Greece 2023: Day 1 – Santorini

We arrived at Santorini around noon today. We had to take a tender to shore then take a bus up to Santorini. Kudos to Norwegian on this for the sheer efficiency of getting so many people off the cruise ship in a short time. The cruise staff warned us that there were 5 cruise ships trying to offload 12,000 people here. We landed onshore and then took a 30 minute bus ride to the city up on the hill. It is then a 10 minute walk up and another 20 to 30 minute walk up and down various passageways to various spots.

There were far too many people on this island walking the narrow steps and corridors throughout the city.

The pictures above are from Oia but we also visited Pyrgos and did some sight seeing there too.

Our tour included lunch and we were happy to get a break from the Blasphemous Breakaway Buffet.

We ate at a restaurant named Pyrgos and I experienced my first amazing foodgasm in Greece.

From clockwise at the top are tomato balls made with onion and local herbs (exquisite), seasoned red pepper melt-in-mouth flavors, salad with amazing olives and peppers, rice, juicy, moist and tender pork. Bread with cool and seasoned tzatziki sauce (delightful). I wish all my meals could be like this on our vacation. Washed it all down with some local white wine.

We left dinner on our own via private car because Dutch had an appointment at 8 pm and there was no way we would get back to the ship on time if we waited for the tour. We got dropped off at the cable car but the line was HOURS long to get on the cable car so we did the death march down by the donkey trail on foot. It took 30 minutes to walk down about 1000 ft and we slipped a few times due to the cobble stone being slick.

We leave in a couple of hours so we will check in again tomorrow from our next stop…