Lazy Day in Santorini

Today was a lazy day, probably one of our laziest days since our travels began on April 3. We didn’t go out for breakfast until about 9.30am, and then we wandered through the shopping precinct for a couple of hours with no particular goal other than looking around. Just after midday it was getting very hot and sticky, so we called in at a supermarket (‘super’ is a gross exaggeration in this instance) and stocked up with milk, crackers, cheese, olives, water etc, then walked back to our apartment to put the cold stuff in the fridge. Unfortunately this walk was all uphill in the midday sun, so I was sweating profusely by the time I’d climbed those 39 steps to our front door with that heavy load in my backpack. We made the decision there and then not to go back out again until it cooled down a bit. So we stayed in the shade on our balcony or lay down on the bed inside, as our room is quite cool, until about 6pm when we ventured out again. As we’re here for five nights, it won’t bother us if we don’t manage to get to all of the tourist spots. A siesta or two in this final week of our trip will suit us just fine.

I got up early this morning and sat on the balcony checking websites, reading emails and watching the cruise ships sail in. I had a couple of the island’s many cats for company. Breakfast was at Volkan cafe, about 100 metres along the path from our place. We got a table right on the wall, looking directly down to the sea and out across the caldera – one of the best views you could ever wish to have while eating breakfast.

On our morning walk, Marg and I had to keep stepping around people on the path taking photos and selfies. That’s understandable. You don’t find backdrops like this one too often. The morning sun was out and the white buildings looked magnificent, especially when contrasted with the blue gates and doors and the blue sea. The stark contrast between blue and white on this island is really quite striking.

We checked out a few of the shops. Most of them sold very similar souvenirs to other places we’ve been, although some of the clothing on sale looked pretty good. The trouble was, that with five cruise ships sitting there in the harbour, the shops were full of tourists from the ships. Some of them are pretty rude. They just push through in narrow places, butt in when you were first in line, talk loudly and block doorways. I hope we weren’t like that on our river cruise or bus tour. So aside from having to take our groceries back to our accommodation, a desire to get away from this mob was another reason why we decided to stay out of the town for a while.

We ventured out again for dinner at 6pm. I must confess that I ordered the marinated octopus for the second night in a row. I might even go back again and order it a third time, that’s how good it is. After dinner we walked down to the shopping precinct again. This time it was much cooler and there was a breeze. Just perfect. And, even better, all of the cruise ship people had gone and now it was just the regular tourists in town. They move at a much more leisurely pace, and it was really pleasant and far less crowded wandering around some of the streets. I think an easy day like today was just what we’ve needed for a while. We’ll just play it by ear for the rest of our time here, but if we get cruise ship crowds and hot, sweaty days, I guess we’ll take more mid-afternoon siestas.