Picture of the Day: Pomegranate Tree

Spot the pomegranates growing on the tree in Fira, in Santorini

In Greece we saw a lot of olive trees, some with olives growing on them. But we were told in Italy that you can't eat them straight off the tree -- they are poisonous!

Driving around there are lots of "vineyards", which are actually small patches of land with what look like small bushes haphazardly planted. However, it turns out the vines cannot be propped up like they are France, Italy and elsewhere because it is too hot.

As a result, the vines are wrapped around themselves like a circle so that the leave can at least protect the grapes from the hot sun.

But what was very interesting was seeing pomegranates growing on trees. We saw at least two pomegranate trees and we wondered what the fruits would taste like.

Nevertheless it was fun to spot them, with bright red bulbous balls hanging from the branches.

Greece Explained

A Greek Orthodox church in Emborio village

After we visited the excavation site of Akrotiri, we had some lunch at Perivolos Beach, where the sand is black, and then headed to an old Greek village called Emborio. Our guide told us the Venetians occupied Santorini from the 13th to 16th centuries and the biggest threat to the residents were pirates in the Aegean Sea.

Checking out the black sand at Perivolos Beach

There aren't many traditional villages intact these days because of the massive earthquake in 1956. It destroyed a lot of buildings in the area, which explains why there is still a lot of rubble and not a lot of development.

However Emborio is one of the few villages that is still pretty much the same as it was before, and some families still live in the compound.

At the entrance to the village we were shown a church with a dome on top, which indicates it is a Greek Orthodox church. They always have a picture of Jesus Christ on the ceiling of the dome. The exterior of the dome is usually either blue or white, but there is no particular reason why a dome is white or blue; it is just the decision made at the time of repainting it.

A dog met us inside Emborio village

There are also very tiny-looking churches, and our guide explained people would build them once in their lifetime in the name of a saint in the hopes of getting protection from them.  The most popular saint is St Nicholas, who protects sailors and merchants.

The village also looks like a maze, much like Oia where we are staying. The passageways are very narrow. Why? To counteract the strong winds which have been recorded as high as 90km/h. When the winds get that strong, even large ferries like the one we took to Santorini, and even planes are grounded.

Mules were used to transport building materials and food supplies, though they aren't used now -- humans have replaced them. We've seen them to do the laborious work of transporting boxes of ingredients, water and wine to restaurants.

Every family would build vaults in their home using rocks mixed with crude cement to hold them together. so the bottom was thicker than the top. Then the homes would be white washed with lime in it. Lime has disinfecting properties, so it was put in the family cisterns that collected rainwater in the winter.

The view from Santorini Winery for a wine tasting

We wandered around Emborio and found some places that looked deserted, others had people living in them. We even spotted a dog looking down at us! It was so interesting to see such a small community bound together by this fortress-like compound.

I don't think I can live in Greece because there's a lot of dust like sand and pumice that is blown in Santorini, or Greece in general. This is why residents hardly wash their cars. Our guide says she will have a bottle of water to periodically clean the windshield, but other than that people only wash their cars three or four times a year.

The cars that look nice are the ones catering the tourists. Very easy to distinguish.

Later in the afternoon we tried some Greek wine from Santorini Winery. The Santorini white wine 2018 was light, fruity, slightly dry but easy drinking, but another white we tried which was a blend was musty, like ripe cheese, and acidic in finish. Finally we tried vinsanto, a dessert wine that tasted like sweet raisin juice. Would have been better chilled.

An overview of Santorini from Profitis Ilias Mountain

Our second last stop on the tour was to Profitis Ilias Mountain the highest point in Santorini at 567 metres. We had a pretty good view of the place, and at the very top is an office that collects data for earthquakes and volcanic activity.

There is an active volcano still in Santorini, and apparently there are many small earthquakes here. The land mass of the islands apparently increase a centimetre or two every year, showing the volcanoes are still active, and no one knows when it will blow.

The last stop is back at Oia for the sunset... we had seen it already, but we thought we'd have a chance to sit down and enjoy the view but we were wrong. The seats were already taken up and so we stood behind people on a rooftop terrace for over an hour, waiting for the sunset to happen.

We had to take the obligatory sunset shot in Oia again...

And like before, once the sun goes down everyone claps excitedly. Why is that? Nevertheless it's nice to stop and admire the view and appreciate nature for its beauty.

Prehistoric Town Being Unearthed

The Akrotiri archeological site is protected by a specially-designed building

The Greek island of Santorini has a fascinating history that dates back over 4,000 years. While the place has amazing views and glorious beaches, Santorini, known by its formal name Thera, is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

The site only uncovers 3 percent of the entire town

Thousands of years ago Thera was actually one large island, but in 1646 BC, there was a massive volcanic eruption that the explosion is believed to be the equivalent of 40 atomic bombs, or 100 times the volcanic eruption of Vesuvius in Pompeii in 79 AD.

Apparently there was 70 hours of darkness and the eruption was so violent that is completely altered the geography of the island that led to it breaking up into a crescent shape with several pieces. It is believed as many as 20,000 people were killed in a town known as Akrotiri and for several centuries after the volcanic eruption there was no human activity here.

It wasn't until the 20th century when people were quarrying the area for pumice stone to be used as cement to build the Suez Canal did they come across the remains of the town and in 1967 formal excavations of the long-forgotten town began.

The architecture revealed shows a sophisticated community

Archeologists were surprised to find a very sophisticated community that built houses that were three stories high, had indoor plumbing and painted artistic frescoes on the walls. These people were known as the Cycladic people, wealthy and intellectual.

We saw two of the well preserved frescoes in the National Archeological Museum in Athens and they are very lively, colourful pieces. It is very lucky they have been able to not only carefully extract them but also preserve them well.

So far archeologists have only been able to uncover and study 3 percent of the site, which is now covered by a specially designed, climate controlled space.

This morning we joined a tour to see this archeological site and we're so glad we did. We could walk above and among the ruins on a special path and saw first hand the original ruins and efforts to preserve them in their original form.

The "Spring Fresco" at the National Archeological Museum

It is believed before the actual volcanic eruption that the Cycladic people were able to leave the area -- there are no signs of human remains in the site that has been excavated, nor any remains of domestic animals. Everything of value was taken.

There are theories that they fled by ship and may have drowned from the tsunami caused by the volcanic eruption, or they may have fled elsewhere but died from the eruption.

The excavations have been going on for over 40 years and in recent years it was stopped due to Greece's financial crisis, but it picked up again last year after a Russian company donated 500,000 euros. We were lucky to see some archeologists in action, wearing high grade masks and carefully handling what looked like pieces of rock.

Archeologists working on some samples today

Hopefully we will eventually learn more about these people and the town of Akrotiri. Modern Greeks were shocked to find that the Cycladic people of the Neolithic Age were more sophisticated in their drainage than they were. There's a lot more to be learned.

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!