Touristy Shots from Santorini, Patmos and Mykonos

[Minimalist]

Santorini, from Crete, is about 70 miles which pretty much gauranteed that Crete was going to get clobbered when Thera exploded. We arrived in the late afternoon. I went up on the boat deck which was the furthest point forward on the ship that passengers could reach and caught this shot of Santorini. It was a bit hazy.










One is basically sailing into the caldera of the now-missing volcano. It is a geologist’s dream come true. It is miles across and when you think about the power needed to blast that much rock out of the place it is truly humbling.

[Minimalist]

The modern village of Thira, built into the side of the mountain and with only a small dock sticking out for tenders to land. A cruise ship hit a rock and sank there not too long ago so it is best not to get to close to the shore. Most of the villages on the island are built on top of the mountain...at least on this side. The northern coast, away from the blast, is a bit more regular.




From what I could see, Thira was the only possible landing site. That’s our ship...the SS Minnow...in the distance. Actually, as will be seen later, while small there are certain advantages to a small ship in ancient harbors.



There are three choices for getting from Thira to Santorini village. Walk, ride a donkey, or the new cable car. We elected the cable car which went straight up the mountain and which seemed much steeper than this picture lets on. Still....the donkey would have taken 45 minutes and my knee was telling me “ENOUGH CLIMBING” by this point. It was worth the 7 Euros each way.



Once on top, Santorini proved to be a re-working of Lindos...only much more expensive. Lots of jewelry and souvenir shops and we were shopped out at this point....even my wife isn’t much of a shopper. The view, however, is magnificent. We found a small café, ordered a couple of Greek beers ( Mythos....not too shabby) and dug the scenery.





Recent volcanic activity has created a new island in the middle of the caldera. Eventually, it too will blow but who knows if there will be anyone left to see it?

[Minimalist]

Zoomed shot of Santorini. While it looks small few of the streets were level. Everything was up or down.



The lights begin to come on as it gets closer to sunset.



This might be the best shot I have showing the slope left after the explosion. Again, simply mind-boggling....the poor bastards never knew what hit them.





Sunset at Santorini. The haze on the horizon interfered a bit but the effect was pretty magical. There is actually an amusing story in these two shots. We had been joined at this point by our tour organizer and a guy I called Ken the Photographer. Ken was one of these guys who walked around with nine lenses hanging on his neck. Anyway, you see the man sitting alone at the table.
He was joined a few moments later by an absolutely stunning woman. Ken observed “wow, she’s beautiful...I’d love to get a picture.” With that, Robert, the organizer, got up and said, “I’ll ask her.” So he trotted over, said “excuse me, my friend thinks you’re very lovely and would like to take your picture if it’s okay with you.” It turned out she was a model and was only too willing to pose! At one point, the guy said “would you like me in the shot?” Everyone cracked up. BTW, the whole conversation was held in English as if it was the most natural thing in the world. I tried to get a shot of Ken taking her picture but it was too dark for my little camera by then.



Santorini, at night, from the cable car on the way down.

[Minimalist]

We woke up in Patmos the next morning the alleged site of the writing of the Book of Revelation by John of Patmos. By this point it looked like every other Greek island town we had seen but still, I took another shot.



As it turned out they did not allow photography in either the cave or the monastery which pretty much was all that there was to see. Unless you are a religious fanatic I would not recommend Patmos. They did have some amazingly old manuscripts in the museum which explains the prohibition on flash photography. I can’t say they are wrong about that.


From Patmos it was on to Mykonos. We stayed on the ship. Mykonos was described as a jet-set hotspot which did not come alive until 11 at night...by which time we would be on our way back to Piraeus. I did snap a couple of shots of the town and the ship traffic in the harbor.








I can’t recall why I took this shot of the little tender getting ready to ferry people ashore. Must have had something to do with the color of the Aegean Sea at this point.



Rush hour at Mykonos harbor....and it was about to get more crowded.



This ship...which absolutely dwarfed us came rolling in ahead of us. Cruise ships like this would not be able to land at some of the smaller ports and they probably carry 2,000 passengers who need to go ashore on tenders. I wouldn’t want to be on the end of that line. On the couple of occasions when we went ashore by boat we waited no more than 10 minutes. Of course, our ship was only about half full and only carried a max of 500 anyway. It made for an attentive crew. If we used a towel our cabin steward was there with a replacement.



This ship, came barreling in at us from the rear. For a few moments it looked like he was going to hit us. But, he cut his engines and used his thrusters to turn the ship sideways and moor. A little showboating, perhaps? If he had hit us, he would have cut us in half. It was at least twice our size.

Anyway, next day it was back to Piraeus for the 10 hour flight back to NY.

The End.

[Rudolph Hucker]

Good stuff Min.

BTW, Mykonos may be where the ancient Greeks raised homosexuality to an art form. I think it is still a training centre.

[Minimalist]

I thought that was Lesbos?

[Forum Monk]

I thought that was Lesbos?

Nope.


Uranus.

[Minimalist]

[MichelleH]

These great shots make me want out of SoCal even more....

Min and Monk...

[Minimalist]

BTW, boss.... you haven't been playing tag with forest fires, have you?

[Digit]

Thanks Min, brightens the day as I stare at the rain.