If you approach Santorini from the water, it’s hard not to be awed by the sheer cliffs that soar above a turquoise sea, by the fact that you’re sailing in an immense crater of a volcano and that before you lies an island shaped by an ancient eruption cataclysmic beyond imagining in the 16th century.
Santorini is beautiful. We had to take a tender in from the ship to a small port. From here there were a few ways you could get up to one of the main villages – Fira – from the bottom. You could walk, take a donkey or a cable car. We chose to take the donkey up and walk down.
In Fira we walked the narrow path loaded with shops and restaurants to the main square where we rented an ATV.
On the ATV we left Fira and headed for the Akrotiri to find Red and Black beach. The first beach we stopped at was a little rocky and rough but had a quaint little beach bar so we stopped for a fresh lemonade and a beer. After our refreshments we found the real black beach, which was beautiful, but we decided we would just continue on to Red Beach.
Red Beach is a rare sight, probably unique in the whole world, where red is the dominant color. It is enclosed by steep red hills that create a captivating, wild scenery. The beach is made up of small pebbles and sand of various colors, mainly red, which makes it difficult to walk on in bare feet to get into the ocean, but we did it. The water was nice and refreshing.
Finished at Red Beach we continued our adventure around the island, heading to to ur next stop – Vlichada – where we climbed on the rocks and chose not to get into the water because of all of the accumulated seaweed on the beach.
From here we decided to stay along the coast and offroad a little to see if we could find some other nice beaches. This took us down a very rough road up to the highway. From here we took another dirt road hoping to get down to the water where two big yachts were anchored out from. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to make it as the road was blocked by a chain.
With not a lot of time left to get back to the ship we decided to forgo our visit to Oia and returned the bike and made our way down the steep steps to the tender port.
Another great day!
Baker Vacations 