Day 70: Blue

I found the shuttle bus from the airport to the dock and took it around 4:30am, getting there just before 6am. Getting my tickets went smoothly, and then it was just a matter of waiting for the ferry to start. I'm not sure I've mentioned it yet, but I was heading to Santorini/Thira.

I feel a need to defend this choice, because Santorini is one of the commonly visited islands and is apparently one of those most touristy. Going to the islands at all was a bit of an afterthought for me, because my original plan had been to focus just on the mainland since that's where so much of the history I'm interested in took place. Ultimately I decided I didn't need very much time in Athens at all, and I should check out at least one island as part of the Greece experience, and Santorini was cheap and convenient, and I knew at least there would be lots for me to do. I'm here for around 3 days, and worst case scenario I'm forced to lie on a beach in the sun relaxing like normal vacationers, and after rushing around so much for months that doesn't seem like that horrible of a a fate. Also, all of the bookings and accomodations in Greece were made when I was in Florence that night after drinking 2 big jugs of wine...

The ferry ride was 8 hours but there wasn't anywhere comfortable to get any sleep, although I did probably get a couple hours of sleep here and there. The sky was cloudless and the water is such an incredible blue that most of the time it was hard to tell where the horizon was. You would just see islands or ships rise out of the mist around you then fade away again. Along the way we stopped by other islands to drop people off and pick up more, so there were a few chances for interesting scenery along the way.

When I finally got to Santorini I wasn't too sure how to get to my hotel. It was on the southern part of the island, and I thought there was some sort of shuttle service from the port, but wasn't positive. Just in case I had looked up the distance on google maps and estimated it to be 8km or so, so I figured I could probably walk it if I had to. It turns out there was a free shuttle, which was good because that 8km was as the bird flies, and the first step to get anywhere from the port is to scale a cliff face through 10 or so zig zagging crossbacks, and it would have been horrible to walk it with my bags. I don't know how much it's places dropping prices to encourage tourists, or just things normally being cheaper, but the pricing is incredibly reasonable. My room here costs about $26 CDN a night, which is comparable to what I often pay for a bed in a shared dorm hostel. Here, though, I have a private room with a double bed and private bathroom. There's a nice pool right outside, and it's about a 10 minute walk to the beach. Once I checked in the first thing I did was have a much needed shower and change clothes. Then I went to the beach to check it out and just lay in the sun drinking beer for the afternoon. I'm looking forward to a much needed night of sleep, and the lack of any real goals here means I can go exploring or just lie around tomorrow depending on how I feel.