Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Volcano, Natural Hot Springs, and Thirassia

Today Sean and I decided to check out the local volcano.  We signed up for a tour that took us by boat to the volcano. For those of you who don’t know, Santorini is a crescent shaped Island with a volcano in the middle.
It was once a complete circle, surrounding the volcano until a huge eruption changed that.  We spent the morning hiking around the active volcano. The volcano erupted as recently as 1950 but the most violent eruption occurred 3600 years ago which is said to be the largest volcanic eruption on earth in the last few thousand years.
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Leaving Ammoudi Port
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Oia
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Hiking up the Volcano
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Our Boat
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The Hot Springs are tucked back by
those boats in the background
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The only living thing we could find on the volcano
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Crater
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Afterwards we headed by boat to the natural hot springs that are on a much smaller island directly next to the volcano.  After our swim in the hot springs we headed to Thirassia, located on ANOTHER small island between the hot springs and Ammoudi Port (below Oia).  Our guide informed us that Thirassia is about 50 years behind the times.  If I had to guess I would have said 70.  At Thirassia, we picked up lunch and ate on a very rocky beach. 

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Dipping our toes in the Mediterranean
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Thirassia
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Laying out on the rocky beach
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The water was SO clear
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Playing around with different modes on our camera
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Ammoudi Port
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After lunch we were dropped back off at Oia where we spent more time walking aimlessly around Oia before deciding to go out for some fresh seafood and a view of the sunset.
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One of the many cats of Oia
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Olive Tree
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Our hotel recommended the Sunset Tavern at Ammoudi Port.  Sean picked out a Grouper (local fish) which was splendid.  After dinner we hiked back up to Oia which was a super steep hike up a very long set of stairs.  After the hike we rewarded ourselves with some dessert from a local bakery.  Totally worth it :)

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We made a friend at dinner
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Picking out dinner
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We ordered so much food they brought
out another table to set food on
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Posted by Christy at 6:03 PM

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