The Time We Watched the Sun Set in Santorini

Though we arrived in Santorini under the thick cloak of night, the port was all a bustle. Thousands of passengers disembarked the ferry in barely controlled chaos, under the illumination of one long row of restaurants, ticket offices and souvenir shops. Dozens of sun grizzled men and the odd khaki-and-polo-wearing tour guide stood off to the side of the ramp, vying for visibility, holding up signs proclaiming this hotel and that tour company. Others approached the newly arrived travelers directly, offering their services in broken English. In just 20 minutes of utter mayhem, everyone was funneled off into various forms of transportation, creating a caravan up the steep, sharp switchbacks to the top of the cliff.

See the white along the top of the cliffs that sort of looks like a snow-capping? Those are the townsites. Now do you have an idea how tall those cliffs are?

Having maintained a pretty (rapid) pace for our adventures on the mainland, Tania and I decided to make our first day on the island a beach day. Lured by the promises of frond umbrellas, beach recliners and uninterrupted relaxation, we made for the black beach of Perissa on the island’s southern shores. The beach itself was made up of millions of tiny, smooth black and grey pebbles, hot under the early-afternoon sun and given to allowing your feet to sink deeply between them. A quick drop off and water of the most splendid clear blue allowed us to see well beyond where we could touch. The little cove blocked off any surf, leaving just the people within it to disturb the calm, gentle lapping of the extra salty Mediterranean.

Perissa's black beach is more small, smooth pebble than sand.

Though it had been mighty tempting on a couple of previous occasions, we waited until Santorini to take our first dip in the Mediterannean.


We quickly took up residence underneath one of the frond umbrellas, where I napped in the shade, while Tania basked in the sunshine.

A couple of ocean dips, an afternoon nap in the shade (me) and plenty of tanning time (Tania) made our day simple and exquisite, even soul-refreshing. A beachside dinner, complete with fresh calamari was the perfect capper to just such a day.

Delicious calamari, not 50 meters from the Sea.

Now revitalized, Tania and I decided to make the most of our second day on the island with a boat trip, to conclude with watching the famous Oia sunset. As our bus descended the cliff side to the port, I was immediately glad that our first ascent had been in the dark. The switchbacks presented corners so sharp, extra space had been carved out beyond the pavement to allow the buses to just barely swing themselves around, the front of the bus having to get so close to the edge on each corner as to give the illusion of driving straight off. The straight passages were so narrow that two vehicles could not pass one another without one slowing and moving towards the edge, which in some cases didn’t have so much as a concrete barrier to line the road.

We look ready to sail, don't we?

Emulating the esthetic of a wooden tall ship sans billowing sails, the boat offered open-air seating lining both the port and starboard sides, along with benches in the middle of the deck, and a small canteen towards the bow. The sun bore down on us as we got underway. The sea air blew through my hair and occasional spray would sprinkle my face and shoulders, making the salty ocean smell even more present. Smiling, I closed my eyes and imagined home. I couldn’t very well keep my eyes closed for too long, though. It was impossible not to enjoy the views of the glimmering white town sites, perched high above the water, cut right into the top of the towering cliffs. Not for the first time, and certainly not the last time, the refrain from Rihanna’s “This is what you came for” played in my mind, reinforcing the song’s position as our Big Fat Greek Vacation theme song.

A ship similar to the one we were sailing on.

The first stop was the volcano island, where a 25-minute hike to the top revealed incredible panoramic vistas and the main caldera of a still very active volcano. From there, the half-crescent shape of Santorini is clearly visible, the only remaining suggestion of the island’s former shape. Santorini once formed an almost complete circle around a great mountain in the middle, with just a 30-meter sea passage permitting access to the inner depths of the island. Then, a massively powerful volcanic eruption obliterated the central mountain, and much of the surrounding island, leaving a smattering of disconnected islands in its wake. Lore holds that it’s the volcanic matter that traveled from this eruption in ancient Thira that caused the three days of darkness in Egypt.

A visit to the caldera is a Santorini must do.

It was here, at the summit of the volcano, that I made the misfortunate mistake of accidentally kicking a large volcanic stone and, though I’m still not sure exactly how, pulling the bulk of my large toenail right out of the nail bed. Tears sprang into my eyes before I could even make sense of the injury and the pain, immense as it was in the moment, all but subsided rather quickly, pushed aside by the embarrassment of having hurt myself and having so many people jump to my aid. As much as I appreciated the kindness of strangers offering tissues and pain killers and water and all number of suggestions, I could have done without the attention. I wanted very much to just get on with walking down the volcano, and it wasn’t until Tania pointed out the building puddle of blood pooling in my hiking sandals that I stopped a moment to further assess the wound. Still, I had to pull away from the group a moment on the way down and have a frustrated cry, not nearly so much from pain as from self-pity. Once back on the boat, a worker tended to my toe with water, iodine and anti-bacterial spray before wrapping it in gauze.

