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Day Four in Santorini and we decided to hire a private driver and be driven all over the island ... you can tell we are not big on large crowded tours, so whilst it was a little more expensive we thought it was worth it.
We were met at the town centre by Kerrie our Greek Cypriot local in his freshly washed and polished Fiat people mover. Kerrie turned out to be quite a character as you will see as you read on.
Warning ... not much funny happened today as we were all very tired ... so todays blog is more informative than humourous.
Of course some of you may now be saying ... "Humour .. there was humour in the previous blog entries" .... well for you folk I say .... "Did I happen to mention that we are in Santorini and you're not?"
Kerrie drove us down to the ancient ruins called "Akrotiri". Unfortunately they were closed and have been for some time due to the roof of one of the buildings collapsing and almost killing *100LAT ... personally I don't see what the problem was here and perhaps they should be making it a mandatory stop for all the tour busses
Next stop was the red rock beach ... a well known icon in the tourist industry ... it's seen on postcards and many calendars. It was beautiful but we really are spoilt in Australia. For me, any beach requires SAND not ROCKS. The water however was again crystal clear and a beautiful aquamarine colour which was offset beautifully by the red rocks.
Moving on we drove to another marina that had been built for an industrial harbour but was now used mostly by the local fishermen and a few tourists in their large motor launches.
We then moved up to the highest point of the island to see the monastery. Once again the church owns the best land in town, however this time they had to share it with the Greek Miltary bases (now closed). In our photo albums you'll see a Beruit like building with a huge sign on it ... the sign then shows a warning (worth looking at). Kerrie assured us that the monks put it there to try and stop people coming up to the monastery ... very friendly monks apparently! Anyway, not be deterred by a little carcinogenic radiation we enjoyed the views and took lots of photos
Apparently there are over 350 churches on the island .. almost enough for one church per family. Obviously they would be impossible to all be working every sunday as there simply wouldn't be enough priests to go around. So mosts churches are open 1 day per year ... on their 'Name' day. Its a bit like a birthday party for a church.
From there Kerrie pointed out the local crops that are grown in terraces built into the mountains. Apparently there are 3 main income sources in Santorini (excluding tourists) ... 1 small tomatoes - cherry tomato equivalant in Australia ... 2 Wine and 3 Fishing.
The views whilst amazing are sometimes disappointing because everything is covered by a smoke like haze, but Kerrie informed us that it was a natural sea mist or haze and in the entire 8 years he has been here, he has only ever seen it crystal clear about 4 or 5 times.
From the top of the mountain he could also see his house with his girlfriend and new baby girl in a village far below. Apparently this village had been damaged by earthquake many many years ago and the government gave each of the inhabitants a lot of money to move to another village where it was safer. Apparently most of them took the money and moved to Athens instead. Having made their fortunes in Athens they then returned and built houses close to the sea in some other coastal village whose name escapes me.
Kerrie has bought a little house / cave in the original village that was damaged by the earthquake where he and about 2 other residents live. He is gradually doing the house up and digging out downstairs to extend and put in a coffee shop and an art gallery.
Its an awesome system here .. if you want to extend your house you just start digging .... either into the cliff face behind you, or below you or above you. Government authorisation is optional ... if you can build a house overnight ... there is nothing the government can do about it. Alternatively you can do what Kerrie did and wait until winter when there is no on around and do it then. Provided no one tells on you, you're in the clear!!
So I'd imagine the phrase "Honey I'm pregnant" is often accompanied by the phrase " ... and I bought you a shovel to start digging ... we need a nursery".
His beautiful girlfriend Mira is a great artist who specialises in painting on old wooden doors and shutters giving all her work an very unusual feel - hence the need for the coffee shop AND gallery downstairs.
The village has no roads, so all cars are parked outside the village boundaries and you then commute on foot. Apparently the government is starting to give the residents grants to encourage them to do these beautiful houses up again.
Whilst proudly showing off his 2 month old baby girl, we happened to ask Kerrie if he had any other children to which he replied that Victoria was actually his 6th .... for some reason this didn't come as a huge shock to any of us ... Kerrie oozed traditional Greek man Apparently his oldest boy is 28 and has just had a baby that is 5 months old. This means Kerries first grandchild is older than his youngest child.
Anyway, after coffee, biscuits and a tour around his ever deepening basement we headed off again to a winery for some wine tasting and education.
Again, as you can see from our photos, the first wine gallery was amazing with its views ... all that wine and cheese and bread was only 10euros ... money very definitely well spent.
The second winery gave us a crash course on every imaginable wine press EVER EVER EVER made in the entire history of wine presses :) Interesting but after the 15th wine press we kind of got the ghist of how to crush grapes.
From there Kerrie took us via one of the most popular beaches ... this time with black rocks for sand. You can tell the rocks must get incredibly hot as there are permanent wooden walkways built down to the hundreds of lounges and thatched shade shelters scattered up and down the beach ... all of which were starting to fill up with the normal *100LAT's.
Again it was lovely and unusual, but personally I'd never even contemplate going there for a beach holiday ... bring on Moreton Island I say
Finally as we were all trying hard to stay awake, we headed off to OIA. Again another beautiful mountain top, cliff edged village with a much younger feel to it from Fira.
I think the old question of "which side of the river do you like to live on .. the North or the South" kicks in here as to which town you prefer, OIA or Thira and I think as always, it would be determined by which side of the river you FIRST lived on. In our case it was Fira and we love it and feel it is nicer than OIA .. .I'm sure if you asked someone who stayed in OIA first, it would be the exact opposite response.
So back to the villa for long nanna naps. I lay on the pod upstairs on our deck and absorbed more of the atmosphere .. listened to the bells pealing for a wedding, the clapping and yelling of little kids all dressed in their wedding finery and watched the sun set for the 4th time as an amazing experience as the first night
Jen & Pete headed off to the town centre to buy some delicacies for the evenings platters and we then wiled the evening away listening to a mixture of authentic greek music (obviously coming from the wedding reception) and 70's music coming from the wedding reception overflow at one of the resturants built into the cliff face. It was wonderful.
Thats it for now .... enjoy the photos and feel free to leave us a message ... we look forward to them hopefully as much as you enjoy reading the blog xxx
A special hello to Brookie, Jay, Collettie and Robbie ... just to let you know that Jen & Pete do think of you all frequently
PS .. just so you all sound VERY knowledgable ... here is a little bonmot ... a Donkey in Athens costs about 50 Pounds. On Santorini it will cost you about $1000 and a horse will cost between $5000 and $8000 ... we know this because Kerrie wants a horse seeing he can't drive his car in his village
* see previous days blog for description of 100LAT
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