Thursday, May 28, 2015
This was the final day of our trip. After breakfast on our little balcony overlooking the caldera, we headed out. Throughout the trip Grace had been talking about taking a boat trip to the volcano in the center of the caldera, so the day before I made her figure out what to do and book it – I was tired of planning! We had a really good parking spot near our hotel, and by this point in the trip I was all about parking and was loathe to move the car, so we walked from Imeroviglio to Fira, an easy and pleasant 20-minute walk. The views along the way:
Fira is insanely busy and touristy but still kind of amusing. Here is Grace debating which obscene wooden bottle opener to purchase as a gift for Amanda. I was mildly mortified. When she paid for it the cashier said that it was their best-seller.
We grabbed a coffee at a café jutting over the cliff, then took the path down to the sea. This is the famous path that the donkeys travel up with tourists arriving by sea.
Those donkeys have little interest in sharing the path with anyone else, and sometimes it was a tight squeeze.
When we broke into open space on the path we had to really book, because we were cutting it close to make the departure of the boat. I must have been an amusing sight, leaping down the stairs, trying to avoid the copious donkey poop.
We struggled in the old harbor to find the right boat, and had a little kerfluffle over the fact that we had not printed our tickets (resulting in an extra 10 Euro charge – a mild scam), but we made it. The boat trip was a good call. First, it was great to get a perspective of Santorini from the water, where you can really appreciate the buildings perched on the cliffs. A good rule of thumb for travel: take to the water. Here are some shots pulling out of the old harbor:
Second, the volcano itself was fascinating. How lucky am I? – I got a tour of the ancient Agora in Greece with an archaeologist, and I got a tour of the Santorini volcano with a geologist. We skipped the group tour and walked on our own, with Grace explaining the geology to me.
Here’s the little harbor on the volcano, with Santorini in the distance:
Ha! Crazy hair. It was windy.
Walking back we happened upon a number of gas vents.
Above, the view toward Oia. Below, a good view of Fira and the donkey path.
Below, a view of Imerovigli up on the ridge, where our second hotel was.
After the tour we opted not to walk back up the path and took the cable car instead – our third one of the trip and probably the most dramatic ride. I guess Zagreb doesn’t count because it was a funicular.
Above, Fira from the cable car. Fira is not as picturesque as Oia or Imerovigli, but why be picky? It was all beautiful.
We had a lovely lunch on yet another patio jutting out over the cliffs. Walking back, we saw up close a phenomenon that you see all over Santorini: Asian couples getting photographed, with the woman in what appeared to be a Disney princess dress. We were told that the dresses are rented on the island.
Back at the Chromata, Grace took a dip in the infinity pool. Basically, I made her do this. She had requested an infinity pool, which wasn’t easy, so goddammit, she was going to get into the infinity pool, whether she wanted to or not.
Above, right and below, views from the Chromata in Imerovigli.
After lounging around for a while we got the car and drove back to the other side of the island, this time looking for the Black Beach. Compared to the Red Beach, this one is much more civilized, with lounge chairs and the possibility of having a waiter bring one a cocktail. We were pretty content to just lie there for a while reading.
I guess I should point out here that hitting both the Red Beach and the Black Beach was necessary in order to add to my rather large collection of sand from around the world, kept in spice jars. I had also collected sand from several locations earlier in the trip. (Indeed, Grace was irritated when I screeched to the side of the road in Montenegro and made her jump out with a baggie.)
Above, our little Smartcar. Below, a nice view along the drive back.
The plan for the evening was to drive back to Oia along the cliff road, finish up our shopping, eat dinner and finally see a sunset on Santorini! As we approached the car I started thinking this was a bad idea. Why hadn’t we just taken a cab? Why was I giving up this perfectly good parking spot in Imerovigli? And are those storm clouds?
We drove our tiny Smartcar about a mile before the heavens opened up. It was raining so hard that we had to pull over on the side of the road next to a gas station. Lightning was everywhere. The power went out at the gas station, and the giant sign in front started swaying in the heavy winds. But at least we were safe inside our car. Several sets of tourists on ATV’s pulled into the gas station, having come from the direction of Oia. One girl was crying – it can’t have been fun to be driving an ATV on a cliff road in a lightning storm. They were all thoroughly drenched, of course.
After half an hour the rain had only let up a little bit. We agreed that going to Oia was no longer an option, so we turned around. This was disappointing because — OK, this is shallow — we hadn’t finished our shopping. We still needed to hit a particular store where there was a linen shirt for Dave, and there was that bracelet I had admired….But there was really no choice. Even navigating the one mile back to Imerovigli was a challenge because all the roads had flooded.
As I’ve noted before, there is not much to Imerovigli. We had already eaten at one of the restaurants; one was full; and one was closed because the power was out from the storm. That left the Chromata, our hotel. I didn’t even know it was a real restaurant. When we sat down (around 8 pm) Grace and I were the only people there, so we had the waiter take some photos of our last night (infinity pool behind us; farmers’ tans under our sundresses from all the travel):
Pretty soon the place was packed, and it turned out that the Chromata restaurant was one of those places with tiny artistic dishes, perhaps a bit pretentious. I did love my anchovy appetizer:
The restaurant at the Chromata was the first time on the whole trip that we were surrounded by Americans (and a few Canadians). The large table of New Yorkers was obnoxious (and I’m a New Yorker). But the people next to us were nice, and they solved a mystery for us: the explanation for the brown spots that developed all over our white cardigans the first night in Santorini. Apparently it was sand from the Sahara that blew over the Mediterranean. It had been raining sand.
Anyway, we were highly amused by our many dishes (especially because it took forever and we drank a lot while waiting):
Lots of foam (above on fish, below, on rice pudding).
And that was the end of our last night of traveling.
POSTSCRIPT:
We never saw the famous sunset on Santorini. We did see the sun rise the next morning:
We left our hotel in Santorini at 6:30 in the morning, Greece time. It was a brutal trip home — Santorini to Athens to Munich to Boston to Newark. Twenty-four solid hours of travel.
Making our flight from Santorini and the connection in Athens was critical; I had even researched the on-time history of the flight (close to 100%) before booking it. At the airport in Santorini the airline (Ryanair) tried to pull a fast one similar to the mild boat scan: If you couldn’t pull up your boarding pass on your phone, there was a 25-euro charge to print. But no one could pull it up because there was no signal. There were too many irate people to bother charging everyone, so they just hand-wrote one for each person in line. Best boarding pass ever:
Making that flight was my very last thing to worry about on this trip. Once we got to Athens, it was all United’s problem if we didn’t make connections. As it turned out, in Athens we had ample time to kill and euros to spend so Grace replaced the backpack that she had all through college – time to start a new life! She inventoried the contents of her old backpack. My daughter carries rocks with her everywhere she goes (it’s that geology thing but perhaps not very wise – they are ROCKS, after all). Below, she’s sad to throw out the old one.
Everything went smoothly until we got to Boston (an extra little leg resulting from our using frequent flier miles for this trip), where our flight was delayed for two hours. I lost track of Grace for a while at Logan Airport and was getting alarmed until I spotted her (brand new backpack there for the taking):
We got home after midnight Princeton time Friday night, and we moved Grace into her new apartment outside D.C. on Sunday And our mother-daughter trip was history.