Located in the Aegean Sea, the island of Santorini was formed from an intense volcanic eruption over 3000 years ago. Prior to the eruption it is thought that the area consisted of a single large island with the volcano in the middle. The eruption caused the inner section of the island to collapse back down into the magma chamber thus creating the area's signature caldera and two volcanic islands (Kameni and Nea Kameni).

The collapse of the centre of the island is also thought to have provided the inspiration for the story of the lost city of Atlantis – in actual fact, archaeologists believe that unlike with Pompeii, the inhabitants of the Santorini region had some warning of the impending eruption and were able to evacuate to safety . Digs around Akotiri have found no 'accidental human remains’, meaning any remains found so far have been buried/interred on purpose.

After the collapse, the caldera filled with sea water creating the blue waters that make the area famous. The depth of the caldera is approximately 400 meters, which meant there are few places where large ships can anchor Our ship was lucky enough to get the only spot where there is a suitable anchorage (this was on top of a pinnacle that sits in around 40m). The other cruise ships in area were forced to spend the day bobbing around, using their thrusters to keep in position. This also means that it is one of our tender ports, so we had to board a smaller boat to get ashore – as the water taxi union in the area is so strong, this meant we used their boats and not the ship tenders.

On the caldera side of the Santorini, the houses have been built high up on the edge of the steep cliffs. The capital is Fira, which is nestled into a cliff over 721 feet high . It’s architecture is a mix of Venetian and Cycladic forms.

As the town is at the top of the cliff and our tender dropped us off at the bottom, everyone had to make their way up what is a very steep cliff. There are three ways to do this – catch a cable car, ride a donkey or walk. We opted to catch the cable car up and walk down.

The cable car was an interesting experience, unlike others we’ve seen this one operated only 12 carriages, with six running up and down on one side and six of the other. The carriages came to a complete stop at the top and bottom. To get in, you had to walk up some steep stairs and then wait for your side of carriages to come down, then you hopped in for a very steep and quick ride.

Having made it up to the top, we then spent a couple of hours trying to navigate the narrow, winding, cobble stone streets. We managed to find the Archaeological museum. While it didn’t take very long to have a look through, it did have some nice pottery from the Akrotiri archaeological site .

We had lunch at a roof top café that overlooked the non caldera side of the island (so no steep cliffs, but a nice view of some vineyards and possibly a beach. Fearing I would turn into a Greek Salad, I opted for some tomato fritters and some dip with bread. Mum again had a seafood platter.

Full from lunch, we were wander the streets when we came across a fish spa. We had been a few around and as we had some time to spare decided to go have another lot of fish feed off our feet. Unlike the ones in Athens, these fish were hungry and gave our toes a good going over.

Now walking on smooth feet, it was time to head back down to when the tender meeting point.

Having caught the cable car up and not wanting to take a donkey back down (they look to move a bit quicker going down than up) we decided to walk down. This meant using the same smoothed marble path as the donkeys…

It started out well, however we encountered s group of donkey’s that didn’t want to move, unsure of how to proceed and wanting to avoid getting kicked, we tried to sneak past . Luckily, a women from the area was behind us and told us to just push the donkeys out of the way and make a ‘shushing’ sound.

This advice served us well. The donkeys have a certain track they like to follow up and down the path. This track is the same one us humans like to follow. As you walk down it looks and feels like the donkey is veering towards you on purpose, when really the tracks are overlapping. Seeing a large donkey heading towards me bought out my inner donkey whisper and I quickly worked out that shushing them, sticking one arm out and gently pushing them away from me worked quite well.

The rest of the walk down was relatively easy, a couple of minor slips to remind you to concentrate on the walk and not the scenery were had, and neither of us was too badly squished by a donkey (that said we got close enough to smell like one).

580 steps later we were at the bottom and looking for a cooling drink .

Knowing that we could see the tenders, I had a cooling soft drink while Mum had a cooling traditional ouzo (ouzo, ice and water). When the call for last tender came, we finished our drinks and headed to our tender. We were all ready to go, when the crew found that we were two passengers short. A man appeared and let the crew know that his wife had fallen walking down the donkey track and was being bought down on a donkey. The crew jumped into action to check on her and help her on to the boat. Other than having some donkey poop on her, she was fine. It would appear that her misadventure was caused by a mix of too much fun of the liquid kind mixed with the slippery steps than make up the donkey track.

Fun fact:
The cable cars on Santorini were a gift from a wealthy ship owner.