Saturday, June 19--Ios and Santorini

In the morning we stop in a bay on the island of Ios and Hal and I have our first go at using one of the little plastic kayaks. It's a two-person one and the paddling isn't too well coordinated, which I'm sure provided entertainment for the Galileo's passengers. At noon, we head on to Santorini and dock at about 2 pm. Santorini (aka Thira) is a remnant of a volcano and the caldera forms the bay in the remaining crescent of rock. When we first came in, I thought there was snow on the cliff tops, then came to my senses and thought perhaps very white strata of rock, and then I finally donned my glasses and realized they were the stacked white houses of the towns, Santorini and Oeia.
We were advised against the stinky donkey ride up from the harbor to the town proper, so opted for the cable car instead. This was our first outing so we stuck pretty much with Ihla's group, cruising through the congested touristy town of Santorini and checking out both the Orthodox cathedral and also a Catholic cathedral. Finally we all met up and grabbed some cabs to take us to Oeia, where everyone goes to watch the sunset. We were so hot that, after a short walk through the main street, we found a shady ledge in front of beautiful church and dozed off for a bit. Then we went hunting for food and found a nice little place overlooking the caldera for dinner. We were early so we had plenty of time to cruise through town but eventually gave up on staying for the sunset and headed back to the town bus stop for a return to Santorini town. There are LOTS of pictures of Santorini/Thira and the town Oeia on the Flickr site, so I've only picked a couple of my favorites for this post.