My Personal Greek A to Ω – Y (Upsilon) is for Uποβρύχιος or Underwater (City of Atlantis)

We travelled from Ios to Santorini by highspeed ferry, which is more expensive than a regular boat but gets where it is going twice as quickly.  I prefer the alternative but this wasn’t so bad and at least it was possible to go out on deck.  The approach to Santorini is truly spectacular and once the ferry has slipped through the ring of islands and into the blue caldera the hilltop towns of first Oia and then Thira come into view.  Some say that this is the exact spot of the mythical underwater ocean city of Atlantis and I like to think that somewhere down there in the inky blackness is Troy Tempest in his submarine Stingray searching for the elusive and mysterious Marina.

 

Across the water from Thira was a black island with rocks distorted in twisted agony just as the volcano left them when it erupted and spilled into the water in the throes of an explosive birth. The eruption that created the caldera was among the largest volcanic explosions in the history of the planet that measured six on the Volcanic Explosivity Index, which may not sound that impressive but is just about as big as you can get.  This would have been a fairly big bang and when it went off it would be sensible to be standing well back because it ejected an estimated sixty cubic kilometres of material as it blew the unfortunate island apart and destroyed the Minoan civilization both here and on the nearby island of Crete.

 

Santorini is an island of contrasts and it is a shame that the ferry doesn’t dock at Thira but carries on to a harbour a few kilometres south, which is an unfortunate mass of ugly concrete, tacky souvenir shops, bus stops and taxi ranks and doesn’t present the arriving visitor with the most pleasing aspect of the island.  We ignored the taxis and found the bus for Thira and it left quite quickly up a long snaking road that led up to the top of the cliffs and the road to the island capital.  It was a short trip through some of the less picturesque parts of the island and once there it deposited us in the bus station at the back of the town.  Surrounded by tourist shops selling cheap souvenirs this may not be the best part of Thira but it doesn’t take long to get there and in only five minutes we were at the picture postcard front of the town looking over the sea.  Everything there is impossibly bright, whitewashed buildings, giddy steps raking down to the sea and blue domed churches.  After a drink and a baklava in an expensive café with a great view we walked along the entire length of the cliff top admiring the sea on one side and the little buildings clinging to the rocks on the other.

A problem with Thira however is that because it is so popular it can be really overcrowded and busy.  Down in the bay there were six cruise ships all shuttling their guests to the town and filling the place to overflowing.  These days the average cruise ship weighs about one hundred and twenty thousand tonnes, is three hundred metres long and has almost four thousand passengers so that is about twenty thousand cruisers joining all of the regular holidaymakers and day trippers like us and easily outnumbering the indigenous population of twelve thousand and making the place fit to burst at the fragile seams.

 

As the little shuttle boats kept bringing people ashore and the overworked donkeys transported them up the raking steps  the crowds were at the peak of their numbers and the shops and cafés were all full to the brim so this seemed a good time to leave Thira and get the bus to the nearby town of Oia at the very north of the island.  The ride provided more contrast as the road followed a high mountain to the left and a flat fertile plain many metres below.  The road clings to the top of the mountain and provides splendid views but you really have to hope that the bus has had its brakes regularly maintained!

Oia is even more picturesque than Thira but fortunately not nearly so crowded and we walked along the top of the cliff, along narrow roads and down twisting footpaths, around churches, windmills and a castle and it was so much more leisurely and enjoyable than the capital.  The town has stricter rules on development and commerce and has managed to successfully protect itself from the excesses of tourism.  It was now extremely hot and as the sun blazed and the rays bounced around the whitewashed streets and houses it made us think of mythos and shade so we found a taverna in a back street and enjoyed a meal at about half of the prices in Thira.

 

Oia is famous for its sunsets and about an hour before the appointed time, coaches, buses and cars flood into the little town and brings hundreds of people in to see the spectacle.  They take up position all along the little streets and the place becomes overcrowded and far too busy so I was glad that we were going in the opposite direction and back to Thira which by now was much quieter as all of the cruise ships had started to leave.  Quite by chance we had timed our visit to perfection and here is my visiting Santorini tip; go first to Oia because while Thira boils over with visitors during the day it is empty in Oia and when this town starts to fill up for the sunset go back to Thira which calms down nicely at about this time when the cruisers all leave.  You can see the sunset in Thira just as well as Oia and let’s be honest, it is exactly the same sunset anyway!

 

We sat for a while on a roof top terrace with a good view of the caldera, the town and the mule trains with their grumpy drovers transporting tourists back and forth down a precariously dangerous twisting track consisting of five hundred and eighty numbered steps to the harbour below and back to their ships.  The terrace had a good view over the harbour and we watched the cruise ships taking people away to exciting new destinations.

We watched the electric red sunset but had to leave in a bit of a rush to get back to the bus station and take our transport back to the port.  Not quite as elegant a departure as the cruisers I have to confess but it was efficient and we returned to the harbour in good time for our return high-speed ferry back to Ios.  This is a great island but a fourth visit to Santorini will probably be my last for a while so I watched it slip away behind the ferry as we left with no urgent plans to return.