Santorini, Greece

Santorini, our last stop in Greece was truly magical. It didn't start off that way though! In order to get to the town of Santorini you must either take a donkey or a cable car to the very top. You can also walk the many steps up but it would probably take a very long time and we had no interest in walking the steps. We didn't take the donkeys due to the size of our group. We thought we might cause them duress from the weight of carrying us. lol So we took the cable cars to the top of the city. Our plan was to head to the beach and then have lunch on the beach. Santorini is known for it's black sanded beaches. We get to the bus station and just missed the bus. We were informed that there would be another bus coming in like an hour. From experience we learned that that hour could be any hour, not necessarily the next hour so we made out way to the taxi stand. People had been waiting an hour on that line for a taxi. Apparently there were only 3 taxis working that day! So we rented 3 cars to transport all 17 of us. The scenery and landscapes were beautiful and we finally found our little slice of heaven on the other side of the Island. We settled on the beach and across the street was a restaurant that we picked out for our lunch spot. Our cocktail waitress told us to wait until the fresh fish came in for the day. We asked her how we would know when the fish came in and she told us that a truck would come by, ringing a bell with the catch of the day. As soon as we heard the bell we headed to the restaurant and had a lunch with all the specialties that Santorini is know for. Fried tomatoes, grilled octopus, Yalandzi Dolmathes, taramosalata, tzadziki, Greek Salads and many other dishes appeared on our table as well as some lovely tasting local wines. Everything was just wonderful and flavorful. After lunch my son John went into a local store and bought a CD of music from Zorba the Greek. On our way back to the ship we were blasting the music on the car stereo, dancing in our seats. We pulled over into a gas station to get some gas and we jumped out of the car, still dancing. The locals thought we were absolutely crazy and other tourists pulled over to the side of the road to watch us.
My older son, John announced that he loved Santorini, that he loved it so much that when he gets married he was going to come back for his honeymoon. We all wished that we had more time there to see more of the Island but had to get back to the ship. All of us recited that we would be back!
Enjoy!
Smiles :)
Lorraine