Santorini (Thera)

Sorry for no post in a while, guys (my avid readers whoever you are). I've had some internet trouble. I wrote it down in Word though and will post now:

Today (Monday 7/30) I boarded the 8:20 catamaran from Crete to Santorini. I just learned from a wonky Linked in group for ancient historians that the Minoan sites at Knossos and elsewhere in Crete are not on UNESCO’s World Heritage site list. The group is outraged and I am on a mission to find out why. Would’ve been better had I known that yesterday, but oh well. Anyway, back to today.

Arrived in Santorini with that same feeling of not knowing exactly where I wanted to stay, and therefore, how to get there. But I had some mild anxiety about wanting somewhere to put my bags so I could see stuff. I determined to become decisive however, seeing that the decision point had arrived. Since the port we landed at was far enough from town to require using slow, crowded, and unreliable public buses or highly expensive taxis, I decided to rent a car. I could get a stick or automatic for the same price. After hemming and hawing I decided on the automatic, because I had no idea what dinky impossibly steep dirt roads I’d land on with a stop sign at the top and me stopped at a 50 degree angle with a cement truck immediately behind me. I figured the automatic would be good there. So I got that one. Then the weasel rentacar guy rented my car to the English lady behind me in line who wanted it for three days and couldn’t drive a stick. I demanded a beer (large) for my trouble, upon my return tomorrow. He looked pained and apologetic at the same time. Oh and by the way the tank was empty with the gas light blinking, so I had to stop for gas at the gas station right away, which allowed the English bird in the car I should have had to pass me on the one-lane road, driving about 14 miles an hour helped by a ten-mile tailwind. I tailgated her for a while and as I passed her on a switchback I honked long and loud just to freak her out and I think she started to cry. (OK that whole last sentence was fake. I tooted happily as a sign that our cars looked alike and wasn’t that fun?)  Sorry. Enough of this blather. More about the history.

Since all state-run museums are closed on Monday, the National Archaeolgy Museum in Fera and the Aktoriri archaeological site were unavailable. But there is this rich guy who opened a museum with the novel idea of making high-quality life-size replicas of the pieces and having a museum in the tourist area explaining the whole thing. This is open on Mondays (thank you, capitalism). It was pretty cool. This art was pretty distinctive from Mesopotamian, Egyptian and Greek art of the same period and just as highly accomplished, if not more so. But as we know the volcano demolished most of it and the Sea peoples or the Myceneans did the rest. And frescoes don’t last long once they’ve been demolished. That’s where Princeton came in. These guys from the engineering department did 3D scans on all of the little pieces of fresco that have been lying on a table while greek archaeologists have worked on the world’s toughest 3d jigsaw puzzle. The Princeton guy made like 12 matches with their computer, more than a year’s output from the human team. Hopefully they stick with it.

After seeing fantastic views of blue water and cruise ships in the caldera (imagine very similar to Crater Lake with chunks of the sides missing). I cruised over to Perissa (another town south of Fera with good beaches. I got a hotel for 40 euros instead of 200 in the main town. Nice pool too. After a swim and some reading I got back in the car and headed for Oia (pronounced ee-yah)…(not pronounced yee-haw; that peeves em off…which is why I do it!) Trying to catch a good picture of the iconic sunset shot over the little house with a blue dome was like trying to get through a bunch of 13-year olds at a Justin Bieber concert. So I pushed aside the feeblest looking old bat and took a quick snappy and ran away. I tried to get down to the harbor and that was a nightmare with a zillion little Toyota Yarises and smart cars and scooters and four-wheelers (which they rent out) I got stuck at the bottom but managed to turn the car around on a hill with a stick in a very tiny little space in a foreign country without dinging anyone. Then I’d had enough and watched the stupid sunset from the car on the ride back home.

I designed my hotel choice to be close to the archaeological site so I could check it out and get back to Fera to see the museum and then down to the port to drop the car, collect my beer, and hop on a boat (ok…ship) to Mykonos by 12 noon. That gets in at 245pm, and I have some time to scoot over to Delos (as in Delian League). Next boat departure for Samos (my gateway to Ephesus and Turkey) leaves at 2am so I got a cabin. Costs a little more but no one throws up next to you…unless your wife’s in the cabin (ha ha...sorry, hun) I get in at 7am and might just take a day tour rather than actually enter the country with a visa and all. I’ll think about looking around for my passport that I haven’t seen for several days. …...once again, just kidding, but there are moments of terror where I have lost track of something (wallet, passport, rental keys, boat ticket) followed by moments of relief where I’ve left them in a dumb but recent place. Ah…travel.

I’ve kinda noticed that I haven’t seen a lot of comments from colleagues yet, so I’ve been keeping it light on history and heavy on human interest stuff. So if you’re a colleague (despite the pain in your mind of the notion of your being a colleague of mine), write in and I’ll add the wonky stuff in. And remember – all seeming grammatical errors are just colloquialisms for the masses (i.e. kinda, a lot, etc. – dang it; I notice that my spellchecker keeps changing alot to a lot. Irritating.)

Tuesday 7/31

My plan worked perfectly. I woke up and blew off the very lame breakfast top make it to Akrotiri. Stopped for some cash at the ATM. It really irritates me that they make you jump through all the hoops to get money before at the very end the message says “We’re plum out of money to give you!” I’ve seen this trick before in Italy so I asked for just a little bit and they still rejected me. You would think they would have the courtesy to just say "no money" on a big sign. Anyway, so I’m left with very little cash now, but enough to make it to the archaeological museum. Especially since I have an international student ID card (which teachers can get) that saves like 70% of the cost of entry. I have to say I wasn't very impressed with what I saw. I know it’s a work in progress (which it says in a hand-written sign) but you think they could have thrown up a few plaques telling you what it is you are seeing. I asked if they had a guide and they said not; they only have guides when the big tour groups from the cruise ships come in. So they had interspersed a bunch of people to sit around in chairs and watch me walk around. (see upper left of picture above) They sorta had a laminated page that said generally what the deal was (which I already know) but not what it is you are seeing as you walk around. Anyway, I’m still glad I went. I was able to figure out a few things, mostly that the people were very advanced (more advanced than today even…ha ha). They had two-story houses with frescoes and cool art and were pretty wealthy as a city.

Then I was able to cruise back up to Fera, grab some cabbage out of a friendlier bank and see the archaeological museum with the real artifacts from the ancient culture. Then I returned the car as empty as it was when I got it and the guys like, "Empty?" and I said heck yeah! I got a nice breakfast before my boat to Mykonos.

More to come later! Next is Mykonos, Samos, Kusadasi, Ephesus!