Friday Sept 23rd
An early morning bus
ride brought us to the small town of Kamari,
a small seaside resort on the south east coast. With one main street and an
intersecting beachfront pedestrian street,it is hard to get lost. Its beach is
a distinctive black sand which seems to absorb heat from the sun, making it
somewhat hot to walk on, At southern tip of the beach is an imposing rock face
which rises up to become the Mesa vouno mountain.
It takes about 20
minutes to reach the top of this rock via bus. At the summit, which is actually
a pass between two mountains, lies the entrance to Ancient Thira. Following the
massive destruction of the island in approx. 1700BC Santorini was resettled
several times. Only in the 8th century BC did these settlements become
permanent. Thira is one of the resulting
cities. Developed by various inhabitants, including the Romans, it evolved and
expanded until about the 3rd Century AD when it fell into decline.
The site, first
excavated in 1896, remains exposed for viewing but not developed or enhanced
like Knossos.
The ruins are believed to be principally from the Roman area and show a city
with a large agora or market place, several temples, public baths and shops as
well as many private residences.
Located along the
length of a steep ridge it offered views of both sides of the island, an
obvious defensive advantage. The trip to its harbours in Kamiri and Perissa,
several hundred feet below, could not have been fun, even with the well
developed roads that the Romans built.
A full tour of the
site took a couple of hours and was often made challenging by winds that at
times seemed to gust into the 60 and 70kph range.
Following our tour
we enjoyed a mixed grill of lamb, pork and chicken, in addition to a grilled
calamari including the tentacles- delicious but not for the faint of heart.
Returning to Firi in
the late afternoon, there seemed to be considerably less tourists than
yesterday. It seems only one cruise ship had docked today, making life a little
more tolerable for us “longer term” residents.
Tomorrow, without a
decent sunset picture to show for my efforts, we depart for the island of Mykonos.
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