discovered an area for children to ride their bikes. These would have been great additions to Camp Todd!
 






This is the road to the port of Fira where cruise ships unload busloads of tourists.






We settled for the afternoon in the beach of Perivolos.














We then drove to the highest point on the island where we took the panoramic photos in the first post. At the top is both a military post and a monastery.







We then explored other towns on the island. The architecture is striking throughout.






I hope to post about driving in Greece later, but one exciting characteristic is that the roads are quite narrow. This is a two-lane road.






Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Akrotiri and the Red Beach

There are many things to do on Santorini. One day we explored the southwest area of the island. Akrotiri is an excavation site of a Minoan Bronze Age settlement that was buried by the volcanic eruption. Archaeological work is still in progress and a mechanical roof protects the site.









Most of the island's beaches are black (see next post) but there is also a red beach and a white beach. The latter is only accessible by boat but we visited the red beach.






We also visited one of several wineries on the island, Boutari. Santorini wines are notable because of the acidity of the volcanic soil. Grape vines are trained close to the ground to better capture the moisture from the ground. Note the name of the van.




There are other means of transportation around Santorini, including ATVs, motor scooters and donkeys.