Blue and White Country

Blue and White Islands

Donkey Riding...an experience John does not want to repeat!

Ruins at Delos, near Mykonos

Black sand on Red Beach

How do you tell the difference between Nancy and the woman who lives on Santorini? It’s easy. The local woman is wearing black leather boots, black tights, a black woolen knee-length skirt, a black woolen coat and a colorful scarf. Nancy is wearing Tiva sandals, no socks, a green cotton knee length skirt, a sleeveless blouse and she is carrying her black sweater. Is it me, or is it odd to wear winter clothes when it’s 20 degrees c in the shade? I suppose if that’s your average winter temperature, and your only excuse to show off your very glamorous winter look, then it’s not odd at all. The local people probably think I’m odd to be wearing summer clothes, but 20 degrees in the shade feels like an average summer day to me, and I’m happy o show off my warm weather look.

We spent eight nights on the Greek Islands and explored Mykonos and Santorini, with overnight stops in Syros and Chios.

We are not the only Canadians on this route. We figured out that we have not talked to any other Canadian travelers since we were in Beijing in August. Suddenly we are surrounded by them! We explored the archeological preserve on the island of Delos (off the coast of Mykonos) with a quartet from Niagara on the Lake. We met a couple from Winnipeg at Red Beach on the shores of Santorini. We directed an older couple from Ontario to the cable car at the port in Fira and we spotted “the flag” on several other occasions.

Highlights? The archeological preserve on Delos, a small island off Mykonos, was really interesting to explore. Some of the restored houses and streets are as complete as the ones we saw in Pompeii five years ago. We were able to wander on our own with a map, no tour guides to hustle us along and no souvenir venders to hassle us either. There’s a small museum and there we saw the usual mosaics and statues as well as kitchen stoves, toys, and everyday glass ware. It was a lot of fun to figure things out and imagine life there long ago.

The volcanic cone on Santorini was interesting too. The whole west side of the island is shaped around a volcanic caldera, which is underwater except for the volcanic cone in the center. It’s a pretty young bit of the earth….we went crunching up across the lava to the crater at the center where the steam is still venting. Yes, it smelled like sulfur! One of the Grade 7 Science units John would be studying if he were in school this year is about “the rock cycle”. We pretty much covered that unit while we were on Santorini.

Getting to and from the cone of the volcano was also an adventure. To get there we took the cable car down the cliff from the town of Fira to the port. We booked a ride on a “traditional ship” and John was very disappointed when they said we would not be sailing, in fact the boat wasn’t even equipped with sails on the masts. Sigh. On the way back from the volcano we stopped for a quick swim at something called a “hot springs beach.” Not really even a warm springs, but still warmer than Kootenay Lake in July, so what the heck. We swam, so did Leslie from Alaska and a young man from Ireland. The rest of the passengers stayed on the boat and watched. They are probably from warmer countries and think this is winter weather!

To get back to Fira we really went touristic and rode the Santorini donkeys up the cliff side path. My first experience on a donkey. Now I know: donkeys cannot be lead or guided by the rider. They will follow each other. They cannot be convinced by the rider to speed up or slow down. They will follow each other. They do not realize that their riders may be in mortal terror of falling off the cliff, they will take the outside track on every corner because they are following each other and that‘s the way the first one went. John does not want to repeat that experience. We had to go straight to lunch to recover.

We rented a car for a day and explored Santorini from north to south, east to west, up and down. Not much driving, really, because it’s not a big island. Nelson drove and John was navigator, they were figuring out how to use the GPS Nelson bought in Vienna. I sat in the back and narrated: “Oh, look at that view….Oh, I wonder what they farm here. …. Oh, I could live there….STOP…it’s the underground Wine Museum.” John was skeptical at first, but the wine museum turned out to be a lot of fun. We learned that commercial wine making was established on Santorini over 200 years ago, that the wine used to be traded in Odessa, Russia, for wood and building materials not available on the island, and that the vines are not trained to grow in rows like the ones we see in BC, but each wine is woven into a basket shape on the ground and pruned so that the grapes grow inside the basket. A white rock is placed beside each vine so that none are missed at harvest time. Suddenly we realized that all the hills we’d been driving past were not scrub brush, they were grape vines that had not been pruned yet! (Why did they make and store the wine underground? Because it was too hot above ground, I suppose.)

We played on the black sand at Red Beach, which was recommended to us because it‘s quite sheltered from the wind and it‘s an interesting climb over a headland to the beach itself. The rocks are all red or black or white pumice. (If you are on a cruise ship and don’t have time to go to that beach, you can buy yourself a piece of Red Beach pumice for a mere 1 euro at the souvenir shops!) We collected our own small samples.

Greece really is a blue and white country! All those photos you’ve seen in travel magazines are true. A lot of our time was spent walking and admiring the views of the sea, the narrow streets, the white houses, the citrus trees and the flowers still blooming everywhere. Though it’s the off season and some of the attractions are closed and all the hotel swimming pools have been drained for “winter” we think it’s the best time to visit. The streets are uncrowned, the folks are relaxed, and hey, it’s still 20 degrees C in the shade!