Santorini (Day 1)

Visiting Santorini in the off season seemed like the perfect way to start our trip. Ashley fell in love with Santorini when we visited very briefly about 9 years ago. At the time, she said it would be amazing if we could somehow return for a full week someday. The trip gave us a chance to make this dream come true!

Here are pictures of us in 2010 and 2019 on Santorini.

We moved the start date of the trip up a bit so that we could have the first day be Hazel’s 8th birthday here on Santorini. Hazel and Hugh arrived to find a birthday surprise: Uncle Rud and Aunt Teresa had flown in from Amsterdam! (And with teeny baby Kosara in Teresa’s tummy!!)

Hazel’s presents were mostly birthday cards we received before we left. As for physical gifts, she received a pump-it-yourself mist sprayer (super excited about that!), a knock-off Fitbit watch, and a charm bracelet so she can collect little charms along the way, hopefully creating a reminder of the trip for years to come. What she really got was an amazing memory of turning 8!!!

Many of the towns in Santorini are perched at the top of huge cliffs overlooking the ocean below. There are winding cobblestone walkways, little whitewashed houses, churches with Blue Domes, and no cars. It is a strikingly beautiful place.

The bulk of our stay was at an AirBNB in Oia, known for its sunsets, sunrises, and Blue Domed churches. That shouldn’t be capitalized, but people go so crazy for these churches that we had to capitalize it to show how important it is! We found our place about a year in advance, and it promised to be right next to a Blue Domed church. This was probably the most beautiful urban (or town) location we have ever stayed in. Here is Huey on the porch of our house.

Our house is called a Cave House because it is actually a cave dug out of the soft pumice rock. Naturally cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Here is the inside of the cave.

But there were problems in paradise…. The Cave House didn’t have a washing machine or an oven… because it is a cave! And staying right next to the place that everyone wants to photograph makes it CROWDED. And Hazel and Hugh both got 103+ fevers that lasted for days. Here is poor Hazel sick and asleep on our porch…

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The good news was that we were able to solve our problems soon enough!

We found a terrific doctor, just a 3 minute walk from our house. He was friendly, inexpensive, and easy to deal with. Hazel started to feel better and was ready to jump in the volcanic hot springs soon enough!

Huey got better soon after. Anyway, there are way worse places on our trip to get sick than an EU country with a nice view from our “Recovery Room.”

As for the crowds…. As we were saying before, people go nuts for pictures with these Blue Domes, and our AirBNB was right next to THE Blue Domed church that is on lots of postcards, etc. It sounds like the beginning of a cruel joke…. “So, you say you want to live in an amazingly beautiful place, do ya?” Here is the crowd of people lined up on the little walking path to our house.

We would wake up in the morning to find people doing photo shoots all over the place. Like standing on a church. Should you really stand on a church??

So, you can see that these crowds were getting out of hand. We needed a savior, and we found it in an unlikely person: an old woman who lived a few houses above us on the cliff, whom we called the “Good Greek Witch.” She would yell at the photo mad couples, especially if they stood on the church or walked into the little residents only part of the walk way. We imagine she is saying something crazy offensive in Greek, or casting a spell. Who knows! Anyway, she added to the spirit of the place and definitely drove off many of the egregious rule breakers. The videos are better with sound…

Besides relying on the Witch’s magic spells, we found easy solutions to the crowds. We spent a lot of time just hanging out at our cave house, which was beautiful and relaxing. Just what we needed to get over the jet lag, etc.

We also went out on a few day sailing trips in the protected caldera. Better views, no crowds, and relaxing. All good!

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ANCIENT AKROTIRI

Akrotiri is one of the oldest well preserved ancient sites in the world. It was buried by a huge volcanic eruption on Santorini about 3,650 years ago. Akrotiri is similar to Pompeii in that it was entombed by volcanic ash, but it is about 1,700 years older! Pompeii is closer in age to the Pilgrims than to Akrotiri.

Archeologists estimate it was a city of 7,000 people. Here is a view of the city with an ancient grocery store in the foreground. (They have a roof over the entire site to protect it.)

The volcano eruption on Santorini around 1625 BC was one of the largest in the last 10,000 years. Some say that the civilization here was the lost city of Atlantis described by Plato. Others say that the tidal waves, ash clouds, and climate change from this eruption might help explain the plagues in the Biblical story of Moses in Egypt. Or maybe that it helped wipe out the Minoan civilization on Crete.

Buried for millennia, Akrotiri was only discovered in 1967! Here are are some wall frescos and artifacts. The presence of items not found on the island (bronze and copper) and art depicting animals not found nearby (monkeys) shows they were seafaring traders who traveled extensively.

The society was quite advanced – they had a city with a drainage system and paved streets, 3-4 story stone houses, writing, and (Jamie’s favorite) probably the oldest toilet in the world!