I stayed on Santorini long enough to see the sunset I showed yesterday. The island, with its volcanic rock faces dropping directly into the sea, is beautiful. But it's also full of tourists. And expensive.
When I got to Oia--the place you see in all of those Instagram photos of Santorini sunsets--it was like being in an older and more beautiful version of Times Square on New Year's Eve. It's was so crowded that with people taking selfies that you can't do much more than take a selfie--which, as you've probably noticed in this blog, is something I don't do.
It's odd that another New York analogy comes to mind: the road that winds (and I mean winds) its way down to the port of Athinios in a similar way to the Route 495 spur to the Lincoln tunnel. The difference is that the road to Athinios is about a tenth as wide (or so it seems) and its turns are sharper: hairpins in a couple of places. To complicate matters even further, the port itself sits on an improbably small shelf of land in front of a rock face. So, only one vehicle can reach it at a time and people spend more time waiting in that line of traffic than they did in getting from wherever on the island they came.
One more thing about Santorini: I saw mules. Some, it seems, are for tourists while a few others were being used by families who have been living there for generations. In a day and a half, however, I saw one bicycle.
Anyway, it is worth it to visit Santorini, however briefly, for its natural beauty and, of course, its sunsets. And, away from the tourist traps, the food is actually quite good, often made from local produce. Still, I was happy to go to Milos, which the world knows because of Venus de Milo(s). I took a "Sea Jet", which really is more like riding in the cabin of a plane than a boat, except that you get to see the blue (Yes, it really is!) Aegean and some islands instead of endless clouds. And the port of Adamas isn't just a port: There are other things to see and do, which I'll talk about in my next post. The best part, though, is that it spreads across the shoreline and is not nearly as claustrophobic as Athinios.
