Santorini; The Boat Trip

Santorini, the Island of romance and sunsets had been on my wishlist for a long time. The idea of being immersed in beauty and the wonder of nature gives me a sheer thrill. Although we were only on the island for 3 days due to the awkward ferry times arriving and our midday flight back to the UK we certainly packed plenty in.

One of the days we chose to do a boat tour where we got to visit the volcano, hot springs and Therisa, another island. The morning was an early start due to the awkward bus schedule and so we decided to wander the winding lanes all the way down to the Old Port in Fira's centre. The walk was fairly lengthy but the magnificent views and white washed buildings we walked past made up for it.

On the way down the winding path we passed so many donkey's ready to bring people back up from the bottom. Sadly though, the majority of animals were not given any shade to shelter from the midday sun and we saw no signs of water or food for them either. Some donkey's also had cages over their mouths and many of those cages were rusted.

 Towards the end of our decent a donkey walked past us and nearly collapsed with a women and her son on it not just once but four times, the poor creature couldn't get a grip to walk up the stairs. I felt physically sick at what I had just witnessed, an animal so exhausted it could barely walk on its own let alone with 2 people on it.

That feeling remained with me for the majority of the day and reminded me just how big an issue animal tourism and cruelty are, even in Europe and something I'll be writing more about in the future as well.

Omce we reached the port and collected our tickets we were guided on board of our tour ship with the first stop being the volcano. The boat trip to the volcano took about 20 minutes and although it was a little choppy on the over I have certainly had worse!

After we payed our 5 euro entry fee into the national park we started the 30 minute walk up to the top, stopping along the way to hear from our guide about the original settlements of people in Santorini and how the volcano's were formed in the first place.

We were then shown the vents of hot air proving that the volcano is still dormant and were resassured that even if the volcano did become active again it would be between a month and a year before an actual erruption would talk place. Phew!

We then sailed around the central island, also called Palea Kameni until we reached the hot springs. I chose to jump off the boat into the cool ocean below which was so refreshing and then swam towards a small bay where the water turns brown and murky due to the sulphur levels being very high. Now I wouldn't describe the hot spring as hot, more tepid warm but it's still good fun and nice to see  with the suprise under your feet of what feels like slime but is in fact mud.

After drying off we headed to Thirasia, the other island that makes up the group of Santorini islands for a few hours of relaxing. We'd brought pack lunches with us (so cool), and so perched ourselves on the end of an old pier with our toes in the sea soaking up the sunshine. We eventually found our selves seeking shade and an icecream in the midday heat before taking some pictures and clambering back onto the boat and heading to Fira Port once more.

It was such a fun day out and a fantastic way to see more of Santorini and something I would recommend if people are wanting something different to do. Due to our student budget we opted for cheap and cheerful but there are plenty more exclusive tours to do instead!

Have you visited Santorini? What's your favourite thing to do on holiday?

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