4/22/98: Off to Santorini today. The arrival at this island was spectacular! Am finding that used book stores are a common convenience on traveler circuits. Before we left Naxos, I snapped up a copy of Random Harvest, by James Hilton. Ran into Rob B. again (saw him first in Istanbul, then in Selçuk and Samos), who also is heading to Santorini.
4/22/23: Arriving by boat to Santorini really was spectacular. No kidding: we sailed into a volcano! The port for this island is at the base of a cliff in the middle of a partially submerged volcanic caldera. The town of Thera sits several hundred feet above the water on the cliff top. Our ferry sailed south by south east into the caldera as the late afternoon sun behind us was causing the cliffs in front of us to smolder with color, and the walls and roofs of the town above to glitter like jewels.
As if the beauty wasn’t enough excitement to take in, we then had a terrifying bus ride up the switchbacks of the cliff face! This road was so narrow that the cab of the bus, sitting forward of the front tires, swung several feet out over the precipice of each turn. The reason it took each corner with such wide turns was to allow the two-way traffic to descend!
After we found a pensione and unloaded our bags, we watched the sun set gloriously over Thirasia, the island on the other side of the caldera.
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