Today, we visited Santorini which is the most famous island in the Cyclades group of the greek islands. The whitewashed, cube-shaped houses of its 2 principal towns, Fira and Oia, cling to cliffs above Aegean Sea. This is one of the must see sites for us during this cruise. The tender port is at bottom of the cliff and the Fira town is on top of the cliff. There are 3 ways to get from tender port to Fira; namely Cable Car which is famous with it’s long queue, riding donkeys through Donkey Trail as shown in many Greek movies, and walking up via Donkey Trail.
After we got off the tender boat, we noticed that the queue for cable cars was not bad at all, therefore we decided to take the cable car to Fira. The plan for us was to take the public bus from Fira to Oia to visit Oia first then visit Fira after we get back from Oia. From the Fira cable car stop to the bus station, there are many different shops and local tours companies. When we got to the bus station, we were told that we just wait there for the Oia bus and buy bus tickets on the bus. However there was no sign to tell us where was the bus stop. There were a lot of buses and people in the area, it was tough to figure our which bus was for Oia and when it would take off. Luckily, there was a bus pulling in the area, and we heard the driver’s reply to some anxious tourists with “yes, this is the one for Oia”, we quickly got on this bus and found seats. Then there were more people got on the bus with standing room only until there is no more room even for standing. After that then there was a ticket agent squeezing through the crowd for us to buy tickets from her. That reminded us the way we rode the public bus when we were young in Taiwan.
After we got to Oia, it was not difficult to find the route to the town by just following the crowd. With a short walk along all sort of shops, we found the Panagia Platsani in the Main Square of Oia. The building is white-washed and features a blue-dome and arched windows.
According to legend, this place of worship came into existence when the townspeople decided to build the cathedral at its previous location to honor the icon of the Virgin Mary that was found in the sea by a fisherman. After much struggle, the fisherman, along with the priest and fellow parishioners brought the icon to the church. The icon moved the following day, by phenomenon, from the church to the castle. Each time, the citizens returned the symbol to the church, it allegedly moved back to the castle miraculously. It was then that the townspeople decided to build a place of worship where the Virgin Mary had placed the icon.
This place was packed with tourists and it took us quite a while to get decent photos.
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| Panagia Platsani |
Then we follow detailed description of Tom’s Port Guide (from internet) to walk down further to find the famous Blue Domed Church which is on almost all traveling magazine when they write about Santorini.
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| View from the Oia Castle |
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| View from the Oia Castle |
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| Front view of the Panagia Agion Panton |
Finally, we found the famous Blue Domed Churches as shown on all traveling magazines. Therefore, we decided to explore further to get into different routes to check these famous picturesque churches. Since most of the buildings are marked as private for residences or hotels, we had to just walk though some hanging ropes to get down closer to sea shore. With extra effort, we got the chance of taking a lot of photos from many different spots.
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| Famous Blue Dome Church |
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| Famous Blue Dome Church |
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| Famous Blue Dome Church |
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| Famous Blue Dome Church |
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| Blue Dome Church |
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| Famous Blue Dome Church |
Then, we took the 1pm bus back to Fira. First we walked to the Hypapante Cathedral, there were a lot of tourists there.
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| The Hypapante Cathedral |
After some photos, we walked to Fira town to just wondering around. It was more or less window shopping and people watching.
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| Shopping street in Hira, Santorini |
After a while, we followed others to climb up a trail along the seashore to the top of a hill. The scenery was nice, but the climb was pretty demanding on our leg muscles. After we got to the top, we found out that it was the cable car stop. Since we did not walk on the Donkey Trail in the morning, we decided to walk down from the town to tender port via Donkey Trail. We did see a lot of donkeys and tourists riding on donkeys on the trail. It was a little bit smelly and slippery. No wonder Holland America did not recommend their guests to walk up or down the Donkey Trail. Actually, we believe walk up will be less slippery than walking down.
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| The Donkey Trail |
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| The Donkey Trail |
After we got back to the Tender Port, we took some time walking along the seashore to enjoy the sea breeze and scenery.
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| View of Hira from the Tender Port |
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