Exploring Santorini

Emerging from our cave this morning (Aroma Suites are traditionally built into the cliff face, which is much nicer than it sounds) we were met by a brilliant blue sky, sun sparkling on the sea where three ships were already moored, and the dome of the chapel next door completing the cliché Santorini scene. I explored the alleyways of Fira – red and purple bougainvillea, blue domes, shiny marble, white paint, souvenir shops, cafés, restaurants boasting caldera views, cats, dogs, buskers – and admired some really beautiful art and crafts before our private tour of the island began (arranged by the hotel, and so much better than a coach tour).

Kris did well, pointing out and explaining all sorts of things, like the nondescript shrubs growing everywhere, which turned out to be vines, trained to grow in circles on the ground because it's normally (not today) too windy on the island to string along wires in the usual way. He took us to Santo winery, a professional outfit which makes excellent wine including the very appealing dessert wine Vinsanto - and wasn’t your usual guide-gets-a-cut arrangement.

We went up to the highest point for a view over the island’s brown, barren scenery, to Perisa’s black, gritty volcanic sand beach all set about with palm-leaf umbrellas, to pretty Pyrgos, still pre-makeover and all the better for that, past the Minoan ruins at Akrotiri to the lighthouse at south-west tip, and all the way to Oia at the northern end.

We saw plenty of blue domes in other villages, but this is where some of the most-photographed are found – and that’s exactly what was happening. The place was heaving with cruise ship passengers and other tourists bristling with cameras and all converging on Oia for the sunset (as, indeed, were we). It wasn’t a good way to see the place, through a forest of selfie sticks, jostled and elbowed and surrounded by loud chatter in a dozen different languages. And then the sun dropped sulkily down into a thick bank of cloud on the horizon anyway, so it wasn’t worth one bit of the effort.

Dinner was nice, though, at the fish restaurant Katina down by the Old Port, where we chose our own lobster from the display and were nagged by a trio of marauding cats beneath the tables as the lights sparkled on the water and yet another Silversea ship glided past, out of the harbour and into the dark.

Jingle bells

Santorini donkeys. They’re not really donkeys, you know: they’re mostly mules (it's the ears and tails that are the giveaway). Not that anybody really cares – except me, who was actually quite relieved to be spared the guilt of making a cute little donkey all sweaty and puffed, its neck bell jingling as it hauled me up the 16 cobbled zigzags of 588 steps from Fila’s Old Port back to the town on the top of the cliff. (I was, nevertheless, somewhat miffed that the Japanese couple who rocked up to the donkey guy at the same time got put on real donkeys. I thought I was pretty much the same size as them, but that’s reverse body dysmorphia for you…)

So yes, here I am in Santorini, beloved of Instagram – and that’s actually why I’ve come, beaten into submission by repeated daily photos of bright blue domes on gleaming white churches against a brilliant sea, or cliché sunset, or – actually, that’s your only choice. But no-one’s complaining, least of all me. It looked glamorous right from the start, seen through the water-splashed windows of the catamaran that takes 5 and a bit hours to get here from Piraeus. I would say that the clustered white houses along the top of the layered cliffs, spilling down to the water here and there, look like crusted snow, but I see Lonely Planet’s already used that simile, so… splashed guano? Hmm. More work needed on that one.

It’s self-consciously beautiful here, but that’s ok. It’s what we’ve come for, after all: 2 million of us, over a year, overwhelming a local population of 15,000. In the summer, there are occasionally 12-15 cruise ships moored in the caldera, which must be horrendous. It was busy enough today, with just three. Of course we scoffed at them, herded around in groups behind signs, rushing to catch the last tender back to their ship. Sheep!

We wandered the narrow cobbled lanes, blinked at all the white paint, admired the skyline, the flowers, the inviting bars and restaurants, the cats; and ate moussaka on a restaurant terrace with a multi-national clientèle. Then we went back to our lovely hotel, dug into the cliff on the quiet side of town, with a perfectly-placed white chapel dome on one side of the caldera view, balanced by the little town of Oia on the other, where most of the Instagram photos are taken. Watch this space.

