Santorini - more of this island paradise

[Now that we've had more time we've written more about our short time on Santorini Island]

This is an amazing place - somewhere everyone should have on their "Bucket List".

After a few hours cruise from this morning's visit to Crete, we arrived. To land required small ferrys, of which a multitude were waiting offshore for us. I guess each one would carry 100 people.

We landed on shore at Santorini but the enxt challenge is to get up to the town at the top. The edge of the island is made up of massive shear cliffs hundreds of metres high. The options to get up are by cable car, which carries 40 people per trip 4 euros, donkey 5 euros, or walk up the donkey track - free. Jan had already stated that she wasn't going up on a donkey and didn't like the idea of the gondala. She doesn't enjoy heights. So, we and about 20 others took to the donkey track. It was scarey for Jan and others to star with as we had to pick our way through all the donkeys that were waiting victims but once we cleared them we worked hard at the climb. There are 533 steps, each one about 2 metres from the next. All concreted. It was really hot with the sun reflecting off the white concrete and being out of the breeze. At times the donkeys were close on our tracks so this kept us going quite quickly. We stopped a few times, panting and sweating to drink more water. We'd bought 2 x 500ml bottles of cold water at the bottom of the track thank goodness. We were some of the first from our boat to arrive at the top. Many waited in long queues for the gondola or donkeys as several cruise ships had arrived at once.

We got to the top and tried to find shade and air conditioned shops to cool off. Naturally, due to the energy exerted we continued to sweat profusely and were really wet. We found a local trader who made his own Gelato and bought one each - they were great as we slowly cooled down.

We only had a couple of hours to explore the island so walked around the tiny streets taking a few photos. Eventually we settled into a cliff top restaurant with a beer and a wine to absorb the amazing views. It was spectacular as you can see from the photos. We'd have happily sacrificed going to Crete to spend all day here but it wasn't to be.

After a fairly quick drink we had to head back, going back down the donkey track. Down was easy. As we redied to go down we could see huge queues forming for the gondola and thought fools, walk down. Later we learned that some people queued for 2 hours for the gondola. The walk down took 20 minutes max and wasn't unpleasant apart from getting past the donkeys congregated at the top.

We'd love to come back here and/or Mykonos one day - next time, flying in and spending a few days here. I can't imagine a more beautiful place exists in the world.

Jan's photos (new)...

Doug's photos (as per previous post)...