Having a riot of a time

We’re off to Athens tomorrow afternoon. We’re not quite sure what to expect. There were riots in Athens today as protestors took to the streets in protest at austerity measures imposed by the near bankrupt Government. Sadly, three people were killed earlier this afternoon after becoming trapped in a bank set alight by molotov cocktail welding protesters. Earlier in the week we saw protestors vandalizing a Hotel Grande Bretagne in the main square opposite Parliament.

The images of men attacking the hotel left me cold as I’d almost booked us into this venue last week after being emailed a remarkably cheap last-minute deal. The temptation of five-star luxury was almost too good to refuse. Fortunately, we’re still booked into a hotel on the south side of the Acropolis, almost a kilometre away from Parliament and the focal point of angry protest. However, I think we’ll probably give Constitution Square a miss while we’re in town.

Tomorrow's holiday snap?
Image courtesy of Reuters

A 24-hour strike was also called today, the third to hit Greece in as many months. Flights were cancelled, trains and ferries stopped running and public facilities remained closed. There was little sign of the disruption in Santorini. We’re also hopeful our afternoon flight will depart as normal tomorrow, as flights are scheduled to resume in the morning.

It seems that public protest is a regular feature of Greek life. Almost 20 years ago, my first attempt to visit Athens was foiled by a nationwide public strike. We arrived in Patras by ferry to be greeted by power cuts, trains and buses not running, ATM machines not working and chaos everywhere. With our money running low and little hope of reaching Athens in a timely manner we abandoned Greece after 24 hours and returned to Italy.

Ironically, our travel plans this week were also disrupted by a strike. We’d originally booked a ferry from the mainland to Mykonos. However, a week ago I was advised by the ferry company that our sailing had been cancelled in response to a scheduled strike. I secured a refund and put the money towards an airfare instead. This change of plan proved fortuitous. Our flight arrived several hours earlier than our original ferry booking, enabling us to enjoy a wonderful sunset from our hotel balcony.

Irene and Petros

The day we arrived in Mykonos our hotel warned us to watch out for Irene, the island’s official mascot. Irene is a large, rather intimidating looking Pelican. She wanders the streets of the old town at will and can be often found holding court on the waterfront, surrounded by a frenzy of camera-welding tourists. We saw her several times; once standing among local rowboats on the harbour foreshore and once at dinner.


The second encounter was particularly unnerving. Garry and I were dining outdoor at a local seafood restaurant. Earlier that evening we’d stood at the fish counter and selected a large, fresh snapper barely hours off the boat. Within moments of the cooked fish arriving at our table, Irene came wandering down the laneway. I swear that pelican looked twice at our table before slowing ambling past. I was petrified. With a beak as fearsome as Irene's swaying mere inches from my arm I wasn't game to move a muscle.


We later learnt that Irene isn’t the original mascot. The first pelican of Mykonos, called Petros arrived in town in 1954 and remained resident until his death in 1986. His passing was met with calls for a new pelican to take his place, the rather pampered and somewhat bold bird that eyed our dinner. This latest incarnation of the island’s mascot was donated by none other than Jackie Kennedy-Onassis. It was later joined by a pelican donated by Hamburg Zoo. Today, three pelicans wander the streets as a third, nursed back to health by locals, has since joined the mascot brigade.

Fira

Santorini is an amazing location. It’s essentially a string of islands circling the sunken caldera of a dormant volcano. Since recorded history began, it has erupted more than five times. The most stunning of these events in 1650BC literally blew the top of the volcano off, creating the caldera you see today. This cataclysmic eruption is believed to have brought about the collapse of the advanced Minoan civilization that dominated the Cycladian region. The island’s last eruption in 1707 created the grey, rocky island of Nea Kameni which sits in the centre of the caldera.


Today, a string of white-washed villages delicately balance along the rim of the caldera’s steep multi-coloured cliffs. The island’s largest town is Fira, perched 220 metres above sea level. We’ve based ourselves here for 2.5 days after catching a high-speed ferry from Mykonos. The ferry ride proved to be a smooth and easy 2.5 hour journey across the Aegean.