Back to the real world

This morning, with friendly but ruthless efficiency, we were evicted from the Silver Spirit and cast out into the wide world. After nine days of being cosseted, no-one's looking after us any more, supplying us with every possible need and want, making suggestions for our entertainment, or rocking us to sleep at night. Harsh.

It's especially a shock to the system since we're in Piraeus, which claims to be the Mediterranean's busiest port, humming with ferries and not concerned in the least with being pretty. So there's litter, graffiti, stalled roading and construction projects, double- and triple-parked cars, homeless people (some of them begging), thin stray cats and dogs, and even a seagull dropping a dead pigeon onto the roof of a car driving past the big church whose roof it had been perching on. There are also fancy shops and a private marina thick with the masts of some very expensive boats - but mostly Piraeus is not a place to linger. Nor would we, except that we have an early ferry to catch tomorrow, to somewhere much more photogenic and touristy. Yes, that Instagram staple: Santorini.

Patmos: island of mysteries. Just not that one.

Today's cliché moment was randomly exploring a steep narrow pathway back from the waterfront at Patmos, and hearing, invisible on a roof terrace above me, an old man playing the balalaika, singing along to it, and encouraging his little granddaughter, Ella, to sing with him. It was tuneful and charming, and so very Greek - what with the white-painted buildings, the blue doors and window frames, the purple bougainvillea and all.

Patmos is the most northerly of the Dodecanese island group, and relatively untouristy - or as much as possible, given that St John had a vision in a cave here, and dictated his Book of Revelation on the island; so of course it's on the pilgrim trail. 

We went to the cave, a dark, granite overhang now built in and turned into a shrine, cluttered with icons and glass cases and paintings - but with a lovely view over the hills and valley and harbour. If I'd been an old man sleeping on rock with my head stuck into a hole in the wall, I reckon I'd've had a few lively dreams too, but I wouldn't have written them down and broadcast them. Staunch atheist that I am, I do find it disappointing to see otherwise intelligent people sucked into believing such claptrap - I mean, the bit on the cave roof where the revelatory crack splits, dividing a lump of rock into three: so that's proof of the Trinity? Give me strength. [Pause while religious readers instantly click on their X.]

I was far more impressed by meeting a cat on a beach, which was a first for me - a friendly cat with the loudest purr ever - and intrigued by seeing a goose on the water out in the bay - again, a first, since I've previously associated geese only with fresh water. Perhaps that's my ignorance turning something ordinary into a marvel? Funny how that works...

The day's greatest mystery, however, was observing an old man at the end of a pier continuously sweeping his arm back and forth, holding a line tied to an octopus. He did it for ages, never stopping while I watched, and I have no idea why. Slowly beating the poor thing to death on the concrete step? Tenderising it after death and before consumption? Playing puppet-master? I'll probably never know; and that's ok by me. I have faith that there will be a practical explanation.

"Every Silversea passenger is special."

Marketing gold: that's a direct, overheard, quote from a passenger to another passenger - and, further, from Silversea newbies. It was prompted by observing, from the ninth level pool deck, the welcome party in place on the dock directly below, waiting to receive back into the Silver Spirit's warm embrace those passengers who had been out that evening enjoying a classical concert in front of the library at Ephesus.

I watched too, the 20+ mostly white-gloved butlers in a right-angle on the dock holding a 'Welcome Home' banner while a drums and keyboard combo played jaunty music, waiting patiently until the Silversea passengers eventually started straggling back along the pier. Meanwhile, some of the people cruising with the Ocean Majesty opposite walked along the same pier, slinking behind the butlers to cross the gangway into their own ship to no fanfare whatsoever. As an illustration of the concept of Them and Us, it couldn't have been surpassed. Of course we felt smug!

Starting and ending with some excellent work by the sun, it had been a good day, as any that involves a trip to Ephesus will be. Even having been there so recently, I was still impressed by the scale of this archeological site, the care with which it's being revealed and restored, the famous feet that walked the same polished marble pavers that I did, the sheer beauty of the stone. And the cats, of course. I have to say, it was prettier in April, with the poppies, but the cats certainly helped soften the hard surfaces.

But oh! The people! In April it was relatively quiet; today it was heaving - and that was with only three cruise ships docked in Kusadasi. Sometimes there are more, and bigger. So the processional way was heaving - as, in fact, it must have been back in the day when there was an event - and the Library was awash with people. 

