Santorini
We spent the first part of our trip in Santorini, a beautiful, romantic island. Santorini is the caldera of a (mostly) dormant volano, creating its distinctive half-moon shape (it used to be a nearly full circle, but the north east side collapsed into the sea long ago). Santorini has striking sunset views, distinctive white buildings with blue domes, and fantstic wine. We flew into the Santorini Airport, and travelled from there to our suite in Firostefani (a small village just north of the main city, Thira) via bus and a ~2km walk rolling our suitcases uphill on a mostly cobblestone path. Our suite was a small place, just barely enough room for a bed, bath, and jacuzzi hot tub (ofc). But it was also quiet, bright, private (a rarity in Thira), and romantic for the start of our honeymoon.
When we arrived in Santorini, we had been awake for around 24 hours (not being able to sleep much on the flights)--Jack wasn't feeling well and Hannah was on the tail end of an illness. We had a lovely slow dinner with caldera sunset views at Onar, had a soak in the hot tub, and promptly slept until noon. Hannah briefly woke up around 5am (a rarity for her!) and caught the sunrise out of the east-facing windows.
That day, we briefly walked around Immerogivli (a village to the north of Firostefani) before our volcano catamaran cruise, which went to the Red and White beaches, the "hot springs" of the old volcano (just a section of the sea where there was more sulfur in the water due the volcanic rocks--it wasn't any warmer than the other cold swimming stops, but we're not complaining!), and finished with a beautiful sunset view near Oia.
On our third day, we spent the morning walking around downtown Thira, and visited the Museum of Prehistoric Thira, which focused on the pre-historic site of Akrotiri, the so-called "Pompeii of Greece." Highly recommend the museum--we loved how the artifacts of the area are on display in a museum on the island, as opposed to how so many priceless antiquities from Greece, Rome, and Egypt are on display in museums in England and the US. After the musuem, we had a bit more time than we had planned for, so we decided to make the short but arduous hike down to the Old Port of Thira. The Old Port used to be the main and only port, but these days is only used for the cruise ships that drop passengers off for day excursions in Thira. In addition to the donkeys, there is also a cable car going down and up (with a line of tourists wrapping fully around the central square!). Walking down was also relatively popular, but we were the only people we saw walking back up!
After the bonus hike, we went on a wine tour to three Santorini wineries: Estate Argyros, Gavalas, and Santo Wines. The first two are family owned and operated, with one representing a modern approach and complete ownership over the vineyards, and the second a more traditional style. Santo wines is a modern cooperative that will buy grapes from any grower on the island to use in their wines, and is the largest producer and exporter. Our favorite was Gavalas, which had a unique charm and heritage (earlier owners had to worry about the wine being stolen by pirates!), although our favorite wine was at Estate Argyros, and the best views were at Santo Wines.
The wine in Santorini is quite unique, due to the volcanic soil. The pumice, ash, and basalt is up to 40 meters deep in some places and drains extremely well, which is good for making wine (it seems that grapes make the best wine when they are the most miserable). The vineyards have a number of adapations to growing in Santorini's hot and arid climate, the most unique of which is curling the vines into small basket-like shapes. They tuck the grapes inside the basket as they grow, granting them some shade from the sun and protection from the winds that can reach over 70 miles per hour. However, this shape means that grapes must be harvested by hand, at great labor and expense. Mature vines (over 50 years old) are not watered, and instead reclaim water from the soil, which it absorbs from the moist air at night (there is no natural spring or clean water on Santorini, making watering the vines very expensive).
On our fourth day, we finally spent some time relaxing on the beach. We went to Red Beach, called so due to the red pumice and cinder rocks that form it. Officially, the beach can only be accessed by water taxi due to the threat of landslides, but unofficially there is still a well-trodden path down to the beach. We got to the beach before the crowd (we were the second group there!) and managed to mostly avoid sunburn.
For lunch, we ate at a traditional restaurant that has been family owned and operated for over 100 years. It was the best meal we had in Santorini (and all the food was fantastic). Specifically, Santorini is known for its cherry tomatoes, capers and caper leaves, and fava beans. We're still early into the trip, but we don't think we'll ever tire of ordering a classic Greek salad with every meal!
For our last sunset in Santorini, we hiked from Thira to Oia. The walk is about 10km total, although we started part-way through, so it was about 5 miles for us. It has some serious elevation gain as well! We enjoyed local Yellow Donkey and Red Donkey beers along the hike. Donkey Beers is the first brewery in Santorini, established in 2014. They now have a competitor called Blue Monkey, which we tried on our last day in Santorini. The views along the hike were breathtaking, and the trail was rather quiet, with only a few people around us. As we entered into Oia, we saw several brides and grooms taking wedding pictures in front of the gorgeous sunset. We had dinner at an upscale restaurant, Mia's, featuring some very delicious cocktails.
We spent our final morning at the pre-historic site of Akrotiri, an excavation of a Minoan settlement on the southern side of Santorini. The city was evacuated after a large earthquake around the 17th century BC, which preceded a massive erruption of the Santorini volcano, the Minoan erruption, one of the largest in the modern era. The excavation began in 1967, and has since discovered a massive and advanced civilization. The excavations have uncovered large intact and well-preserved frescos, many on display in the museum in Thira, one of which features blue monkeys (the color blue is throught to have represented silver). Akrotiri was really interesting--the excavations were started recently, and are ongoing; they estimate only 3% of the city has been excavated!
Fun Facts We Learned:
(not fact checked, entirely from our memory)- Santorini used to rely heavily on donkeys for the transport of people and goods, due to the windy roads and steep elevation caused by the caldera rim. These days, you can only see donkeys on the path down to the old port of Thira, as a tourist attraction. You can pay to ride them down and up, although they're kind of menaces to those walking by.
- The island of Santorini has been inhabited many times in the past, each time being abandoned for hundreds of years due to natural disasters such as earthquakes of erruptions.
- Santorini is the third name of the island, and comes from an Italian church that was built and dedicated to Saint Orini (not sure how this is spelled--we learned this on our wine tour from Kostis).
- In most places, grape vines are susceptible to a American pest that can kill the rootstock entirely. To avoid this, almost all vines use a clone of an American grape vine that was found to be resistant to the pest, which saved the French and Italian vineyards. Thus, almost all grape vines are grafts of the desired grape variety onto the resistant root (as are many residential trees!). However, in Santorini, the pest cannot live in the soil due to the lack of moisture, so the vines in Santorini are 100% of whatever variety the grape is (likely Assyrtiko--this amounts for 97% of all grapes grown on the island)!
- Santorini used to have 4x the acres of vineyards as it does today. Tourism has led to more and more growers deciding that building hotels and cottages on their land is more profitable, leading to a decline in grape production.
