There is something
special about being on an island.
Not a big island, like Ireland, Britain or Sicily, but a small island where you can see water all around you and feel the smallness of it against the vastness of the ocean or sea. Sao Miguel was special in that way. Guam was special in that way (and in many other ways).
Small coastal
islands like Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard, off the coast of Massachusetts,
don’t exude the same feeling. You know you are only a short ferry ride from the
mainland, so you don’t get that same sensation of an oasis in the midst of
watery vastness.
Islands and
mountains are my favorite places to get away, to experience some degree of
soothing, cleansing isolation. To be honest, I have always found more
isolation, more peace, and more spiritual connection in the high country. But
islands have something that mountains lack: the power of the sea.
In lieu of that
powerful spiritual experience of being in a high mountain valley, a small
island surrounded by a sea or ocean will do just fine.
Santorini
As I started this
post, I was on a short vacation on the Greek island of Santorini (I finished it
back home in Kharkiv). Santorini is part of a vast archipelago stretching
across the Aegean Sea from mainland Greece to Turkey. The island is sort of
unique in that it was the site of a devastating volcanic eruption somewhere
around 1660 BC that sent much of the original island into the sea. There are
some legends that claim the lost city of Atlantis was on Santorini and was
destroyed in the eruption.
Now the main island
is sort of curved around the caldera of the sunken portion, with a still-active
volcanic portion in the center of the caldera and another piece located just
northwest of the “volcano island.” There was another significant earthquake
there in 1956, so people there have to a bit “on their toes” with regard to
Mother Nature.
Santorini is one of
the more developed islands in the archipelago, which makes it a real tourist
trap from April to October, and especially during the summer. But I arrived in
early March when the temperatures are pleasant, if not particularly warm, and
there are very few tourists.
Just the way I like
it: not hot, and not a lot of people. I was able to enjoy my time in T-shirts
and shorts and without a lot of people invading my calm space.
So this post is
about my four days on Santorini. I honestly don’t know where this post will go;
it might be something of a travelogue, like my posts about my 2016 Portugal trip, or it might wander off into something else entirely. The point is to get
writing again, something that I let slide very badly in 2018.
A Few Rants
I’ll get a couple of
negative points off my chest first and be done with them.
Are there any more
obnoxious and annoying tourists today than the Chinese? You’re in some
relatively quiet, natural place and then you hear someone yakking loudly into a
phone. You turn around and, sure enough, he is Chinese.
On my first full
day, I wanted to take a photo of a small monastery building that was framed by
red rock behind it. It would have been a perfect picture if some Chinese
tourists hadn’t suddenly pulled up and parked their car in front the building,
right in the center of my photo. Everyone else had parked in another area
across from the building. They got out of the car, looked right at me holding
my camera, then got their stuff from the car and walked away, leaving the car
right there to ruin the shot.
Yes, there are words
for such people, but this is a family blog.
The owner of the
place I stayed at overnight near the Athens airport before I want to Santorini
told me that of all the guests he has had to deal with over the years from
almost every country imaginable, the Chinese have been the most arrogant and
condescending. “They expect you to carry their bags for them, like a servant,”
he told me.
I wasn’t surprised.
Windrose Airlines
sucks. That about says it all.
Why is it that the
so-called “smart cars,” the smallest cars on the road, can’t seem to stay on
their own side of the street? It’s weird that the cars I met coming the other
way that were most likely to be taking up part of my lane were these
mini-midgetmobiles.
Greeks smoke a lot,
and they often do it in restaurants and cafes. Believe it or not, Ukraine is
actually ahead of the curve on limiting smoking in public buildings by
comparison. I really hate cigarette smoke!
The Offseason
Touring a place like
Santorini in the offseason is really a treat – unless you actually like crowds,
traffic and long waits. I was able to enjoy driving on the island, especially
in the south, because the traffic was light to nonexistent. But I did
experience a bit of traffic in and around the main towns of Fira and Oia, so I
can imagine what it must be like in the high season when this popular resort
destination is choked with throngs of visitors.
At the tourist spots, there were few tourists and sometimes none at all. There were those occasional Chinese, however. I saw many huge tour buses parked in a few places on the island, but I only encountered a couple of them on the road. I can imagine what it must be like trying to drive around the island in the high season with exponentially more rental cars and lots of those huge buses on the narrow roads. No thank you!
Sure, it’s not so
warm, and swimming was out of the question, but that’s fine for me. I prefer it
to be a bit warm but not hot; 15-18 degrees Celsius in the daytime is perfect.
I had lunch one day
in a tavern near the famous Red Beach, and for most of that time, I was the
only customer. There was a family there when I arrived (from Virginia), and we
chatted just a bit. But otherwise, I had the place to myself. Similarly, in the
restaurant at the hotel I stayed at, I was the only customer for breakfast or
dinner each day.
In the offseason, you get a better sense of how people really live. Locals are more open, and because they have fewer guests to deal with, they can take a little more time with you. And they do. I had some really interesting chats with the owners of the place I was staying at, Villa Michalis, and a few other places I stopped at.
