Cable car or Donkey, rose or dessert wine

Santorini! We had a tour booked with some of our cruise critic friends - there would be 6 of in a van taking a tour of the whole island. It was, however a tender port, and we had to meet our guide at 9 am. I'd asked the concierge at Michaels if there was a way to use priority tendering, and they said to just bring the other four with us. So, our original plan was to meet in the lobby, so we changed it to the Ensemble lounge, just outside Michaels. We got up in time to grab breakfast, and then headed to the lounge. One couple, Joe and Ruth were there, and JoEllen and Alan arrived soon after us. Manuala was taking a couple down to the tender area, so she just had us follow.

When we arrived, the tender wasn't there, so some of us went up a deck to get water, and came back down. Soon, we were on the tender, and docked below Fira, the main town on Santorini. There are three ways to get there. The first, and easiest is the cable car. The lines can get long, since it holds only 36 people at a time. There is a trail up, and you can walk (way 2) or take a donkey ride (way 3). Note that walkers share the trail with the donkeys so have to be very careful. We opted for the cable car. Fortunately, going up there wasn't a line - so we got on the first available car. (There are two of them, one goes up as the other goes down - a very common layout). We reached the top right on time, and there was Spriros waiting for us. After introductions, he told us where to wait, and went to get the car. Apparently, parking near the cable car is not possible, as, like many Greek Islands, Santorini's main town is full of very narrow streets pre-dating cars, so parking was impossible near the cable car exit.

Our first stop was the town of Their (I think) simply for the view, and to give the big buses from the ships time to leave Oia. Spiros took us part way, talking about some things about the island. He left us to wander to a point where he could leave the car, so we walked for about 10 minutes, admiring the spectacular view of the caldera. He also told us that it was too deep for the ships to anchor, so they have to keep the engines going to avoid drifting. We also had the Costa Classica with us down there.

Our next stop was the town of Oia, most photographed of Santorini. On the way, we stopped to learn about the geography of the island. The soil is volcanic, and there’s lots of pumice. We also learned a little bit about our fabulous guide. Apparently, he has a PhD in Archeology, and worked as an archeologist in the middle east, but it wasn’t a good way to make a living, so he became a tour guide.

We arrived in Oia, and Spriros gave us an orientation to the town. Part of his advice was not to do our shopping here, but to wait for Athens. Apparently there’s a lot of competition there, and things are fairly inexpensive. He took us to a square in the middle of the town, where there was, of course, the obligatory small cathedral. There was some sort of thing going on with bells ringing, and priests walkings. He gave us an hour to wander, visit the fort at the end of the street, or get a snack.

We joined JoEllen and Alan at a cafe overlooking the water and had coffee and desserts. That pretty much ate the entire time, so we headed back to meet Spiros. Joe and Ruth arrived at the same time we did and we headed to the car. Among the things we noticed was venders selling roasted street corn. He recommended that we have some if we found it in Athens (we didn’t).

We then drove across the entire island to a monastery that’s the highest point on the island. There are still a few monks there. The view was spectacular. You can’t go into the monastery itself, but you can go to the chapel. It’s in a lovely courtyard. Apparently, in Greece, they only show the Virgin Mary with Jesus, to indicate she’s not a dirty. Also, the pictures of their saints are fairly unadorned.

Our last stop was a nearby winery. JoEllen had read about one, but Spiros said it was about 50.00 to taste, so we opted to go to the one he’d selected. The tasting table was down some steps outside, so we had a beautiful view. There were a few price points - you could get full glasses, or two types of tastings - 3 and 5 wines. The tasting for 5 was 10 euros. Each couple opted to share one 5 wine tasting. They have grape that’s special to Santorini, so we tasted two different varietals for those, a rose, a red and a dessert wine. Generally the group liked the rose and the dessert wine the best. Glen and I decided to buy a bottle of the dessert wine. I found out later that when he bought it, they applied the cost of the tasting to the bottle, just as they do in Napa.

Following that, we drove back to Firo. When Spiros dropped us, he gave us a couple of restaurant recommendations. JoEllen had seen one on the travel channel, but it was in Oia, and thus too far to just go to. We select Argo, one that offered a wide array of greek dishes with a view of the Caldera. JoEllen found the Octopus she wanted, Joe and Ruth split a cheese stuffed burger, Alan also had that, and Glen and I each had something we don’t see at home - stuffed rolled beef. It was very good.

Following that, we headed to the cable car. We followed the signs, and soon encountered a line snaking around a square with shops along the side. We joined the end of the line and snaked along with everyone else. The wait ended up being about 30 minutes. The ride down was about 5, and then there was about a 15 minute wait for the tender. The crew was out in the line with cold water and cold towels.

One interesting fact about the tenders in both tender ports - the ship tenders were not used. Instead, they were local boats with a lot of seating. Glen’s guess was the unions in the area required their boats.

Once back on the ship we dropped our stuff in our room, and headed down for our nightly drink in Michaels club. Following that, Glen went back to the room for a bit and I went down to the shops to find out if they were planning to sell Kipling (I wanted a small backpack) and how the vat works. I did get different information than last time. Prior, I’d been told to just save my receipts from onboard purchases, and at the end of the cruise bring them to a shop. Today I was told they all had to be purchased on the same day. Earlier, Glen had purchased an adapter for the iPad, and now apparently that couldn’t be included. Apparently, the iLounge purchases could never be included even if purchased the same day. Oh well. I also learned the Kipling would be out on the last sea day when they did their sales.

We'd been invited to the helipad for sailaway, so at the appointed time we headed up. Nobody was there (at the meeting point) but someone sitting on the stairs said that the group had headed down the hall, so we went there. The line onto the helipad moved slowly but we were on the helipad before sailaway. We chatted with some of our friends as we sailed off.

We went to dinner at around 8:30, and after dinner tried to dance to one of the musicians. The floor is small to begin with, and they’ve put a statue on it. We gave up, went up a couple of decks and tried to dance in the hall. It’s hard on carpet so we gave up and headed up to the room. Relaxed for a bit, and then went to a reasonably early bed, since we had a very early start in Athens.