We were at sea on Sept. 13th. I spent the day laying out in the sun in a quiet spot on the upper deck and took no pictures.
Here we are on the observation deck as we are coming in to the harbor at Santorini Greece. As you can see it it quite windy. The country of Greece is made up of a couple large land masses and a more than 100 island of a variety of sizes There is a connection to Europe south of Albania, Macedonia and Bulgaria. Pretty much surrounded by water it lies between Italy and Turkey. The island of Santorini is a fairly small island kind of the in the middle of a cluster of islands between Turkey and the Greek mainland. Once we are anchored we will be taking a boat like the one below to the dock where we will board a bus to tour the island.
Karen and I took turns taking pictures.
In the photo above is a zigzag white line leading from the water up to the buildings on the ridge. There is also a cable car that transports the same path for those who do not want to walk the winding stairs. Below is another type of shuttle. I never saw them with sails up so I assume that the masts are mainly for looks.
When we got on board a shuttle/ferry I took pictures as we headed to a landing point about in the middle of the island. The island is a crescent shape with a really nice harbor on the west side. there are steep slopes all around the harbor you can see the switchback stairway in the photo above.
The photos above and below show buildings trimming the top of the cliffs
Here are a couple of the shuttle/ferry boats that were taking folks to the island and back to the ship.
I pasted together several shots to give a panorama view of the cliffs showing a more or less continuous row of buildings along the top.
Here are some closer in shot showing the interesting way in which building have been constructed over the edge of the cliffs.
Here we are about half way between the dock and the ship.
We got off of the boat and onto a bus and headed up this really twisty road to the top of the ridge.
Nearing the top and looking back over the harbor, in the photo below, our ship is in the opening between the small island on the upper left and the point of the cliff side on the right. you can see the layers of roads we have been coming over on our way to the top.
Our first stop on the bus tour was going to be to a winery. In the photos above and below are the vineyards. the Grape vines are not put up on trellises like we have seen almost everywhere else we have traveled, rather they wrap the vines in to a bird's nest shape. Apparently that helps with holding the moisture around the roots.
The winery has lots of large plazas and patios space with really great views over the harbor. We spent about an hour here getting some really nice pictures over looking the harbor.
We wandered to various points along the pathways, steps and patios to get a slightly different view, all of which were pretty good.
Here I am caught by Karen trying to decide if I have taken enough pictures from this spot.
After getting a shot from just about every angle I could find I decided to set and enjoy the place for a while.
After a nice rest in a pretty cool place we loaded back onto the bus and heading to the north end of the island to a little town called Oia. Along the way we took photos of the landscape and of interesting sights as we had the chance.
One of the interesting features of Santorini is that there are a lot of blue domed churches. There are a dozed towns on the island but there are over 250 churches. Most of the churches are privately owned and about the size of this unique one above. The small "family owned" churches are about the size of a one car garage. Most are close to the public. Even the larger ones like the one in the photo below are closed to the public, much different than the cathedrals in Italy.
The housing that is right on the edge of the cliff over looking the harbor is tightly packed together. But, as you can see in the photos above and below once you get out into the middle of the island the house seems to be spread out a bit more. The still have great views. You can get just a hint of the land behind the houses. On the back side of the housing the land falls away down a slope to a low lying area that is about half of the width of the island. In this low lying area is where most of the agriculture seems to be.
Houses are built mainly of concrete blocks and then plastered with stucco. In the photo above is the reinforced concrete frame work that will be filled in with blocks.
Above is another shot of the low lying lands on the east side of the island. In the photo below you and see that the islands were form by volcanic action and now the slopes have been pretty well terraced.
More churches of a variety of sizes and shapes..
The village of Oia Perched on the side of the cliffs are a variety structures that are creatively constructed to provide great views of the sea and wonderful scenery.
Several places are classic sites for photos.
We got several opportunities to place ourselves in some nice photos
Some of the the churches had these strings of banners. It was interesting to me to see that the
blue domes of the churches looked shinny from below and dull and dusty when seen from above.
The photo above was a place where several tourists were trying to get photos. We waited for our turn and found a willing person in line to take our picture.
It was clear that some pretty intense and creative effort and a lot of money had to be employed to get some of the houses placed where they were.
Most of the buildings to the south of the main heart of the village were painted in white. Most of these buildings were hotels or resort type dwellings.
The buildings to the north of the center of the village were painted a variety of earth tone colors. This end of town was where the private residential area were located.
Just about every where you looked there was a church with its typical blue dome.
The bell tower on this church is common here but somewhat unique. the three levels of bells represents the trinity Father on the top, the Son and the Holy Spirit on the two levels below.
I caught this shot of a fashion model posing on the steps, oh wait, that's Clarice.
There were no end of interesting views.
Above we get one more we were really here picture. Below and terracing of patios.
Along the main walkway there were several shops. The one above offered paintings of the picturesque scenes around us.
Even the pottery had Santorini images.
The pink building above is another small probably private church.
Several interesting images that just begged to be photographed.
Jon decided that this pink chair had to be used.
Clarice shows off a couple of her purchases. We loaded back onto the bus and headed to the the central town of the island.
Although there were few trees on the island these sycamores were as big as the ones back in Indiana.
The shopping areas were colorful and attracted attention of those walking by, including one old bearded guy who ended up with an orange and yellow Number 10 soccer jersey that will be great for high visibility shirt for bike riding next summer.
Clarice found a doughnut as big as her head. Shopping takes a lot of energy.
We found several narrow streets lined with shops.
As you might expect from the locations of the buildings constructed on the edge of the cliffs there would naturally be some steep stairs to climb
Just about the time we were thinking of heading for the cable car to take us to the dock to catch the transport boat back to the ship, we saw this endless stream of Spanish tourists all heading to the same cable car that we had hoped to take.
Unless we wanted to wait in line for an hour of two we would have to find another way to the dock and decided to take the only option which was that winding stair that we had seen earlier in the day. What we didn't realize until we got there was that we would be making the trek to the bottom with a herd of mules. Some people thought that renting a mule to ride was a good idea, but most people just walked.
As you can see the steps were full of people, many of them Spanish.
Karen and all the other people found that the steps were covered with the inevitable result of hundreds of mules walking up and down the steps day after day week after week and not porta-potties
Once at the bottom we could look back up the hillside
At the dock in addition to our transport below were dozens of small private little craft tied up in neat rows.
The transport took us back to the ship and the end of a great day in an interesting place.
No comments:
Post a Comment