Zoe On Tour 2013: Santorini

Itinerary

Ferry from Crete to Athens
Ferry to Santorini
Relax on an iconic Greek island

The long way to go

As you can see from this map it would be most convenient to travel to the Cyclades from Heraklion. It's not the high season yet, so it is impossible as there are no direct ferries or flights yet. This messed up our planning I can tell you!

Instead of a short direct trip, we had to take the ferry to Athens and then another ferry to to get to our Cyclades island destination of Santorini. This all proved proved tedious as each take 8 - 10 hours ...not good.

A wayward journey

So we set off for a long sea journey.

At 7.30pm we left our apartment to head to the port of Chania. We were full of food and ready to go. We were also quite tired which was good because this ferry went over night! And what a ferry it was. Not at all like the Rottnest ferry.

The Ferry

It's huge. Ferry from Chania to Athens

Captin drew and first mate Zoe will show you our room in a jiffy

I was so pooped that I decided to try and keep awake and they didn't have any coffee.

Our cabin

The ferry arrived in Athens just after 6am. We had to be up quite a bit before that. I am not usually that awake that early on a Monday but I didn't want to get left on the boat you see. I'm not like this on school mornings, although mum and dad would love it if I were.

Early morning walk to ferry #2

Another 8 hours on a boat was not exactly how I wanted to start the day but I wanted to go to Santorini so I'm not complaining (much). Ferry food was very expensive but the hot chocolates were fantastic.

Through the ferry window.

Gotta love Santorini!!! So picturesque isn't it.

It's not exactly warm and sunny mind you. Dad's friend called it Santo-rainy. It's freezing here at the moment. The wind shrieks as it finds its way through all the little spaces between doors and window panes. In spite of the chill, the place is just gorgeous.

Santorini isn't like Crete with its tall walls and balconys, it's quite different. The houses are built onto a sheer cliff face. The island is in a Caldera which means its on a volcano! Thousands of years ago the volcano had a massive eruption. The middle of the island sunk into the ocean (where the boats now dock and where our magnificent sunsets occur). The missing island (some say), gave birth to the myth of the lost city of Atlantis.

The Santorini goverment has told the people of Santorini to paint their walls white and dome their roofs to attract tourists to their old unexciting port town. The people embraced the idea and now tourists flock to see the white washed walls and blue domed roofs of Santorini. It is the iconic Greek island now. That's pretty good marketing.

The religious theme is really nice too. Here the people get to lay slips of paper with there prayers written on them in the church. If god grants their wishes they must return favour and build a church or bell tower on their property. isn't that a nice way of thinking about it.

Did I mention it was windy?