Into the Volcano!

Friday March 31 started cloudy but by early afternoon it had turned sunny.  It was still very windy.  The high was 16C.  We had an exciting day.  We walked to the town of Fira and took the cable car to the old port.  We were taking a tour to the volcanic islands of New Kameni for a hike to the top of an active volcano and Palia Kameni, where there are hot springs.

We learned that it was about 1626 BC when the huge volcano eruption took place on Srongyli (the old name of Santorini).  Millions of cubic metres of ash and pumice were blown up to several metres above the island.  The eruption lasted about 72 hours and it resulted in the collapse of the centre of the island and the creation of the caldera.  Tidal waves reached a speed of approximately 1,000 km/hour and wiped out the Minoan civilization.

The remains of the eruption are the island of Santorini and a number of small volcanic islands including the two on our tour.  It was during the Venetian regime between the 13th and 16th centuries that the island was given its name; it was named Santorini after the Byzantine church of Saint Irene in Persisa (a small village on the island).

We left the port at 11:00 a.m.

Shadows of cable car as we were going down to the port

View from cable car

View up from the port

Another boat like the one we boarded in the port

View up to the town of Fira

Another view

Landing at Nea Kameni-- lava rock

Lava rock and water

Green sea from the sulphur

We had to disembark from our boat by crossing over the other boats.

Row of boats stopping at island

Heading up to the top

About a 25 minute walk to the top of the active volcano

View from the volcano

We passed an inactive crater on the way up and then reached the active part of the volcano.

Inactive crater

Walking up to the top

One of my favourite rocks with the crack

We reached the active part of the volcano.  One can see smoke coming from the rock.  Our guide told us that with the constant measuring that takes place,  there would be signs well in advance of any possible eruption.  So, we were safe for our walk.  The smoke is sulphur and it would be very hot to walk close to the smokey area.  We had a path to follow around the "hot spots".

Smoke is the sulphur from the active part of the volcano

Getting near the top

Windy on the top of the active volcano

View back to Fira

Near the top of the active volcano

Alain just starting back from the top of the volcano 

After climbing down the volcano we got back in the boat and went to the second volcanic island called Palaia Kameni where there are hot springs.

En route to the second island- the sea was a beautiful blue

It turned out the hot springs were in a cove just beside the island.  Folks who wanted to go swimming had to very quickly change into their bathing suits, jump out of the boat, travel through a cold part of the water and then into the brown water of the hot springs.  As the air was still chilly (about 15C) and it was quite windy, I decided (even though I had brought my bathing suit), as most people did, to stay on the boat.

Brave folks reaching the hot springs (brown water)

Returning to the boat

The visit to the hot springs was short, and we then headed back to town.  The clouds started to blow away and it was beautiful with blue water, blue sky, the gorgeous caldera, and the white town on the hill.

Return boat getting close to Fira-- gorgeous patterns in the rocks

We were hungry when we got back to town at about 2:15 p.m.  We went to a recommended street food place called Yogi, where we both had delicious chicken gyros (much better than in North America)

Alain with his chicken gyro

We then went for a coffee at a small place called Lila Cafe Wine Bar.  We sat outside in the sun for quite a while as there was WIFI.

At Lila's

We walked around and bumped into a group of people and photographers - looked like folks in town for a "Beijing wedding".

We wandered some more and I took a picture of some of the fancy hotels below where we were walking.  Swimming pools are started to get filled and dot the landscape.  The architecture in the cliffs is very unique.

View from the top of Fira

We ended the day with a glass of white wine at the Palia Kameni Bar, where we had been on Thursday.  It is such a gorgeous spot.  We could see the two volcanic islands we had visited in the morning.

"Our bar"

Alain waiting for his wine

We were both pretty tired from the walk up the volcano.  The restaurant we were going to eat at only opens on April 1 for the season.  We decided to eat at the apartment and go to the restaurant on Saturday.  We bought some lovely spinach and vegetable pies at the Cretan bakery near our apartment.  We had the pies with a green salad, a glass of white wine and some halva for dessert -perfect!