In between Athens and Istanbul I got to spend two days in Santorini. It is famous for the whitewashed buildings with blue domes built on the cliff’s edge. These islands are the remains of a collapsed caldera from a volcano.

They have donkeys that help take people up and down the cliffside between the harbor and the town of Fira.

We went scuba diving–3 dives. Usually great visibility, but not for us this day. We were hoping to dive some shipwrecks, but the dive shop’s boat had a hole in it. One of the dives was along a sheer cliff wall. Another was a reef and the final dive was closer to shore. We saw fire worms and dotted sea slugs as well as lots of fish. Our dive master was Orpheus.

Orpheus

We did a horseback ride tour of the island that went down to the ocean and back up around the cliffs for sunset.

The next morning we hiked the trail from Fira to Oia. We hiked out to the monestary and Skaros Rock.

We took a boat tour out to some hot springs (iron oxide and sulfur) and the Nea Kameni volcano.

The main ways to get around the island are four-wheelers or the public buses (which are tour buses). We took the bus.