Today’s Daily Programme can be found here…
It was bright and sunny this morning and when I opened the curtains of the stateroom we were already in Santorini. I’d have said moored up, but as the bay at Santorini is 400 meters deep, I think that is beyond our anchor chains, apparently we are holding station using the engines. I’m now pretty much back to health, I’m sleeping well and only have the occasional cough which is good.
Our trip today is another late one, we have to meet up in the Queens room at 12:45 so we decided to have a late breakfast and then head up to deck 12 to grab some sunshine. It was very pleasant to lie in the warm sunshine reading my book in such a beautiful setting. I had to be aware of the time given we were tendering on to Santorini. Jane had been chatting with our table mates regarding Santorini and had started to worry about the cable car as she doesn’t like cable cars, she is very scared of heights, and because of this she managed to talk herself out of coming along on the shore excursion, and I knew better than try to persuade her as she’d just worry herself sick over it, so it was going to be me by myself. I went for lunch alone in the PG dining room as Jane was going to get a sandwich later, 12 o’clock was too early for her to eat. I told Anthony I had to be away quickly and he was very prompt in getting my lunch, mushroom croquettes starter and a chicken tagliatelle main.
I managed to grab a seat in the Queens room to wait to be called for the tender, only to realise when the first lot of passengers were called I hadn’t been to get my number, so ended up on the last group to be called, which wasn’t a bad thing as our coach was only half full. We all trooped down to deck A to board, a typically painfully slow process, where I grabbed a seat on the upper deck. It turns out that we weren’t tendering to the Old Port and the cable car, but to Athinios and the ferry port where we transferred on to coaches. We still had to get to the top of the cliff on the steepest, narrowest and windiest road clinging to the side of the cliff I’ve ever seen. It was certainly a good idea Jane stayed home as she would not have enjoyed this.
Thankfully we made it to the top safely and wound our way to Akrotiri and our first photo stop, after that we went to our second stop, Santos Winery where we got a free glass of wine and some very strange biscuits which reminded me of the cattle nuts we used to feed the cows on the farm. From there we headed inland to an even higher part of the island, to the Monastery of Profitis Ilias, up another scary and windy road where we stopped for more photos, an ideal spot for a complete panorama. More photo opportunities followed, one of one of the plethora of churches dotted around Santorini (Αγία Ειρήνη Χρυσοβαλάντου) and one of the beach by the airport. These beaches are black volcanic sand and don’t look particularly inviting. Having run out of time, it was time for another hair raising descent of the cliff road down to the harbour and the tender back to the Queen Victoria
We were very late getting back, so there was only really time for a quick relax before a shower and heading up to the dining room for dinner. Fillet of Dorset lamb for me and banana and dark chocolate Delice.