Finally I can see my first sunrise in Greece this morning, is good to see the sun, which mean we will have blue sky today. We have our last mooncake for our breakfast. since it’s still early, we spend some time around the hotel taking photos before we go.
We visited the Volcano Island in the morning, we also met few malaysia girls, but we are on the different trip. Our group was only a small amount of people, about 10 only. We need to go to the port first and then take a boat to the island. This trip cost us 19 Euro. I didn’t bring my camera along, I afraid not safe.
Along the way, the view is spectacular, from the sea looking at the island is more refreshing, the wave is quite strong, we have to sit in some place that can hide from the splashing water, the best place is the room of the captain. he even let us took photos on the deck
Our first stop is Palea Kameni island, this island is famous with hot spring, we bring along our swim suit and prepare to go for it, but when we arrived, the hot spring is not like what we imagine…….. The hot spring is actually in the open sea, you have to swim from the boat, and the depth of the water is around 1.6M and is freezing cold. Annie not dare to swim, so in the end we decided to stay on the boat.
The next visit was more exciting, the Nea Kameni. Nea Kameni is nearly round and has a diameter of approximately 2 kilometers and an area of 3.4 kilometers2. Nea Kameni is monitored closely by scientists from the Institute for the Study and Monitoring of the Santorini Volcano (ISMOSAV), and is a protected scientific site.
To enter this island we have to pay additional 2 euro per person, and need to hike 127M with our slipper. I never walk on a volcano before, this is really a great experience for me, and is really hot on the soil, some places got smoke coming out, some got sulphur vapour coming out from the land. You can see the history here Kameni
The last small eruption happened in 1950, and involved lava dome extrusion, the Island was cover with thick ashes and sulphur, no people live here for these 2 years, until Government encourage people to move here by giving free land, but still not many people interested in it because no clean water source from the island. A german guy see this as an opportunities, so he asked a local guy to work with him, and after 10 years, the german will retired and pass all his business to him…….. now this guy is the most wealthy person in the whole cyclades, the tour we join, the bus and boat all are under his control now.
We enjoyed a lot in this short trip, not many people visit this place when they are in santorini but I can tell is a good experience. We reach hotel at 2pm, we just took a rest and bath then continue our journey at 3pm to the rest of the places, because tomorrow we gonna leave Fira to Oia.
The first place we went to visit was the church in Firostefani, the scene look better under the hot sun and blue sky. We quickly took some photos and went to Imerovigil, they said these 3 places must visit when you were in Santorini, but I don’t find anything special here, Annie also lazy to hike again so we just walk around the town and back to Fira again, the distance actually not that close as I imagine, I don’t really know how Shawn can actually walk there.
When we reached Fira, the first thing to do was to buy our ferries ticket to Athens, but we cannot get a night ferry, they said it cancel the schedule, we was a little bit worry cause this will spoil our plan. End up we have to stay another night in Santorini, which mean we need to spend extra. Actually is pretty good also, we can save in other way, If we stay in Villa Manos there will be a van to take us to the Jetty, we can put our luggage here when we go to Oia tomorrow, less weight for us to travel.
in The late evening we went back to Firostefani to watch the sunset, very fortunate that we were able to see it drop until it horizon, they claim is the most beautiful sunset in santorini, but I don’t think so, maybe I yet to have luck to see the beautiful one here.
We decided to have a better dinner tonight, we went to the Nikolas restaurant whcih recommended by lonely planet, the food portion is not very big, and this meal cost us 27 Euro. Most of the customer have a proper wear, just 2 of us wearing short pant and t-shirt.