Fast forward a few thousand years and you will see buildings perched on the top of the cliffs clinging to the very edges of the crater, and in the middle of the caldera a volcano that only emerged from the sea in 1700. In the satellite image above you can see the outline of the original island, the large land mass is Thiria where most of the population lives, although there are communities living on the largest island Thirasia, mostly poor villages supporting farming, sheep herding and fishing. Only about 13,000 people live here with the majority of the population supported by the tourist industry. In the center of the caldera is Nea Kamena, the volcano that emerged from the ocean in 1700, it has been occasionally erupting with the last event in 1954.
Santorini is best known for the white buildings built precariously on the sides of the cliffs, the churches with blue painted roofs and spectacular sunsets. As a major world tourist destination people arrive by ferry, cruise ship, and by air from all over the world. It is still off season here but the streets and tourist activities are crowded with people form Japan, Europe, hoards of students from Greece on the last trip of their senior year. I can only imagine what it must be like in summer.
Yesterday we took a six hour cruise around the caldera, stops included the Nea Kamena volcano where we climbed to the top and looked in the crater, a stop at one of the uninhabited islands to go swimming in the hot springs that bubble up from the volcano, then lunch on Thirasia, and a stop at the harbor of Oia, and back to Thira. The harbor is at the base of the cliffs accessible by cable car or 1000 steps that can be walked or on mules. The cable car was only 4 Euro so we rode it down to the harbor and then back up, the ride is about 2 1/2 minutes to climb the 1300 feet up the cliff. On the way up we watched the people walking up the steps which takes about one hour, and a few people getting sore butts riding the mules.
The climb up the volcano was very interesting, it was a pretty good hike up to the top on rough pumice and lava walkways, the temperature increased as we got closer to the crater, along with the sulfur odor. Since this is still an active volcano, there are steam vents and the heat at the bottom of the crater is about 147 degrees. In areas around the islands and volcano the sea is greenish in color from the iron oxide and sulfur being emitted.
We took the first boat in the morning so there were only about 30 people on the boat, some Americnas, Canadians, a few Greeks and several Japanese. When we stopped at the volcano for the walk, it soon became obvious that flip flops are not the best choice of foot apparel for walking in the lava fields, I suspect this was a good life lesson for some of the younger people as they struggled to walk uphill though jagged rocks and slippery pumice. The walk to the top of the volcano took about one half hour, the guide was a native from Santorini whose father and grandfather had witnessed previous eruptions, so she had a a lot of history.
Although still early in the season, one of the stops is to swim off one of the islands in an area of hot springs, the boat has to anchor about 100 feet offshore and the intrepid swimmers dive off the boat and swim to the island so they can get warm from swimming in the cool Aegean sea. Of course since the hot springs are full of sulfur and iron oxide, the expensive white batching suit bought to impress everyone is now forever stained a dark brown from the iron. Needless to say, none of the passengers over 30 jumped in the water, but several of the younger crowd jumped in and immediately regretted their actions as they gasped for air in the frigid waters.
We had a very nice lunch at Thirasia, not much on this island which has a population of 300, mostly farmers and fisherman, the only way on and off is the ferry or private boat, pretty much a hard existence. I have become quite the Greek salad connoisseur, as I discussed earlier the traditional Greek salad varies by area, gthe Greek salad at Thirasia was pretty basic, tomatoes, red onion, green peppers and green olives with a slab of feta on top, no spices or dressing, overall not one of the better salads. However they did have stuffed tomatoes with rice and tomato balls which are a local delicacy. The tomatoes are deep fried in a batter and have almost a spaghetti sauce taste. The also offered BBQ skewers of fish and meat, not sure what kind of fish or meat, plus fresh octopus. Many of th people ate the skewers and survived the rest of the boat trip so it must have been okay. One of the Japanese girls looked pretty green but I think that was from the boat ride which was a little rough at times.
This morning we witnessed an overflight by Turkish jets, the Turks and Greeks are not the best of friends and on occasion Turkish military jets will enter Greek airspace just to thumb their nose at the Greeks, about fifteen minutes later the Greeks sent a jet to overfly Turkey, next the diplomats will complain, and life goes on. In some place the two countries are only 8 miles apart; on Lesvos there is a military presence and even a military airstrip that intersects the main road, from what we read at the highest levels there is great effort for the countries to be friendly, but with centuries of fighting, they just can't seem to get along.
We leave Santorini on Tuesday morning back to Lesvos where we are going to rest one day before the next trip to Turkey.
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