At one little
beachside café, the host asked me where I was from, and when I told him I had
come from Ukraine, he started speaking Russian. He wanted to practice, and it
was sort of funny to have two people trying to communicate in quite poor
Russian. But at least for me it was enjoyable to speak Russian with someone who
made my level seemed pretty good by comparison.
Life on Santonini in
the offseason seems devoted largely to repairing and freshening up the
facilities in preparation for the tourist season. In many places I saw workers
renovating verandas and other structures that will be filled with tourists in
just a few short months. And not all of the restaurants and cafes were even
open. There was one Greek restaurant that I had read about and was looking
forward to trying, a place called “Salt and Pepper” in Fira, but it was closed
until April.
A popular, developed
island like Santorini is never going to give you that feeling of isolation and
quiet, but at least in the offseason you can find some quiet spots to get away
and find some peace. I suspect this simply is not true in the high season.
The Sun Comes Up – The Sun Goes Down
Only on an island
can you catch the sunrise and sunset over the sea on the same day. Of the two,
the sunrise might be more inspiring You have to make the effort to get up early
if you want to catch it, and it’s the birth of a new day, the beginning of your
day, rather than the end.
But I like them
both.
Very often in
Colorado in the summer, we get gorgeous bursts of color as the sun drops down
behind the mountain peaks, and those are some of the most beautiful sunsets I
can recall. But when the sun sets into the sea or ocean, and there is just the
right combination of clear sky with just a few clouds toward the horizon, it is
magnificent.
I managed to catch a stunning sunset on my first evening. It was from a lighthouse on the southwest corner of the island. The next morning was completely cloudy, so I didn’t bother getting up for the sunrise, but I did go to a nearby beach on the southeast side for the next morning’s sunrise. It was a perfect sunrise, but my pictures came out much less than perfect for some reason. I was very disappointed. But I rectified that a few days later by catching a beautiful sunrise from my hotel balcony in the mainland port of Rafina.
Anata-wa Nihon-jin Desu Ka?
I mentioned earlier
about the rather abrasive Chinese tourists. In contrast, however, I was
delighted on a couple of occasions to run into some Japanese visitors. Of
course, I lived in Japan for six years, so I have a great appreciation for the
Japanese people, and I consider the Japanese language to be one of the world’s
more beautiful languages – much more so than Chinese.
On my last full day
on Santorini, I decided to have lunch in a little pizzeria, and I chose a table
by a window with a nice view of the caldera. Shortly after I sat down, two
girls came in and sat behind me. They seemed polite and were talking quietly
with each other. But after a few minutes, I realized they were speaking
Japanese.
After a while, I
decided to ask them – in Japanese – if they were from Japan. They were quite
surprised – and pleased – to hear someone speak to them in their own language,
and we had a brief conversation (in English, of course, because my Japanese is
far worse even than my Russian). Then I left them to enjoy their lunch
together, but made a point to say goodbye and wish them well in Japanese when I
left.
To add to the
Japan-related coincidences, the person sitting next to me on my return flight
from Santorini to Athens was a young guy from Japan. We had a very nice
conversation during the short flight (in English).
The Joy of Driving
One of the things I
enjoyed most about my time on the island was driving around. I rented a small
Peugeot to get around and enjoyed it a lot. It was a very simple car without
all the bells and whistles that my rentals in Portugal or the UK had, but on a
tiny island where no place is more than a 40-minute drive from anyplace else, you
don’t need a GPS or advanced audio system.
Driving is one ofthe greatest joys of my life, but in Ukraine, I don’t drive at all. So for the
past 10 years or so, the only chances to drive have been when I’ve been on
vacation, and during my UK vacation in July I left most of the driving to my
daughter. So it was a real pleasure to be behind the wheel, especially in a
place where there was almost no traffic and no stress.
Not Really My Kind of Place
I enjoyed my four
short days on Santorini, but it’s not a place I would pine to return to. It’s
an arid island, as are most of the islands in the Aegean, I guess, which just
makes it less attractive. And it’s quite developed, meaning there are not so
many places where you can just get away from people and enjoy a natural
environment. I managed to find a few spots, but during the high season, I
imagine that even these would have tourists swarming about.
My favorite island
getaway, thus far, remains Sao Miguel. It’s one place I might like to return to
someday, and it would be interesting to check out some of the smaller islands
in the Azores. Although Sao Miguel does get a fair amount of tourists in the
high season, you can still find plenty of lush, beautiful places. I imagine
that the other islands would also be very green, but with fewer people.
Santorini, on the other hand, seems like the kind of place that is never really
lush or green.
Still, Santorini is
a nice place, and I really liked the people. For those who like warm water,
sunny beaches, good food, and some ancient history, it can be a great
destination – as long as you don’t mind sharing with a few thousand other
tourists in the high season.
But I won’t be going
back. It’s time to start thinking about a totally different summer vacation.
