Our first stop in Greece is the Island of Santorini - home to all of the white buildings with blue roofs that you see on calendars. The island is ring shaped, due to a volcano that collapsed in on itself, leaving a caldera in the middle. The villages are very photogenic (second only to Rome, Alison) :-)
On day one, we rented a car (a tiny Smart car - which made Caroline very happy), and drove around the island. We went to the highest point on the island, which gave us a spectacular view of the caldera & all of the villages around it. There was a church at the top of the mountain, along with a military radar base (complete with a sign warning people of 'cancergenic radar emissions'. We didn't stay their long.) Following that, we drove to an awesome town called Pyrgos, which was a lot of fun to walk around.
(BTW - 'cancergenic'... their word, not mine)
Then it was time to hit the beaches. We went to the red beach, where the rocks are red due to their iron content. It was fun swimming there, but a little treacherous to reach the beach & get into the water - lots of rocks. Then we drove to the black beach, which was much easier to get to, but as you can imagine - the black sand/rocks were a little hot under the Mediterranean sun.
We finished the first day by watching the sunset in the town of Oia - which is spectacularly beautiful. I guess that's why there were several thousand people there watching the sunset.
Today we went on a cruise out to the volcanic peak in the center of the caldera. I went swimming in a hot springs - kind of weird to go from cool, blue ocean water to warm rusty water in the space of a few meters.
Then we went hiking to the top of the volcano. There was evidence of 4 eruption periods on the peak, so it was interesting to see the different types of rocks. The coolest thing, in my opinion, was a hole in the rock that was steaming hot. As you held your hand there, you realized you were not merely on a mountain - you were on a dormant (but not inactive) volcano!
BTW - I haven't taken the time to link pictures to this blog. But, you can check them (and all my other Europe photos) out at:
www.flickr.com/photos/theycallmecb
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yay! pretty pictures, CB. today we went canoeing and in the middle of this i told jon to imagine he is in greece. he couldn't convince himself the st croix was anything like greece no matter how hard he tried. i especially like the blue & orange church. it all looks kinda cartoony, but i know it's real. glad you're doing well.
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