lighthouse – Bucketlists and Babies

September 7, 2017

Sunrise

Timothy and I have only seen a few sunrises in our adult lives, favoring sleeping in and staying up late when at all possible. We agreed, a little regretfully, that a sunrise on a Greek island was worth getting up miserably early to witness. We woke up a little bit before the 6:54am peak and threw on a random assortment of warm clothes, as it was a touch chilly in the mornings. We scurried around our building to find a spot to watch.

Unfortunately, the sun rises to the “back” of the island. This is lucky in the evening when the sun is setting and casting a golden glow across the most densely populated side facing the calderas, but it made for a slightly less impressive rise. The colours were gorgeous, deep reds and oranges, but there were lots of powerlines and we were standing in the back of a parking lot. As it rose higher and we trudged back to our room it began to glow pink along the caldera side of the island, so we stayed up a little longer to watch the colours brightening. After that we went straight back to bed.

Sunrise from a parking lot

Sunrise turning the caldera pink

Morning

After eating our last hotel breakfast, we packed up our backpacks and left them with the front desk employee in their teeny office. We returned to our sunrise parking lot and climbed back on the quad. We had the rental until mid-afternoon and planned to take full advantage of it, heading to the south end of the island where we had not yet explored.

There was a great deal of driving the quad on this day. It is difficult to record in a blog how completely exhilarating this was. If you are a person who enjoys beautiful windy drives, you absolutely must spend a day exploring Santorini on quad. In early September the weather was perfect for it, warm to the edge of hot during the day and cool in the mornings and evenings. We primarily followed the roads on the coast of the island, and there was constant scenery of quaint villas, whitewashed churches, sparkling sea, and rugged cliffs.

Besides the many times we pulled off the road to take in the views, our first stop was the prehistoric town of Akrotiri. This bronze age settlement was both destroyed and preserved by a volcano, though luckily what has been unearthed suggests that the villagers had enough warning to evacuate before the volcano’s eruption. There was a fee to park and then a somewhat hefty entrance fee of 12 euros per person to enter. Whether or not that price is worth it depends on personal interest.

The entire excavation area is enclosed and airconditioned, so it was a nice break from the sun. It was interesting to see the work in the progress. The pathways are mostly elevated and railed, and there are signs with information about Akrotiri and what you are seeing. We enjoy exploring on our own, and after how much we paid to get in we were not interested in dishing out another 20 euros to reserve a guided tour.

In the area just outside of the ruins there was a stray puppy alternating between loving on visitors and basking in the shade. I loved loved loved this sweet puppy and wish to heaven we could have brought her home. I deeply hope someone there is taking care of her. Timothy had to drag me away to continue our explorations.

Views on the quad

Prehistoric town of Akrotiri

Sweet puppy outside the Akrotiri excavation building

Afternoon

From the prehistoric town we headed all the way to the end of the island to Cape Akrotiri. Just before we reached the parking area – a generous term for the side of the road – we passed a rope swing hanging from a tree on the side of the road. As we left I watched for it, as it was right on a curve, and had Timothy pull over. It looked out over the sea and we had a very sweet moment swinging.

Cape Akrotiri is marked by a lighthouse. Essentially the road ends at the end of the island and you abruptly come upon cars and quads parked along both sides of the street. We had to walk in a bit from where we parked, but there is a defined dirt path. As we got close to the lighthouse we had to climb over and amongst rocks. We could see far past the caldera from this point, out to sea. The water was rich blue. We enjoyed climbing amongst the rocks, seeing every angle of the peninsula. Of course it’s always nice to collect another lighthouse to remember.

On our way back towards Firostefani we passed the turn off for Red Beach, which we had already seen from our catamaran tour, and continued on to Pyrgos. Pyrgos is a village I saw mentioned online as offering the highest point on Santorini. Timothy checked out the road map and we set off for that highest point, hoping for another pleasant view. We drove through the town center and continued, heading slowly up. Eventually we were able to recognize the point to which we were heading. Soon after that we found ourselves on a long and frighteningly narrow road with tight switchbacks taking us up. Fortunately it was not a high traffic area. We only passed a few people going up or down. It was probably the least touristy place we went on Santorini, which is amazing considering the view we found at the top.

We pulled off on the side of the road and walked to the edge, where a panoramic view of the island met us. We could see all the way to Oia. It was absolutely stunning, and our trip would not have been complete without this view and this understanding of the beauty and smallness of the island we spent three days on. Heading up to this point is an absolute must.

We were now running short on time before we needed to return the quad, but we quickly took the road over to Kamari Beach. Kamari is one of several black beaches on the island. It is north of Perivolos and Perissa, both part of a stretch of well-known black sand beach. The parking situation there was very confusing. We started to park in an open spot in a long line of cars across from some shops, but a group of locals sitting on one of the shop porches yelled at us saying we could not park there without a permit. Frustrated, we drove around for a bit looking for a place that indicated we could park, but we did not find anything. The roads were very tight and difficult to maneuver. We ended up parking farther down in the line of cars we initially tried to park in. We were a little worried about getting towed or booted or otherwise in trouble, but we weren’t staying. We just wanted to quickly see the black beach. (We never saw any actual signage that indicated we couldn’t park there.)

We were very close to the beach and walked down between a row of grass-topped umbrellas. It would have been a lovely spot if it wasn’t for the crowds. The chairs were full of people, and there were a surprising number in the water considering how cold the sea was. The beach itself was made of little black pebbles, and it was skirted with a cliff to the south. We are glad we saw it but would never want to spend time there while so crowded.

Finally, we had to book it back to Firostefani to return the quad. There were no issues, and we walked into Fira to get our last chicken-on-a-sticks from the little market restaurant we had stopped at several times. Unfortunately I don’t remember the name of it, but it’s on the left just as you enter Fira. The sticks were very cheap, 1,50 euro per stick, tasty and filling. We had arranged that morning, with the help of the hotel front desk, for a taxi to take us to the airport. We went to pick up our backpacks and there was no one in the tiny office. It was time to go, so before we panicked I opened a door within the office and found a cramped bathroom in which our bags had been stored. We took them, hoping the staff wouldn’t worry where they’d gone, and left to meet our taxi. We arrived at the Santorini airport with plenty of time before our night flight to Athens.

Rope swing just before Cape Akrotiri