However, reaching Fira was an adventure in itself. The ferry docked at a narrow wharf clinging to the base of Santorini's towering cliffs. From here our taxi took us to the caldera rim via a winding road consisting of hairpin after hairpin corner. You can see just two of these hair-raising turns in bottom-right-hand corner of the image above. This being Greece and all means the locals insist on passing each other despite the blind corners ahead. Although, it seems that even the locals have their limits. At one point our grizzled taxi driver let out an almost blood-curdling gasp as the driver ahead narrowly missed a head-on collision.


Our first day in town saw us wandering along a cobbled path that follows the rim for more than a kilometre. The caldera views kept unfolding in greater and greater breathtaking splendour, while every turn offered us yet another quintessential Greek scene of white-washed angles, clay pots and blue church domes. Hopefully, some of the images posted below do it all justice.


We stopped for lunch at Mylos Cafe. It’s an old converted windmill offering stunning views from a shaded outdoor terrace, or from the comfort of white leather sofas where the view is framed by large picture windows. The cafe proved to be a real gem. Rarely do you discover such astonishing quality at such a modest price. 

Mylos Cafe offered superb food, served using funky modern glassware. We both had local variations of a classic Greek salad; Garry with large chunks of smoked pork and mine with capers and baby tomatoes. Needless to say, we lingered here for several hours.

We later retraced our steps along the caldera rim, detouring to glance inside several of Fira’s many churches. This evening we plan to relax again on our private hotel terrace and enjoy a chilled bottle of wine and some snacks we’ve collected along the way. We may never want to leave!

Pantelia Suites

Regular readers will know that I rarely blog about the hotel we stay in. As a regular business traveler each hotel generally starts to look very much like the last. However, every so often, we discover a venue whose impossibly stunning web images fail to do justice to the real thing. Pantelia Suites in Santorini is one such location. When we booked this hotel, the internet promoted a stunning array of postcard perfect images. Previous guests had also written rave review after review. It all seemed too good to be true.


However, since arriving yesterday afternoon we continue to pinch ourselves in disbelief. The real thing is every bit as magical as the web implies. Picture if you can a truly immaculate white walled series of cubic buildings moulded into the hillside. Each door and window shutter painted in the perfect shade of baby blue. Then imagine the entire location sculpted by sun-baked terraces, each offering its own interpretation of a breath-taking view across volcanic islands and on towards a hazy blue horizon. Even better its literally 50 metres from the town centre, down a quiet shaded laneway.


Our room is one on the lower levels. It was once a cave hewn from the cliff face below the narrows lanes of Fira, Santorini’s main town. Today, it’s a white-walled, barrel vaulted suite that serves as a cool, airy respite from the intense Greek sunshine. The back half of the interior has been walled off to create a spacious bedroom, complete with its own mini-cave walk-in wardrobe and the remains of an old domed wood oven. The bed is delightful comfortable and spacious. Our bathroom is another adjoining cave, with a soaring high vaulted ceiling and a deep, tiled bath tub.


This morning we were greeted with a full breakfast served outdoors on our terrace. Last night we sat here with a drink witnessing a stunning sunset. It’s hard to believe this is the cheapest venue on our Greek vacation. We’ve picked the perfect time of year to come. Our room was more than 40% cheaper than the peak season rate, the sun is hot without being debilitating and the crowds are sparse despite the famous honeymoon location. Pantelia Suites is worth every penny – and those internet images really are as good as they look.

Sunset in Santorini

We have arrived in Santorini. Below is the view from our hotel balcony. Our room is an old cave converted into a modern, bright self-contained suite. From here we've just witnessed yet another stunning red sky sunset. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

• Posted by iPhone
• Location:Thira,Greece

Delos

Our last morning in Mykonos coincided with this season’s first guided tour to the island of Delos, located a couple of kilometers west. The Cyclades islands of Greece are so named as they encircle this small, barren outcrop in the southern Aegean Sea. Delos was once the most powerful, and sometimes most sacred, island in all of ancient Greece. It was considered the mythical birthplace of twins Apollo and Artemis; the god of sunlight and the goddess of moonlight. By the 8th Century BC it was well established as a shrine to Apollo.

