From Mykonos to Santorini

On a large ferry on the way from Mykonos to Santorini in over four hours

We took a ferry from Mykonos to Santorini and the journey was over four hours long. Considering tourism is such a big part of the Greek economy, it was pretty surprising to see how underdeveloped the ferry piers are at both Mykonos and Santorini.

The view of the sea from the stern of the ferry

At Mykonos there is a temporary kiosk that sells food and drinks from giant refrigerators. The sandwiches are more bread than filling, but the prawn cocktail-flavoured potato chips from Lays ("summer edition") were not bad, more tomato taste than prawn.

Then there is no proper passenger seating area -- there is a covered area with cement benches for people to sit on, or out in the sun on wooden benches. There is no electronic board to show which ferry is coming and will be docking at which pier.

Not all the ferries display English signs, though we managed to find out which pier our ferry would dock at, which arrived at the appointed time. Security officials were on hand to direct traffic: first the passengers disembarked, followed by several vehicles from cars to trucks.

Then trucks and cars waiting in line were allowed to drive into the ferry first -- trucks had to back in one by one, and then finally passengers. There were hordes of us tourists descending onto the ferry, though there was a traffic jam at the entrance as we could only enter one by one by showing our tickets.

Everyone trying to take pictures of the sunset at Oia

The ferry ride took over four hours going south east, passing several other islands along the way. Finally we arrived at Santorini and the port here was even more primitive than at Mykonos, which is strange considering hotels in Santorini are much more expensive. It was like arriving in a developing country, with people holding up signs for tours or transport, while others advertised for taxis or buses for certain destinations.

We found our driver who then drove us over half an hour zig-zagging up the hill and then driving along the countryside where we saw donkeys, cows and horses grazing in the fields, hardly any development in sight.

Finally we drove onto a quiet street in the middle of nowhere to find our hotel opposite a huge resort development called Santa Maris, consisting of a number of villas that could be accessed by golf carts. Ours is a small complex of three units.

I managed to finally get a sunset picture without tourists

We were told by the manager to go up the hill to the right to see the famous sunset view in Oia, the town we are in. The hill is a steep walk but it took less than 10 minutes. From there we tried to go as far right as we could and encountered tons of people holding up their smartphones to document every second of the sun's descent into the ocean.

It took us a while to finally inch a bit closer to the front, but even then people were busy taking selfies or recording the sunset on video. And when the sun finally set, people actually clapped their hands as if it was a performance!

Then the tourists started leaving like a stream, as the stairway we were at is quite narrow. We could see more and more people coming up the stairway and wondered when the last ones would finally leave.

And actually this was when the skyline was even more dramatic with yellow, pink, mauve and deep purple colours. We're glad we didn't miss that!

An even better view of the sky after the hordes left the area

For dinner we found a small and relatively decent-priced restaurant but we had to wait about 20 minutes. During that time we met a couple from South Dakota, and the husband had been to Hong Kong on a business trip last year.

He asked about the protests and I told him they were actually happening as we spoke. I added the protests would not end soon as the government was not listening to the protesters at all. He also said that he visited Macau via the bridge a month after it opened (November 2018) and was impressed by the small former Portuguese colony.

We finally tucked into tzatziki sauce that we dipped bread into, baked eggplant stuffed with onions, tomatoes and balsamic vinegar, and spaghetti marinara with prawns and mussels in a rich creamy tomato sauce.

Our rich spaghetti marinara in a creamy tomato sauce

And then as we were finishing dinner, there were fireworks going off in the distance and we watched this small but constant stream of fireworks being set up for at least 20 minutes. The size of the fireworks paled in comparison to the ones in Hong Kong, but the non-stop firing of them was impressive!