One thing that occurred to us was that our ferry was probably going to be crammed after 2 full days of strikes. Because of this, we got up even earlier and left our accommodation at 6.11am, arriving at the port at 6.22. This looked a little more promising! No big crowds of people, cars seeming to be in the right place. We weren’t sure where to line up, when we realised people were boarding already. Awesome!
We joined the very short queue and soon enough, we were aboard. The day before we had scoped the ship from the ground and decided the 2nd level would be best for us, out the back of course (none of this inside business for us). We powered our way up the escalater and stairs with our luggage, and landed on level 2. I started making my way to a table, and noticed Dan was making his way to another. His made far more sense. We sat sort of in the corner of the back of the open area, but glassed in, with easy access to the front and side of the ship - and best of all, an alcove for our luggage.
We settled in and made ourselves comfortable, stretching our belongings over the table next to us. A voice came over the loudspeaker - accompanied by a 3 note tone that was very reminiscent of the chorus of “Evacuate the Dancefloor” by Cascada (and has caused a serious ear worm for the last few days), telling us not to put our luggage on chairs. We relented and took our things off, realising that the boat would probably need all available seats.
Soon enough, a middle aged couple asked if they could sit at the table next to us, to which we said of course. We ended up having an amazing chat with them across the course of the 8 hour journey: they were of Indian descent but from South Africa, and as he was a doctor they traveled everyone 2 months for 2 weeks to different destinations around the world. I think their travel style may have been a little more high-class than ours, but it was really lovely talking with them for the journey. They too were headed to Santorini but were staying in a different town, so chances of running into them again were slim.
Once we had set off, it was time for breakfast, so we pulled out our muesli and tucked into it, while the loudspeaker started to tell us “Goody’s restaurant is now open. Enjoy your meal.” This message would continue to play (accompanied by the 3 note tone), roughly every 10 minutes for the next 8 hours. We eventually caved and bought Goody’s. I jest, well, it really did tell us every 10 minutes - we timed it - but we had always intended on trying Goody’s. It’s a Greek fast food chain, and actually quite reasonably priced. We each got a burger and friends (maxi, for an extra 20x) and a giant soft drink. Our neighbours collected their Goody’s at about 10am, and from 10am until about 11.55am I asked Dan every few minutes whether we could have lunch yet. He eventually relented (yaaaasss) when we pulled into Paros, and there was a lull in people milling around.
I forgot to mention the people. So while we were sitting in our perfect spot because we got there at ridiculous o’clock, we watched probably close to hundreds of people boarding the boat. The ticket office had told us to get there half an hour early, which we ignored and got there much earlier, but a very large portion of people adhered to this advice. There were also a lot of people who got there early - like we did. This mean that by the final waves of people getting on (either foot passengers or via car) - there were practically no free seats left. I say free, because on a tour of the ship I noticed that a lot of the “airline” seats were available. These were an extra 5€ and could recline. Woo! No one wanted to upgrade to these, so they remained free while everyone crowded in all the free areas.
Above our spot was the kennels, and there was a poor dog in there that barked on the staccato for basically the whole 8 hours. Luckily for us, the sound of the ship muffled it most of the time. Another time I was walking around the boat, I could hear loud and very clear bird song, to find a lady, inside, surrounded by bird cages. Most of the journey passed quick enough - the last little bit seemed to drag bur soon it was time to collect our luggage and depart.
Sounds easy, but it was a bit of a trial. Shouldering our masses of backpacks, we snaked down to the bottom deck with hundreds of other people. We were shepherded across the parking deck, squashed against people, jostling. We could hear the boat changing gear. We could feel the boat turning around. But the boat ramp wasn’t lowering - we hadn’t come to a stop yet. We stood here for probably 20 minutes with no clear sign of release. The suddenly - a sliver of light from the ceiling - the ramp was lowering!
The people around us CHEERED and screamed and hollered, even Dan and I joined in. I think some of the people here had been waiting since Wednesday to make it to Santorini, and had finally made it. Dan and I had little pangs of excitement - but first, we had to figure out how to actually get to Thira/Fira from the dock (so I hadn’t fully settled into my excitement yet). The boat was still moving as the ramp was lowering and eventually BANG, it landed, and we all flooded off, surrounded by people filming their arrival walk onto the island.
We veered left with the crowd and soon Dan saw a sign for a public bus. We went towards it, and want ensued was perhaps the most confusing 10 minutes of my life. Someone told us “Bus 4” was the one the Thira, but we just joined the crowd trying to buy tickets. People seemed to be throwing their things under the bus, but it didn’t make sense to us to put our belongings under the bus and then try for a ticket - what if they all sold out?
