SOME DAYS IN THE GREEK ISLANDS

As you can tell from the title, I'm on island time.  We had about a ten minute discussion at breakfast this morning about what day it is.  

So here are a few random thoughts about the last three? days.  

So to catch up on the last couple of days. We sailed from Turkey to Santorini, Greece.  That wasn't supposed to be our first stop, but there was a problem with high seas or something, so that's where we went.  It was a bit of rock and roll voyage, but not to the level of aseasickness.  Santorini is the island that is in all the posters, looking down the hill of white roofs with the blue roofed churches.  

I tried to find that angle, and while I tried, uuu did  get close, couldn't duplicate the pictures I'd seen.  

You get from the boat to the city on a gondola which runs about every five or ten minutes.  When it's time for the people to get back to their giant cruise ships, the line is quite long, but it moves relatively fast.  

We were free to wander the city, then met up to go by bus to another city on the island, (notice how I don't mention the names of things I can't remember) and also had a nice opportunity for photographs, and, of course, shopping.  It is truly beautiful here.  The landscape is very California, and because these islands are small, they rely on desalinization, and from the old days, a method of building flat roofs to catch a lot of water and deliver it to a cistern under the house.  

In the afternoon we set sail for Amorgos,

which is an island most desired from a touristic point of view for the fact that there is an interesting monastery at the top of the hill.  

You have to walk up 300 steps, and don't get to judge it for yourself as to how rigorous it is, so I didn't take that excursion.  Later, when our second bus went to pick up the hikers, it looked more doable.  I walked somewhere between a third and halfway up and was just as glad I hadn't gone the whole distance, though I probably could have.  We also visited a winery before we left the island and sailed to Paros.  After dinner on the boat, we were able to walk through the town on Paros.  

The next day, Friday?, we had a tour of an old Greek Orthodox Church in Paros,

and then I took a little boat out to an island across the way and went to a lovely little beachfront a swim.  They had some pretty skimpy shade trees at the beach, but good enough shade for the likes of me, and I loved the little boat trip.

This afternoon, we sailed to Naxos.   When we arrived, we walked up to the top of the town, which is built as a kind of a maze to confuse pirates, and which has a Catholic Church at the top.  Then, because they are starving us on the ship, I had a double gelato at the waffle shop, the specialty of which is a waffle with ice cream or gelato.  I sat with another member of our group in a bar for an hour and a half, because it was a place where I could get photo stream to upload some of my pictures, albeit at about 3 minutes per picture.  

Tonight after our ritual stuffing session (I suspect they are fattening us up to feed Syrian refugees), we had a group of dancers.  

At the end they had us dancing with them, which frankly, I think would have worked out better before dinner.mm