Okay, we have explored the ridge line of the crater, now let’s see what the Greek Islands are famous for, the beaches. Santorini is not known for it’s beaches. Today we will go to Perissa beach, a black sand beach about 2 miles long and see what is there. It rained hard last night. Large puddles are everywhere and the cushions on our wrought iron chairs on the deck are soaked.
As I sat writing my blog this morning, the pad turned up to keep my bum dry, the maid came out and brought me a dry towel to sit on. Very kind.
All the busses heading south from Thera stop at the bus stop in front of our bakery. None of them have the usual signs of a city bus, therefore the driver pulls over and asks where you are going. If his bus is headed that way, climb on. If not, wait for the next bus. All the buses come from the Thera bus depot in the center of town. It is about a two minute drive down the hill to our bus stop. The schedule only tells when it is supposed to leave Thera, so a little mental math can deduce the arrival time. This true all over the island. The only times given are departure times from the ends of the runs so you have to do a little figuring to predict arrival times in the middle of the runs.
All the busses left the station at 10:00 and each one came by our stop. Not until the third one came by did we get on board, bound for Perissa beach.
Each bus has a driver and a helper. The helper collects the fare once the bus is underway. On this bus the helper was a young man of 18 or so. He always kind and helpful in getting us to where we wanted to go. Renos at the hotel had suggested we get off the bus between the two main towns Perissa and??? In a place called Tranquilo. The kid said there was not a bus stop there but they would drop us there.
Once back on the ground we inquired in a shop which way to the beach and headed that way. A couple hundred yards and we were on the beach. I stopped to put sun lotion on the tops of my feet. Even though it was a little cool (67°) with a stiff breeze and broken clouds I didn’t want my feet burning. We walked the length of the beach front road to Perissa stopping for a nice cream cone and to wade in the Aegean Sea.
The beach was deserted. We saw at most 15 people on the beach; far more vendors than customers.
We scurrried back to the bus stop to head to our second beach of the day Akratiri. The bus was 15 minutes late and dropped us at a road intersection. It was the same kid and driver. He told us where to stand to catch the bus to Akratiri. Judging from the leave times from Thera, we figured we had a 40 minute wait.
Back at the beginning of the day, we had visited the bakery before the bus to buy lunch, especially the chicken pie and spinach pie. Now, we enjoyed the chicken pie while waiting at the bus stop.
Here, I sprinted across the highway, dodging vehicles to get a soda and a donut from another bakery.
About 1:10pm the bus to Akratiri came flying around the corner. We paid our 1.60 euro each and boarded for the three mile drive to the beach.
As we were to learn, this driver and his helper were the antithesis of our last driver and helper. This driver was rude on the road as well as in the bus. He tailgated slower drivers (everyone was slower than he), talked on his phone while driving and spoke rudely to passengers and people on the street. His helper, again a younger man, was talking his clues from the driver and emulated his behavior. A study in contrasts.
It was only 3 miles to the end of the bus line, the beach at Akratiri. We exited the bus and took a. minute to orient ourselves. The beach front was a steep embankment. The road had been cut through that embankment to allow the cars and busses to get to the beach, but to the left and right the beach was narrow, squeezed between the water and steep face.
We had come to visit the Archeological site and now we were slightly confused as to where it was. Down the beach? Up on the hill? A van from one of the resorts was stopped her, the driver standing nearby. We queried him. He didn’t know, but in typical kind Greek fashion, he took out his phone and would not rest until he discovered our answer. It took a few minute to realize it was back up the hill a bit. We walked up and found the obvious site of the museum.
This archeological dig is amazing. In short, an entire city (3000BC) was buried 30 meters deep in the blast of a volcanic eruption, much like Pompei, but from what has been discovered all the people must have known of the eruption and fled. Only 3% of the city has be excavated and it shows 3 story buildings, sewer systems, streets and alleys, etc. To protect the dig and ruins, they have built a massive roof complex over the site and allow visitors in to see what has been found.
We spent an hour inside, walking through the ancient town feeling a bit frustrated at the lack of information to interpret what we were seeing. No audio guides were available, no written guides and only a few interpretive signs. Definitely needs to be researched when we have unfettered Internet access.
We wandered back to the bus stop, waited about 20 minutes for the bus. Same driver and helper. The bus company has each bus make round trips all day, about an hour a round trip. I suspect in the summer they have two or three busses doing the same on each route to accommodate the masses in the high season when COVID is not an issue.
We rode the bus to the bus depot in Thera, then walked down the hill the 3/4 mile back to our apartment. Here we spent a lazy few afternoon hours organizing, writing, reading up on the next day’s activities and watching videos about Mycenae and Olympia in preparation for the third stage of our adventure, the tour of the Peloponnesian Pennisula.
We had a Greek Salad at the bakery (not very good-no onions and tomatoes bitter), then walked up to Thera to watch the sunset. Before leaving the bakery, I went into ask the woman behind the counter is she could interpret a text I had gotten from the phone company. She had been so kind and friendly the past three days, each time we bought something she would giggle and say, “See you tomorrow.”
The phone company was giving me 1.2 GB of additional data if I downloaded their version of WhatsApp. She helped me do so. Thankfully, there was a lull in business and she had the time. We said our goodbyes.
Up in Thera, we stopped in at the gelato stand to say hi to the proprietor. He was a warm and welcoming as ever. He invited us behind the counter to preview our drive. On his laptop, using Google Maps, he traced out our road route to Mycenae, Olympia and Delphi, telling us three days was plenty and what a good time we will have.
We enjoyed another sunset, this time with clear skies all the way to the horizon, then walked back down to our apartment and bed.
Our last day on Santorini. Although we didn’t take advantage of the beaches as some might have, we enjoyed touring the island from one tip to the next and getting to know some of the people. The weather has been unseasonable cool (65º at night, 72º during the day with gusty winds) making swimming not to keen a prospect. We are hoping for swimming once we start walking the Corfu Trail. Overall, we had great fun and learned a lot. What an amazing geologic, cultural and historic place.
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