After being seriously jostled, I started to get really pushy back and made it to the front of the line, and got us two tickets. I was shouted at for having my luggage, and eventually we worked our way back out of the queue, put our luggage under the bus, and shouted at trying to get back on the bus, sans luggage. It was all very chaotic and stressful - exacerbated by the ridiculous number of people as a result of the strike. We pushed our way on the bus, fell in a seat, and finally breathed a very small sigh of a relied. We were on a bus. We would see where it takes us, hopefully our luggage is on there, fingers crossed.
The bus filled up quickly and there were a few people standing the aisle, but not many. We could see other buses turning away people and getting them to take their luggage out as there was no room for them, so I was glad - even with the shouting - that we had managed to make it onto a bus. We took off - up and up we climbed, through the zigzag road that would scale the sheer clifff that skirts one whole side of Santoniri. Later on I would think, “Why did they make their settlements up on the cliff face and not in the plain on the other side?”
Zigginag and zagging, we eventually reached the Thira bus station. Again due to the sheer number of people and cars from the strike delays, this took longer than it should have, but we got there in the end. Our accommodation, Sea of Aegeon, was about a 10 minute (unladen) walk from the station, so once off the bus we began the walk. Dan had google earthed the route and it all looked familiar to him. There was no footpath (well, not serviceable anyway) so we had to walk on the road, but cars and ATV’s and scooters seemed to know what to do with us and so the walk was, considering, relatively easy. I had read that there was a very steep hill at the entrance of our accommodation (many people complained about it), and so we steeled ourselves for this at the end of our walk.
In turned out that the steep hill with down in this direction, so that was a relief! Although with my slippery shoes, I was very cautious but realised there were some narrow steps to the side. Thank god, we didn’t have to go up. We saw Sea of Aegeon (yes, spelled like that, not “aegean”), and made our way inside.
We were greeted by a lovely lady - I have the highest recommendations for this accommodation - who said she would give us an upgrade to a room with a little balcony and was on this floor, not sort of underground. That was nice! She told us to get ourselves settled, and then come back to the counter and she’ll give us some maps and information about the island. Our room was quite lovely - twin, but she told us to push the beds together, with a little fridge and a balcony on the outside. It was overlooking some other white washed terraces - by this stage I hadn’t even had a chance to look at the typical Santorini architecure - which was quite lovely.
Returning to the counter, she gave us a map of the island and some information about tours, one was a full day tour that went to the volcano, hot pools, Thirissa and Ioa, and a short one that just went to the volcano and the hot pools. We returning to our room to deliberate and get ready to go out, and decided we would do the small one - volcano and hot pools. We booked this tour, and headed out into the evening
The original plan was to hike from Thira to Oia this evening, but we were both too stuffed to even contemplate this - and the time was much later than we expected, so we chose to watch the sunset in Thira instead. Thira is right in the middle of Santorini, and when the sun sets, it fills the bay. First though: we needed some supplied. We headed to the main square in search of a supermarket. This proved a little problematic, but on the outskirts we happened to find one. We got some cheese and crackers and ham for a picnic dinner, and some wine. Lots of wine. A large 1.5L bottle that was only €4 and a small 500ml bottle of rose for €1.50. The idea was that we would find somewhere to picnic and watch the sunset.
We also grabbed some muesli as we were running out, and a couple of other bits and pieces. Leaving the store (purchasing our wares was definitely on “ish” time), we raced to the edge of the town to find a spot for the sunset. Turns out, there’s really no where to picnic. I hadn’t considered this. In hindsight, it makes perfect sense, but the whole town is walled in at the top, with stairs down to the port. There’s no grassy knoll to sit on. The walls were lined with people getting ready to take their photos of the famous sunset, and we decided to watch the sunset from here, and then take our cheese and wine back to our hotel and eat that there.
The sunset was beautiful, with the sun streak filling the bay. The end of the sunset was obscured by clouds as the sun dipped behind the volcano island infant of us.
We meandered our way back through some of the Thira streets back to our accommodation, dished up our cheese and wine (which was pretty tasty!) - oh, one of the cheese we bought turned out to be cottage cheese, which was ok, but a bit surprising. We obviously couldn’t’ read anything on the labels! Soon it was time for bed - the next day we had planned quite a lot of activities, and needed our sleep!
Til next time,
xxx
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