This time, I went inside the separate excavated terraced houses section, under expensive cover funded by Austria, and saw the world's biggest jigsaw puzzle: thousands of pieces of broken marble slabs, shattered by an earthquake centuries ago, and laid out on tables to be painstakingly fitted back together as many already had been. It was worth seeing.

And then, just to make things even more interesting, not only did I learn via Twitter that a friend from Auckland had been in Ephesus today too and was now dining on her cruise ship one pier over; but also that her ship, and another, had both been involved in assisting refugee boats on this busy bit of water as they made their way towards Greece. Where we will be ourselves again, tomorrow.

Silversea green

Excursion envy: it’s a thing. You get the cruise details months and months ahead of the event, read through the itinerary, do your research (or, in my case, don’t) and then you book your excursions at each, or some of the, ports. The cruise rolls around, you rock up to your suite, and there amongst all the paperwork is an envelope of tickets which you look through and think, “Uh?”

It really isn’t just me. Lots of other passengers on this Silversea cruise have turned up to the coach each morning looking forward to some sort of magical mystery tour, with no real idea of where they’ll be going. And mostly it’s turned out to be interesting, pleasant, a chance to see a bit more of the area than just the port. But then, come the afternoon, when everyone is back on board, and the Trivial Pursuit teams are filling in the time before the latest skirmish in this cut-throat competition begins, notes are compared, and excursion envy raises its ugly head.

A few days ago it was the island of Delos I missed out on, its archeological site claimed to be “better than Ephesus!” And today it was a simple boat cruise around the harbour, bay and islands of Marmaris here on the coast of Turkey, that sounded laid-back and lovely.

Instead, I had gone on a coach trip along the coast and seen scenery that reminded me of the Marlborough Sounds back home, minus the castle, and stopped in a village that specialised in honey and where a 1900 year-old plane tree required that you walk around it three times to ensure, it turned out, luck and long life. I'd spent my circuits wondering whether to choose health or happiness. 

It was pleasant, and notable for our guide getting teary when speaking about how proud and grateful she is to Ataturk for his reconstruction of Turkey from 1923, and the reforms he brought about that mean she has rights and opportunities not available to women in any other country where Islam is the main religion.

Nice sunset tonight, in the bay where some very fancy yachts are moored, and where an excursion boat paraded past, flaunting its name in my face and underscoring my dismal failure, despite international effort, to spot the real thing.

Clinging on

There are trees on Rhodes. The rock isn’t granite, but limestone (did you know the Greek for limestone is ‘poros’?) so the rain filters through to aquifers, and vegetation can grow. That makes it unique amongst Greek Islands, and attractive to settlement, so its history goes way, way back. Our guide Stefanos gave us the run-down on our drive south to Lindos – layers and layers of civilisation over many thousands of years, waves of invasions from all directions by various groups and nationalities, destruction and rebuilding, great power, wide influence and then decline.

So now it’s another island reliant on the annual summer invasion of tourists, who swarm through its Old Town behind the city walls, pose by the fountains, are assailed by forceful restaurant touts, and buy souvenirs – amongst which I was surprised to find a basket of authentic-looking boomerangs made, it was claimed, from local olive wood.

It was lively, and easy to see the history beneath the tourist trappings, and on a warm afternoon it was very pleasant to stroll along the grassy moat, through the cobbled lanes and climb up to a rooftop terrace for a drink and a view over flat roofs all with solar water heaters, past mosques and a church tower towards the castle and, beyond, the edge of Turkey in the haze.

In the morning, I went to Lindos to visit the Acropolis there. It’s at the top of 280 steps, which caused a ridiculous amount of consternation amongst the other passengers in the group. At the top there were classic ruins of fluted columns and carved blocks, a view over the cove where St Paul first preached – now a sought-after wedding location – and back over the town, another maze of narrow alleyways paved with stone and pebbles, and crowded with souvenir shops.

There are donkeys here, for getting back up to the bus park – American donkeys, brought in after the war (that’s WW2 – you need to be specific in a place like this) to help the locals cope with their busted roads. I didn’t ride one, this time – I’m keeping that for Santorini.