Santorini (Tuesday)

Santorini was not quite what we expected. We had expected something quite different. After a glorious and warm Monday, Tuesday morning upon our arrival in Santorini was cool, overcast and a little windy.  If the photo below uploads OK you will see that most houses exist on the hilltops rather than beside the beaches.

It was a 'tender' port but this time we used slightly larger vessels supplied by the port authorities.  Another very large cruise ship was at anchor in the port as well as ours.

You get from the dock up to the town by cable car.  The trip takes a few minutes at 5 Euros per person each way.  With two large cruise ships in town, the cable car company made a fortune!  It also meant everything everywhere was crowded.

We had nothing special planned but Trish was quite keen to see some of the typical white homes with a blue roof if possible. There were also many stores with spruikers wanting you to go into their shop and buy.

We have become accustomed to saying "Thanks but no thanks" around 50 times a day.

As it turned out the houses with blue roofs are more likely to be found in another nearby town named Oia. We could get there by water ferry, taxi or local bus. The latter was the cheapest and looked the most fun. 

We got on the bus early and got a seat, not everyone did. The countryside is quite hilly, the road is quite windy and in places is quite narrow. But we got to Oia safely and just loved the views from the bus as we drove along.

In Oia we found some white buildings with blue roofs. We even found some free wifi!  It is a picturesque little place but the weather was turning cooler and it began spitting with rain.

If the first bus trip was interesting, the bus trip back to the port was an absolute eye opener. Two buses passing each other just don't fit on Santorini roads. Some tourists had hired motor scooters, quad bikes or cars.  Motor bike riders don't wear helmets and I am not convinced there are many road rules!  All this made for really interesting trip back to the port.  There were times we had to back up in the bus to let traffic by.  On another occasion a tourist stalled his quad bike right in front of the bus.

There was some arm waving and loud discussions between the bus driver and others using the road.  After we left the bus back in town, traffic on some of the roads in the town centre were at a standstill. The place was grid locked.

The quick trip up and down in the cable car cost us a total of 20 Euros, the 30 minute trip to Oia one way and then the 50 min return bus trip the other way cost us 6.40 Euros altogether.

We grabbed a cool drink each and some wifi to upload blogs, add posts to Facebook and check emails when back at the port. I even managed to catch up some newspaper articles on my team's footy match from Friday night.

It is mid afternoon and we are about to set sail for Argostoli Greece. Then we have a day at sea on Thursday before arriving back in Venice after lunch Friday.

We expect to disembark before 10am Saturday and transfer to Venice Airport for our 3:50pm flight to Dubai.

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