How to Plan an International Trip: Travel Tales and Tips : Greece Trip Report, Day 10: Santorini, Poetry in every nook!

Day 10, Nov 18, 2018, Sunday:

Santorini, a Vibrant Outdoor Museum of Architectural Sculpture:

Greek sovereign land includes 6,000 islands and islets scattered in the Aegean and Ionian Seas, of which only 227 islands are inhabited. This is a unique phenomenon for the European continent.

The Greek islands are traditionally grouped as follows: the Argo-Saronic Islands in the Saronic gulf near Athens; the Cyclades, in the central part of the Aegean Sea; the North Aegean islands, off the west coast of Turkey; the Dodecanese, in the southeast between Crete and Turkey; the Sporades, off the coast of Euboea; and the Ionian Islands, to the west of the mainland in the Ionian Sea. Crete with its surrounding islets and Euboea are traditionally excluded from this grouping.

The alluring architecture of the Cyclades group has placed it top of the tourism charts. The Cyclades group has 220 islands.

We chose to visit the much touted Santorini in the Cyclades group. When something is so hyped, there is bound to be disappointment when heightened expectations meet harsh reality. Also when it's off season and rains are the norm, everything is likely to be a off color and dilute! However, all these misgivings came to naught! We were so pleasantly surprised and LOVED our Santorini experience though it was off season!

Let's first understand a little bit about the history and topography of this island. Santorini may be the mythical city of Atlantis sunken during the ancient times by unknown natural disaster. An ancient volcanic eruption took place some 3600 years ago and transformed it. The center of the island collapsed creating large circular caldera connected to the sea by multiple openings and lined by impressive black cliffs. Many more eruptions in the centuries reshaped the island.

YPOSKAFOS:

The Santorinians built their houses into the volcanic rock, creating entire villages nestled into the island’s cliffs.

Most of the yposkafos are along the brow of the caldera in Fira, Oia and Imerovigli. This is a unique sight.

What makes it more impressive is that a lot of aesthetics has gone into the architecture. .. making Santorini a vibrant, outdoor museum of architectural sculpture.

WHAT MAKES SANTORINI TICK?

Here's my attempt at deconstructing/analyzing what makes the Santorini caldera homes tick! There are great design principles at work all effortlessly falling into place![All these analyses are after the visit... in the moment we were so WOWED by the beauty surrounding us!]

Some homes are excavated into the rock, others balancing right at the edge of the caldera, the buildings coexist harmoniously... difficult to see where one property begins and the other ends. The courtyard of one house is the terrace of another. Private and public space are fluid concepts... paths leading to homes merge seamlessly with private courtyards.

In practical terms such tight clustering of homes should result in clutter, chaos, and claustrophobia. This has been cleverly tackled by the liberal use of white color for the homes with a sprinkling of some pastels like cream and beige. Looks awesome against the red cliffs cascading into the blue sea.

Wavy lines replace straight lines in many places...curves are so soft and pleasing on the eyes as opposed to harsh straight lines..

The paths undulate going up and down along the contours of the hill and we come up across a dramatic view every time we turn a corner... terrain is not flat and boring! [Great exercise for us visitors tackling all those steps along the villages!]

There are grays and blues lining the whites of houses providing a soft contrast and reinforcing the theme of the sky and the shimmering waters.

Here's a grey terrace and grey colored steps echoing the sea/sky

Gray steps... white mules statue yonder...

Bright bougainvillea creepers crawl around all nooks providing a burst of color and instantly lending a magical tone to the whole atmosphere.

Residents have ample artistic touches in the facade/terrace of their homes.

Love these pebbles on the gray background

All in all it's Poetry greeting us in every corner.

We were able to enjoy all these exclusively... had the place almost to ourselves.

Now as we walk along these homes, hardly a few minutes go by before we stumble across a domed church or a bell tower piercing the skyline!

Adding to the residential homes and shops, the island has over 600 churches and chapels, one-fifth of which are dug into the rock. These are simple, square edifices, mostly done in a sparse white, without any particular ornamentation. They have an amazing beauty with blue domes in some cases and a spartan bell edifice with exposed bells (can't even call it a bell tower)

There are also a number of larger churches that were built in the late 19th century (like Panaghia Bellonia in Fira and Aghios Georgios in Oia) and designed in the Byzantine and classic Greek styles.

It was a serene almost spiritual experience!

Most of the shops and restaurants were closed as it was off season. I've seen in pictures how much color they add with their craft items, décor and vibrancy. However the few shops which were open and the art in public spaces created a vibe good enough for us

To come back to our report of the day...

As I had explained in the intro, we had grabbed a deal of priority return tickets from Ryan air at 90 euros Athens to Santorini (with 10 kg checked bag free included). We had ensured there are no cruise ships coming to the island on our days

It was a short 7 minute drive from our accommodation to the airport at 5 am. I sat around with our bags while son went to the arrival hall enterprise desk and did the car rental return formalities. He had already parked the car at the place where we collected it from and taken a video to prove good condition and fuel reading. Anyways, we had taken the full insurance.

We had already done the check in for the flight months ago and printed our boarding cards. We dropped our bags, went thru security in a jiffy and waited around for our flight. We had to walk to our plane in a mild drizzle. Then we were off and were at Santorini in 30 minutes!!

We had booked car rental with Enterprise again as son has a corporate discount. It was a meet and greet pickup... the agent was at the airport holding a card with our name and the car could be collected right there. They don't have an airport office.

Son had just finished the formalities when I collected the bags and joined him. He had booked only manual transmission but got an automatic and was thrilled. Fuel tank was half full with the instruction to return it the same way. Indicator about tyre pressure was flashing but the Enterprise guy brushed it off. Our guess is maintenance is badly lacking.

SWEET HOME, KARTERADOS:

We had already seen the route to our accommodation with google street view and drove to Sweet Home in Karterados. Location was an easy drive from the airport and just a 5 minute drive to Fira's caldera. Worked out great for us. Parking was by the side of the house.

Poppy the owner gave us a warm welcome and we were all settled for our 3 day stay in no time.

Spacious room up a flight of steps with balcony

Sea shell frame mirror, Doric column stand for the table

A balcony...with wet clothes hanging rack

Handy kitchenette

Hallway

We had some food before starting off on our sight seeing

I had been stressing on how we'll do our sight seeing on the island. Google street views were incomplete and I had read quite a few reports of people getting lost not knowing where they had parked their car. We had no such issues.

Parking is free all over.

On the first day we drove toward Fira, saw a nice blue dome, pulled in at a parking space (near Hotel Atlantis) and started walking on the coast adjoining the caldera.

It was a grey cloudy day but it added a mystic quality to the beauty we saw all round

Here's the zig zag path up the cruise port... skaros rock on the top center

Pebble mosaic

We walked back to the place where we had started so that we can get to our car.

Interesting sculpture on church wall...

The famous Skaros rock in the background

Skaros rock...

Got to the famous blue domed church Chapel of Panagia Theoskepasti following some signs with the photo and an arrow.

Chapel of Panagia Theoskepasti and the Skaros rock...in the next 7 pics... most sought after sites/sights in Imerovigli

We got into this church in Imerovigli... opulent!

No scope of seeing a sunset that day. We returned to our home base and called it a day, very happy with the flavor of Santorini we had managed to savor!