Santorini, Greece

Thursday | September 8, 2016

Stunning Santorini was born of a violent volcanic eruption thousands of years ago. The island’s dramatic, striated cliffs and black sand beaches are further evidence of its origins.

We arrived at Santorini, anchored off the old Port of Fira, around 7:30 AM. Shortly after that, I had a breakfast meeting to discuss some issues related to the ship’s audit committee. It was an informative conversation and I hope it leads to further dialogue on managing the ship’s risk.

Immediately after that, I joined many of our fellow residents in attending the annual itinerary presentation in Colosseo. Today’s feature was the unveiling of the three possible routes for 2019. One of them looks extraordinary to us, option B, and we intend to vote for that as soon as voting opens next week.

I then boarded the tender and headed to Santorini.

Merely getting to, and getting around, Santorini is an adventure. You can see the cable car even before arriving at the port.

The port will not allow us to use our own tenders, so we had to use the port’s boats. Then, when we arrived on the island, we were at the bottom of the huge cliffs. There are only three ways to get up the mountain. The first is to use the cable car, which we opted to do.

The second is to mount any one of the hundreds of donkeys lined up at the foot of the mountain.

The downside to that option is that one smells of donkey for the rest of the day.

The third option is to walk 586 stairs, which would not be so bad were it not for the grueling heat and donkey dung over the cobblestone.

So up to the top we went, and the ride took scarcely four minutes. When we got there, we were disappointed to see a plethora of tourist shops selling all the standard crap one expects to see in a tourist destination.

The small streets were crowded with our fellow tourists.

We passed this little place that specializes in fish assisted-pedicures. People soak their feet in these tanks that contain bacteria-eating fish who swarm around your feet and bite off all the calluses.

We wandered the streets for only a few minutes, before deciding we wanted to have lunch. We ate at what appeared to be a quintessentially tourist restaurant because it is located right near the top of the funicular. On the other hand, the views were exquisite.

After lunch, we did not waste much time in town and headed back to the ship. We spent the next hour or so preparing budget issues for my 3 o’clock informal board meeting.

After the meeting, I took the opportunity to go to the gym for 45 minutes and blow off steam.

Then, it was back into town to meet friends for dinner.

Once again, we took the tender to the shore, and then the funicular up the side of the mountain. We ate at Sphinx, a terrific restaurant with even more terrific views of the sunset.

I ate a creature who was perhaps the largest squid I have seen in my life.

Moreover, he was full of feta cheese, tomato, and grape leaves.

The swordfish was topped with mussels.

But first, I had a caviar sampling platter.

And that was before the Mediterranean sea bass.

As if that wasn’t enough, one of my friends insisted we stop for ice cream on the way back. He had already identified the best vendor.  

We found our way into a majestic Greek Orthodox church, the Metropolitan Cathedral, adorned with mosaics and beautiful frescoes.

We enjoyed the funicular ride back down the mountain before boarding the tender and heading back to the ship.