Its history then began to unfold at the whim of who ever was in power. The Athenians controlled it by the 5th Century BC and established the modern equivalent of a national treasury on the island. Here all of the treasure of its allied islands was stored. The alliance became known as the Delian League, named in honour of the island itself. The city state of Athens later decreed that nobody could be born or could die on the island, effectively strengthening its hold on Delos.


As its religious prominence grew, so too did the island’s importance. Merchants and traders flocked to island to service thousands of pilgrims. At its height this tiny, rocky island of 6 sq km was home to more than 20,000 inhabitants. The Romans declared Delos a free port in 167BC. This encouraged more trade and wealth to flood into the island’s economy, including a lucrative slave trade. More than 10,000 slaves a day were traded here at its height.


However, Delos soon fell into decline as trade routes shifted and ancient religions fell out of favour. The last inhabitants left the island by the 4th Century AD. Today, all the remains of this rich and varied history are a series of ruins, including a number of magnificent marble statues. On our final day in Mykonos we spent almost three hours on Delos touring some of its most renowned sights. For three days we'd sat on our hotel balcony looking across a glassy sea at this thin strip of land so I relished an opportunity to finally visit.


Our guide took through the once opulent Theatre quarter where the city’s wealthiest residents lived. She pointed out intricately tiled mosaic floors, colonnaded courtyards and an underground network of water reservoirs used to store water on this parched, hostile island. Perhaps the most stunning of the mosaic floors was that from the House of Dionysos. It depicts the Greek god of wine, Dionysos, riding a snarling tiger. The colourful detail is astonishing.


We also sat in the marble seats in the main amphitheatre, once reserved for local patrons of the arts and other prominent citizens. However, the most memorable sight was the island’s world famous Terrace of the Lions. This is a row of marble beasts that line one of the city’s main thoroughfares. The lions you see today are replicas. The originals are housed in a nearby museum which we had an opportunity to tour before our boat departed for Mykonos.

Losing friends with a single post

I suspect we’ll lose a few friends once this post is published. Why? Take a look at these images from our first 24 hours in Mykonos and you’ll see what I mean. I'm sure everyone will hate us. Since arriving we’ve been blessed by two breath-taking sunsets; the first from our hotel balcony and the second while standing in the shadows of the famous windmills of Mykonos. You can see below that Garry gritted his teeth and endured nature’s unfolding spectacle on our first evening, while reluctantly sipping on his complimentary champagne.


Last night’s sunset was amazing. We caught a cab into town just as the sun was setting. Dozens had the same idea. The shoreline in front of the Mykonos windmills had become a brief tourist Mecca as cameras everywhere were pointed at the same dazzling red orb on the horizon. The sunset was indescribable; and once again we were forced to endure the spectacle.


As the windmills testify, Mykonos is known as the ‘windy island’. The islands windmills were once its primary source of industrial energy and remained in use until recent times. Today, abandoned conical towers dot the landscape around the main town of Hora. A handful has been preserved as an iconic tourist attraction. The largest group of five sits on a hill overlooking a small bay, known affectionately as Little Venice. Here the buildings have been built to the water’s edge, housing bar after bar offering cheap cocktails with an ocean view.


After sunset we made our way through the old town’s narrow cobbled streets to the main harbour where restaurants and bars clutter the shoreline. Here we picked up tickets for our ferry to Santorini before wandering the back streets until we came across a delightful vine-covered courtyard serving local delicacies. We dined under candle-light, watching the world wander by. Garry enjoyed a steak the size of small child, while I tucked into a lamb roll stuffed with cheese and vegetables.


Despite its reputation, since arriving in Mykonos the weather has offered nothing but blue sky and still air. In fact, when I woke this morning, the Aegean Sea was so calm and so flat it actually reflected the image of ships passing distance islands. The boat you see in the image below was more than a kilometre away. What a perfect way to greet a new day. The locals tell us the weather was completely the opposite the day before we arrived. We’ve heard taxi drivers, waiters and bartenders all talk of storm winds so strong you barely stand outdoors.


Enjoy the photos. I must get back to the view on our balcony. A new sailboat has appeared in the bay. Finally, sonmething other than white houses, blue sky and aquamarine water to look at!