Oia, Santorini Island

Today Tuesday another lovely day, it rained during the night apparently, I did not notice it, today was a hot sunny day. So we went to Oia, population 1230, which is on the tip of Santorini Island. Small village built on the volcanic cliff of the Island, lots of steps up and down, lots of little boutiques, commercial art work, T-shirts and nick-nacks for the house, few jewellery shops in comparison to Fira.

The views are spectacular of the sea and the crater against the blue sky. Lots of tourists from the Cruise ships, 3 big ships came in today. The tourist crowd is mostly 65+. Oia remains one of the foremost tourist attractions of the Aegean Sea. The famous Oia sunset, considered by many as one of the most beautiful in the world, keeps tourists flocking down to the castle, waiting for the moment when the sun slips down on the calm sea of the caldera. Tourists are often told that the fishing docks at Oia are the oldest continually used docks in the world, supposedly being in service for 3000 years.

My Dad has many allergies and one is tomato and the other is citrus, in Greek cuisine you find these items in almost every dish, another one is mustard or vinegar. So it is a little complicated when ordering food. They do not do substitutions, what you order is what you get.

My Dad also speaks to every one in English but it does not always work, many people just smile but do not understand what he is saying, in restaurants, despite many foreign tourists speaking German, Spanish, Italian, French or English, the staff speaks Greek or Albanian,

with a little English just enough to get by.

So far the weather has been fine, I was worried that it might rain but being at sea on different islands we have been able to avoid due to wind currents most of the bad weather. Have been reading a lot and found a beautiful bookstore in Oia with an incredible variety of books. Bought a book by Lawrence Durrell (1912-1990) whose books are mostly all classics nowadays. The one I bought is entitled ‘’Greek Islands’’

He writes about Mykonos and other islands back in 1966, it is almost prehistoric when you think of it, the change in the islands since makes them almost unrecognizable.

Tomorrow we return by slow boat to Athens, it will take 9 hours going from one island to the other in this archipelago, a voyage of its own in the Cyclades, I am happy just to think that I will have cruised amongst them.