The Top Floor Flat

If Mykonos had the best mythology, Santorini – which was already winning hands down on beauty points – definitely was a close second. Home to two massive volcanoes, Santorini used to be a round island but is now a crescent moon shaped bit of land enclosing the volcanoes that are now islands in their own right. The massive eruption that caused this change in scenery is not only credited with causing the downfall of the mighty civiliasation of Crete when tidal waves rocked their island, but some also say that Santorini or a nearby island was home to the lost city of Atlantis which disappeared beneath the waves.

Lost civilisations aside, the volcanoes were also responsible for an incredibly unique island formation and Santorini’s landscape alternates between sheer cliffs on one side and long sloping beaches on the other. Although I didn’t have a chance to explore the famous red, black and white beaches, instead opting for the volcano tour, it was quite clear that I could easily spend a week on Santorini and not run out of things to see.

Because we had arrived and checked into our hotel relatively early, I was able to spend the afternoon exploring the town of Thira (also the official Greek name for the island) on my own. It was absolutely gorgeous and even after a few minutes of window shopping, also obvious that this was the place to go for unique jewelry and emptying your wallet. I met up with the group for dinner at a stunning restaurant practically jutting out over the water where we managed to order about twice as much food as necessary and take more pictures of the view than was probably strictly necessary.

The next day, and our one full day in Santorini, the majority of the group made our way down the donkey trail that navigated the cliff face to board a boat from the old port. The short boat ride took us first to the larger of the two volcanoes which is currently dormant. Although there were no boiling pits of lava, we did notice numerous sulfur chimneys releasing the gas into the air – according to some sources, the Oracle at Delphi sat on a sulfur chimney, breathing the fumes and inciting her prophecies. Although we didn’t have any babbling Cassandras in our midst, we weren’t ready to give up entirely on organic remedies from the volcanoes as the next stop on the boat was the hotsprings at the base of the second, and active, volcano. While the ‘hot’ springs were certainly more of a lukewarm, the rich mud in the water became a natural exfoliate and, a fact we didn’t realise until later, a brown dye for everything we were wearing. Oops.

On the boat ride back to the old port, the skies, which had been somewhat overcast for the first time in the trip, opened with a vengeance. Any plans to walk back up the donkey trail to town were quickly scrapped in favour of the gondola that would speed us and our now sopping belongings, to the top of the cliff. A hot shower and change of clothes later, we were all feeling much more comfortable but less than optimistic about the plans for the sunset dinner at the other end of the island. It was still a bit overcast and damp throughout the remainder of the afternoon – as I returned to the shopping streets of Thira – but by dinner time it had cleared enough for us to risk the trip to Oia, the town on the northern most tip of the island.

Oia was, if possible, even more gorgeous than Thira and whatever bad weather we had suffered during the day seemed to have cleared the air for a stunning sunset. We were completely in awe of the sky show and followed the natural fireworks with a lovely dinner in Oia and, after a bus ride back to Thira, an evening of drinking and dancing in town. Although we were all energised and ready to dance until dawn, the very large Aussie contingent on our trip set the tone for an early night – with the intention of getting up at 6:30am the next day to head back to the pub where they would be screening the Australian Football final. While I couldn’t be bothered to get up that early, at around halftime I joined in the fun and, despite still being rather unclear on the rules, had a fantastic time.

Our time on Santorini was way too short and I would have happily stayed another week but with my health improved and only a few days left of Greece we were off to Ios, the party capital of the Greek islands for some more hedonistic entertainment to finish off the trip.