Santorini and Volcano Islands

This has to be one of the most beautiful places on earth. A 4-hour highspeed ferry ride from Athens, Santorini Island is a collection of quaint little villages set on the top of 1,000-foot cliffs.

Santorini harbor is dominated by Volcano Island, which last erupted in 1950, basically minutes ago in the big picture of the universe. The locals claim to have the best sunsets in the world, which is hard to argue.


We went for one night, but ended up staying for two nights once we found out that you could hike on the volcano, feel the steam coming up though the ground and smell the sulfur. Scary to think that it's impossible to know when an "inactive" volcano will become "active" - we had a few freak-outs when a small burst of steam would rise from the crater! To walk along the lava flows and across Volcano Island is as close as we are going to get to walking on Mars - truly unbelievable.

We left the bathing suits in Athens since it seemed like it would be too cold to swim. But, little did we know, volcanoes create hot springs! 40 Euros later, we had two more bathing suits we did not need, but we were ready. Here's the catch: the boat stops 80 meters from the hot springs, which means you have to swim through 15 degree Celsius water to get there. We really did not know if 80 meters was far and 15 degree Celsius water was cold, but it sure sounded as if. Steve jumped from the boat, and got back on just about as fast as he entered the water, which was all the conversion we needed!

Day 2 we rented a Smart Car. These make the VW Bug look huge! We drove to Red Sand Beach and Black Sand Beach - they came just as advertised - beautiful.


The food we've eaten on the Island and back in Athens has been awesome! The gyros and tziki here put our Americanized Greek restaurants to shame. We had crepes smothered in dark chocolate - phenomenal!


The people (and cats and dogs) of Santorini Island were as nice as those found in Athens. To everyone we met in Greece, "efharisto!" which is "thank you". It's one of the two words we learned (the other being "yasus" which means "hello") and we could not say it any better!