Turns out, I needed a handful of first aid supplies to survive my time in Greece.

By then, the boat was pulling in for the second stop, the hot spring island, where sulfur springs met ocean cove, creating a warm, salty pool. I watched, filled to the brim with jealousy as everyone else had the opportunity to jump from the boat to swim in the shimmering, taunting water below and over to the sulfuric cove.

The brown water is the sulfuric water, a natural hot spring formed in the sea cove.

Our third stop, in the small port below Thirassia proved just long enough for a delicious lunch of swordfish (Tania), octopus and prawns (me) on a deck once again overlooking the ocean. A quick sailing across to the primitive port below Oia preceded a hellish climb. I finally arrived at the top, beat red from exertion and the heat of the mid afternoon sun, but was quickly rewarded with THE view. You know, the one you think of when you hear “Santorini”: endless whitewashed cave homes, built directly into the cliffside, offset by the occasional blue domes of churches, blue doors and window frames and cascading flowers that pop in bright fuchsia, deep carmine, potent mauve and soft iris.

The people on donkeys look much happier about their ascent to Oia than I did at this point. But take a look at the donkeys. How do you think the donkeys feel?

Just <3

Tania and I spent the balance of the afternoon in the shops, and then found ourselves a perch from which to watch the sunset, the crowds already thickly dotting the narrow cobblestone passageways in anticipation. Patrons of the luxury Cliffside dwellings began to appear on their private terraces and in the small pools, anxious to watch the sunset in pure comfort. Tania and I took turns exploring a little further as the sun very gradually began to descend. Watching men struggling and huffing on the many steps carrying little children and their useless strollers, I made a mental note to never bring children that cannot walk under their own power. Truly, Oia is the first place I have ever been that comes close to approximating what it must have been like for our grandparents to “walk uphill both ways”.

There are almost no sustained flat stretches in Oia (have fun with a stroller taking stairs like that on every corner!) and as you can see, pedestrian traffic only throughout most of the community.

The total process of the sunset lasted a couple hours, but the most beautiful part was when the glow washed over Oia (look closely at the picture and see the hundreds of people gathered everywhere to watch the sunset). 

The sun set casts a beautiful glow on Oia, which I think is what makes this particular sunset so special.

After the sun set, everyone started clapping. This baffled me. Though, I suppose, God deserves to be appreciated too. 

A mixture of too much sunshine and poor sleep caught up with me over the next couple days and I struggled with a bad headache, the resulting nausea and pain related to my toe injury. Tania and I spent the morning after the sunset by the pool at our hotel, which was another little slice of paradise, before venturing back up the way of Oia. Local buses on the island are actually older charter buses, and tickets are all purchased inside the bus. So, even after they have exceeded the number of seated positions and clogged the narrow passageway with people sardined together, a bus attendant has to go up and down the aisle, collecting money from all new passengers who come aboard. I felt especially bad for the portly attendant in a pit-stained green Polo who had to wedge his bulk through the masses of people by force. To my eyes, every passage happened in slow motion, like the Wonka Mobile emerging from the rollers of the Wonka Wash. That poor man clearly rubs up against more people in a day that Sally Salisbury did in a year.

  

Mini paradise outside the hotel room.

My parting thought on Santorini is that it is at once exactly as you pictured, and nothing like you imagined. The villages themselves are the stuff of dreams, esthetically. But Oia is mostly just fancy accommodations and tourist shops. Riding the local bus between the villages also shows you the less-than-glamorous side of Santorini. Stretches of barren near-desert are scattered with the concrete skeletons of new housing projects, palm trees and the few other flora that can withstand high temperatures and little water. Everything is covered in a thick, chalky dust. For much of the island, beaches are non existent or inconvenient to access. But there is plenty of beauty, to be sure. In the south, these stretches give way to charming little seaside villages. To the north, they roll into the picturesque villages with stunning views over the ocean, dozens of meters below. The thing about Santorini is that there is little to no evidence of any other sorts of industry on the island. Everything seems to revolve around tourism. This makes it feel just a little bit like going to Vegas cause you really want to see the Eiffel tower up close, you know... put on, if that makes sense? Nevertheless, I count Santorini as a once in a lifetime experience, and I'm very grateful I had the opportunity to see for myself.