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April 2000

Fira

David Aaronson
2005-09-24 21:09:12

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a few blocks farther down. We named them Pano and Kato ('up' and 'down') after their tendencies to run along the narrow stucco walls separating the road from the cliffs. Melanie claims to be able to distinguish which is which, so email her if you really want to know. It turns out they followed us for close to three hours, past the end of town and then all the way back. We also learned in the process that they were not in fact even strays, they were just allowed to run free during the day. Along with a tendency to wander into open-air stores and restaurants (which is all of them in Greece), they also came across an empty one liter water bottle which they managed to play with for a very cacophonous half an hour until some bystander took it away.

For the most part, there were no people along the cliff face roads. On the more sheltered streets some of the shops had opened. Of course, it was also still well before the main tourist season and just barely on the edge of the shoulder season. Most of the famous night clubs were in the process of repainting, refurnishing and so on. Also many of the hotels were still closed for the off-season, and the so-called 'infinity pools' which are filled to the very edge for dramatic Conde Nast photos were altogether empty.

The wind left us with palpable amounts of sand in our hair, our ears, our clothing, pretty much everywhere there could be sand. They also wreaked havoc on Pano's ears, and the airline and ferry schedules as well. All trips out to the Kameni volcanic islands were cancelled for the day, all inter-island ferries were cancelled, and all flights out of Santorini's airport were cancelled as well. We learned this at lunch when Randy and Bev happened to reappear at the restaurant we were eating at. They had planned to leave that afternoon but would end up once again on our flight the next day. Incidentally, the Poseidon Restaurant (and there is a Poseidon Restaurant in every city in Greece) just off the main square in Fira has the best stuffed bifteki in the entire world as far as we can tell. Bifteki is generally two thin steaks with a variety of ingredients in between them, in this case feta, tomatoes, onion, peppers, proscuitto, and olive oil.

Given the cancellation of just about all public transportation except buses, we decided to spend the afternoon taking a bus. The next bus from Fira was heading to Oia (EE-ah) and thus, so were we. Oia, seen here from Fira is a small town on the north end of the island even more precariously balanced than Fira is. It is known for its sunsets and during the tourist season, most of the population of Santorini flocks to Oia for a couple hours every evening. After further review, we turned out to have just missed the bus to Oia, but there was one returning later that day which is more than we could say for the buses headed to some of the black sand beaches and Akrotiri, the archeological site on the island. So we took a taxi to Oia some seven miles away down a road that many self respecting goats would refuse to travel on. I can only say that I'm glad I wasn't driving.

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