Day 18 (Wednesday) Santorini

Here we are on the most romantic island inthe world!!

Getting here was a little less romantic. For ahalf hour internal flight you wouldn't believe the security carry on at Athens airport. No water, no sunscreen, no deodorant e ven with lock top so we had to go back and put the hand luggage through the system. Then I had to remove belt, shoes, the camera had to come out of the bag and each lens separately checkd with covers removed. Worst we have ever encountered.

Anyway after a half hour flight here we are on thefamous Santorini. Had a beautiful relaxing day. How do you hire a car in Santorini?? Here's how it goes-
1. The hotel rings up and 10 minutes later Mick the Greek (true name) turns up with a car (Skoda)
2. Mick produces one piece of paper and puts your license number on it and says "sign here"
3. Mick takes you out to the car and says"here's reverse and here is first gear, have a nice day (and takes 30 Euros)
4.You leave the keys at reception for Mick to collect. Easy

So in our little Skoda we explored the Southern part of the island. Magical place. Stopped at the winery overlooking the caldera - a spectacular spot wth a couple of cruise ships way below us. Wine tasting here is 6 half size glasses accompanied by bread, tomato paste and cheese - 3 red and 3 white. Invaded by a couple of hundred cruise ship passengers but wehad secured thebest table.

Went to the famous black beach - hard stone and have to put wooden walkways to go along gthe beach. Had some Greek yoghurt with fresh apricot while we watched people try to negotiate the rocks to get into the water. We were struck by how poorly the general facilities,roads etc are maintained.

We found a little fishing village and harbour with a good lookimg restaurant on the cliff above so we drove up there - Mum had raw tuna and I selected a Mackerel from the display - absolutely beautiful. Had the sun setting and everything.

Back to the hotel where Mum has been having her first swim of the holiday in a beautiful pool while I have beendoing this blog!

No pictures today as the connectio is in the bag we left in Athdns but keep an eye on this one and I will edit some pictures in later. Late back into Athens tomorrow night so this might be the last blog for a while. Cheers all

Almost forgot - after we got back to the hotel last night, we had a huge demonstration just down the road outside parliament. The police were trying to divert 6 lanes of traffic across the tramline and down a little street beside our hotel. Chaos. It was really funny watching it all from our  balcony especially the police who just chatted amongst themselves and smoking while chaos surrounded them. Occasionally one would wander over, blow a whistle and sort out a bit before returning to the group. Horn blaring well into the night was not quite so funny.