The day at sea was enlightening, since the ship was sailing from Rome to the Greek Islands and back a lot of the voyagers onboard were Italians. Wonderful people individually but as a group wow, talk about LOUD! The Kiwis and Ozzies were having a very hard time with the volume up on mid decks where most things went on including loud piped music and started seeking out the quieter areas on board. Not only were they loud but they were less good mannered than we have been taught to be and would often push in to wherever they wanted to be. This trait turned into an issue in Santorini. One saving grace was that because of the way they live they rise late for breakfast so we would all have a quiet morning until around 10am.
Breakfast at the buffet is a smorgasbord of everything wonderful, fruit for me (watermelon, rock melon etc) bircher muesli and other things for Kent, the Europeans start the day with sweet pastries and cake. Slightly wierd seeing sweets and cakes out for breakfast. And of course coffee, hot chocolate, juices and water. We fill a couple of mugs with juice to take to see us through the day as apparently it is a breakfast only offering.
10 Oct 7am we arrived in Santorini, lovely to come into a port whilst eating breakfast by the big windows in the buffet area. Unloading was by tender and by room number, it was about 10am before we actually got on the island at Amoudi. There were about 5 cruise ships in the port so you can imagine how many people were on the dock waiting in line to go up to up to the town of Fira/Thira by cable car! It would have been an hours wait at least but I got talking to a ferryman and we bought a ticket to Oia which is at the northern end of the island and is possibly the most picturesque of Santorini's towns.
Off the ferry and onto a shuttle, up to a larger bus and up to the town of Oia. BEAUTIFUL! We only had about half an hour to walk around there as our whole time on the island was only about 4 hours total. We wandered along the main street looking out over the bay taking photos of the white houses curving down to the ocean below. Then walked back to catch the bus to Fira, a half hour ride. Time enough in Fira to find an Irish Tavern out of the hordes and have lunch then we found the line to get back on the cable car. This line was an hour to an hour and half long. We stood with all the others and wondered why we weren't moving faster. The line snaked along a cobbled street, around a small square and down to the cable car entry. Why were these people passing us? Where were they going? Oh... they were going to push in further up at the end of the square! Boy was everyone getting angry about it!
Kent and another Kiwi guy decided they had had enough and become the heroes of the line by standing guard at the end of the square and making the pushy buggars go back to the line end. Kent has no fear in these situations but can also be firm but calm, they dealt with many many people including one small older Italian woman who yelled at cried out at the top of her voice! She failed in her efforts suffice it to say. Many in the line congratulated Kent and offered to buy him a beer. As a result of these efforts the line started to progress, it was a hot day and the line was in the sun, a few of those around us (English, American, Oz) had partners with health issues and we were finding places for them in the shade whilst we held our places in line. By the time we got to the cable cars we were all firm friends, they were off the other cruise ships.
Oia was lovely to visit but the whole event was a bit of a shambles with not enough time allowed what was required to have a proper visit.
10 & 11 Oct - After leaving Santorini we sailed straight to Mykonos getting there in the late evening. We were allowed to leave the ship and go into the town but we were too tired after the day and retired to bed early.
In the morning we got on the local ferrytaxi and headed to town, it was a very windy day and I was only dressed for sun. Luckily the streets are narrow and winding so kept the wind a bit at bay. Of course the Kiwis and Ozzies were up and on their way early but the town was not even open, couldn't even get a coffee. We walked for ages to find some toilets and discovered there are only 2 public ones here.
The lanes of the town are very cute made of large stones which are painted around in white. You can tell if you wander into a suburban lane as it gets dirty and has poo from cats and birds underfoot so we got directed subconsciously down the correct lanes. There were lots of cats about, not particularly well fed and it looked like they lived in the town as opposed to being house cats. We finally found a bakery and had coffee and Baklava. Later on we found a nice restaurant and ordered every greek thing we didn't know off the menu, Tzatziki, Souvlaki, Moussaka, Kent had a local beer and me the fresh squeezed orange (why don't we do that at home?). It was a wonderful meal at a very reasonable cost. We tried to go to a museum but they couldn't open because their power supply was acting up.
Back to the ship to a lazy deck afternoon.
12 Oct another sea day and clocks forward an hour again - I got up and out on deck at 7am to find a quiet spot in an empty spa right at the rear of the ship. Amazingly I was able to have half an hour there on my own. Got back to the cabin to find Kent had done the washing and our cabin now looked like a chinese laundry :)
I've been worried about how empty the Mediterranean Sea feels, it's like there's nothing living in it but today while having lunch I saw a turtle waiting for the ship to pass and later I saw a lone dolpin. Feeling a bit better about it now.
Next stop back to Rome
