Santorini is the largest of five islands in a cluster created by the same volcano. It’s crescent shape with abrupt inner side cliffs, up to 980ft tall, forms part of the volcano’s rim, with the remainder of the rim defined by two smaller islands. The inner area of these islands, around 30 square miles, is called the caldera, and hosts the active part of the volcano that has produced the youngest two islands in the group within the last 2000 years. Visiting these two inner caldera islands was our first activity on Thursday.
To reach the islands we took a three hour boat tour, which was scheduled to depart at 11 a.m. from Fira’s port. The port was located at the bottom of a long, twisting, walking trail over 700 ft below the city. There is a cable car that runs from the city to the port, but it wasn’t running at 10:30 a.m. when we wanted to go down. We also found a different option to go down just as we were starting our walking descent: donkeys. At the top of the trail was a group of men next to a herd of donkeys asking us in accented English, “Donkey? You want donkey?” We all declined, opting for the long walk instead. I couldn’t think why anyone would want to ride a donkey, but judging by all the donkey poop along the trail we had to step around, they must be a popular option.
We made it to our boat around 10:50 a.m., and were able to find seats together despite it being pretty crowded. We didn’t end up casting off until 11:10 a.m. when the last tourists, who we could watch hurrying down the hill the whole time, came huffing and puffing aboard. The ride to the first island, called Nea Kameni, only took about 15 minutes. It was dramatic to watch the long trail to the port come into full view as our boat drove farther and farther away.
We docked at the island’s harbor then disembarked for a guided walking tour of the island given in English. The tour took us up and up in elevation, past dormant volcanic craters and active sulfur vents with stops every so often to listen to our guide, until we reached the 374 ft summit, which was about 3300 ft away from the harbor by foot. It was at times hard to hear everything the guide said because of all the other tourists in our group standing closer, but we did learn a few interesting things. Nea Kameni, means “New Burnt Island”, and is the youngest island in the Mediterranean, emerging from the sea just over 300 years ago in 1711. It’s last eruption was in 1950.
The landscape of the island was very barren, with just a few small shrubs, but no trees or grass. A hiking trail was made up to the summit, and its a good thing because the rest of the island was ruggedly filled with with large rocks that would be hard to traverse. The best part of the tour was making it to the summit were we were rewarded with an amazing 360 degree view of the whole island group’s caldera. The towns situated precariously on the edges of the cliffs looked much more dangerous to me than when we were in them.
We made it back to the boat around 12:45 p.m. then left for the other volcanic island named Palea Kameni, which means, “Old Burnt Island”. It is older having emerged from the sea in 47 AD. There was no harbor to dock at, but the boat pulled close to shore near an area with thermal vents and dropped anchor. While there was no formal port, there were a few buildings on shore and even a few chickens running across the volcanic boulders. The tour had advertised swimming in these vents and the guide made an announcement for the brave swimmers to jump in. It was a cold day, maybe 50 degrees, but still a lot of people went swimming. Out of all the Olsons only Dan was brave enough. I’m glad I didn’t go because he said it was cold the whole time, even in the thermal vent area.
The boat then took us back to Fira’s port, completing the tour. As we made it back to the path up to the city, we saw the same men offering donkey rides from the morning. This time, however, their herd of donkeys was much larger. I still thought riding a donkey was silly, and refused to do it, but everyone else thought it would be a fun touristy experience and decided to pay the 5 euros. The donkeys seemed to be well accustomed to hauling tourists up the cliff as they didn’t need any guidance and plodded along together in a group, though Melissa’s made frequent stops to munch on some of the scrub grass along the path. It turns out donkeys don’t just haul tourists around, though, as we also saw one or two donkeys loaded up with materials at every construction site in Fira. Eventually we all made it to the top with me not quite knowing what I missed out on.
We ate a late lunch around 2:30 p.m. at a restaurant specializing in breakfast food. The crepes and omelettes weren’t to Mike’s liking though, so he didn’t order. Instead he walked to a Chinese restaurant, ate something, and came back. But it wasn’t enough food for him, so after his first lunch he left again to visit a street food vendor selling kebobs before finally returning to sit with us. The rest of the afternoon was spend relaxing at the house for Melissa, Mike and I, while Dan, Ann, and my Mom went souvenir shopping through Fira.
For out last dinner on the island we walked a short distance to a restaurant recommended by the rental manager. We chowed down on seafood, lamb, and beef, washed down with local wines, as we reflected on our travels so far.
