Med Cruise - May 6 Athens to Santorini (2)

The worst part of a cruise happens right at the beginning, as we soon learnt, as a thousand or more passengers make their way to their cabins. Long queues during the monday afternoon, and we were lucky to be some of the last passengers to arrive late in the afternoon. Evrything is planned to perfection so that there was a minimum of time between offloading one set of people and collecting the next set. Even the luggage was taken direct from the flight to the cabins with virtually no delays at the airport.

the cabin was nice and in a very good location, reflecting perhaps the presence of a travel agent in our party. We soon began to work out where everything was, and there was a lot of working out to do, let me tell you, from the various decks for restaurants and bars and the show rooms, pools, and the shops to be remembered. We headed for the bar for our first cocktails, and of course there were a lot of "let me invite you" jokes, as everything by way of food and drinks was included with the cruise. A nice dinner, a show and we were in bed while the ship made its way to Santorini, our first stop. 

 When we opened our blinds in the morning, there was this magnificent sight of a clifftop town set on a half moon of an island. Legend has it that one half of the island sank into the mediterranean several thosand years ago, and the sheer cliffs of the island is where the fault line would have been. Having mulled over whether to take an excursion or do our own exploring, we had decided to take it easy and leave after the morning rush to get off the boat. This turned out to be a great strategy as we could relax and the main town was just off the landing on the port. We took the complimentary boat ride to the port and started walking.

Santorini is a very beautiful litttle town, with the typical white house lined narrow streets for which the Greek islands are famous. We took a cable car to the hill top town, but the decision to take the thousand steps path on the way down was a bit foolish. What we did not know was that there would be hundreds of donkeys lugging tourists up the steps! Coming down those steps was quite an experience. There were more than a few sore legs after that descent!

Back on the boat, more entertainment, more drinks and dinner and we took to our beds with a smile on our faces while the ship made its way to Marmaris.