greece: akrotiri etc.

my original plan was just to just stay on santorini for 2 days and then head over to athens, but after numerous conversations with people at hostels, i was convinced to stay on santorini for another day. there's actually lots to see and do - ruins, beaches, vineyards, more little coastal cities to see.

so i headed down to the southwestern bit of the island to the ancient city/ruins of akrotiri to explore the ruins. the site recently reopened to the public as they were(are) doing some serious renovations/excavations there. the facility is gorgeous - it's all covered so you're "inside" and obviously still quite an active archaeological site. [and just as an FYI, santorini is also known as thera]



it still doesn't have a whole lot of signs, so i think a tour would be the way to see the site - it's cool and pretty impressive, but i didn't really know what a lot of what i was looking at was specifically. in fira, i had gone to a museum that talked about this site, thankfully, so i had a bit of background. it seems that the town was a quite impressive minoan settlement. some really wonderful frescos taken from the site are in the museum. there is also a bit of talk/rumor about this being the site that inspired the story of atlantis - advanced culture, volcano that destroyed the city.


[from the house of the ladies]

what they've done is excavated the city and then built walkways all around it so that you can wander the ancient streets. really, really cool to walk through a couple thousand year old city.



the structures are amazingly well defined, and i love that you can tell where storage buildings were, where the kitchen was, and then i tagged along with a few tours to try to identify some buildings as well.







a very, very interesting place. i'm inspired to go read a book about atlantis!

upon leaving, i walked over to the red beach (as opposed to the white and black beaches, which i did not visit). the "sand" is actually volcanic rock and pretty unique for a beach. i spent a while hear reading and soaking in the sunshine and swimming in the aegean sea. ahhhhh the beach and salt water and i miss the water so much in DC. even though this beach was crazy crowded, it was just lovely to be by the water and in the sun.





and while i didn't actually visit a winery, i passed by a lot of greek vineyards. next time!


[grape plants just lying on the ground. very strange.]

i left the next day for athens. i did really enjoy my time in santorini, and i look forward to coming back to greece and exploring the greek isles. absolutely gorgeous places.