I whispered my goodbyes to Venice early in the morning in order to catch my flight to Greece, to which Venice replied with rain.
Greece, in all its glorious incarnations, has been the mainstay of my imagination for as far back as I can recall. Statuary, philosophy, architecture, astronomy, astrology, divination, armory, painting, language, poetry, drama, comedy, satire, allegory, and so much more of what constitutes our sense of civilisation comes directly from the areas that are present-day Greece and Turkey. In all the years I’d dreamed of it, I’d never actually been to Greece, but the truth is I wasn’t ready. There was simply too much history, too much mythology, and too much importance to my own code of aesthetic; the prospect of facing up to it in real life seemed overwhelming. (It’s like what some people feel at the prospect of going on a religious pilgrimage)
The flight from Venice to Athens took about two hours and was animated by terribly chic couples who had pranced over for a weekend in the city of canals with barely a carry-on suitcase. I looked like a homeless person drenched in water while lugging around two body-bags too large to allow for any prancing. I had decided, after much debate, that I wanted to see the islands of Greece before finally exploring Athens, and so I transited directly to another, smaller flight bound for the island of Santorini. Even if you don’t know the name, you know what it looks like. It is the one image that your mind conjures up when you hear the phrase “Greek islands”: white houses on a cliff overlooking an ocean so impossibly blue that you would think they dye it on a regular basis; the sun bright in cloudless skies and with sunsets so sublime that works of art are forever failing to capture them. In short, Santorini is pretty cool.
A Santorini sunset
Many people believe Santorini is the place Plato described as Atlantis
I picked it over the more popular places like Myknonos because I was not interested in partying with a bunch of teenage Australians, and I highly recommend you do the same. Santorini exists on the remnants of the top of an exploded volcano that is now flooded with water, and when you are at the top you can see with startling clarity the perfect circle of the caldera. It is told the Minoans had marvelous dwellings on the island in pre-ancient times, and it is thought that a violent volcanic eruption wiped them out suddenly. Many people believe, with good reason, that this is actually the place that Plato described as Atlantis.
I was staying on the southern slope of the island, a place called Kamari beach and known as the “black beach” for its small black volcanic sand and pebbles. The hotel was whitewashed and overgrown with bougainvillea vines bursting with pink and white. The room was done in simple blues, which never seemed gloomy because just outside the window was a glaring sky that made you understand why the Greeks believed the gods lived in their country. Slightly exhausted from the traveling, I napped and then began my rotisserie beach routine: sunblock, front tan, flip, back tan, flip, swim in the sea, repeat. A word of caution on Greek water: It is beautiful but it is not calm. It’s not like the placid waters of Thailand or the Caribbean. There are no graceful exits from the ocean like in a perfume ad because the pebbles actually move under your feet and the waves crash against you as if Poseidon himself wants to give you a thrashing. That said, once you’re out a bit further than the shore, it’s rather lovely.
The main city center is Fira, and it’s a collection of bustling streets about a 20-minute drive to the top of a hill. This is where most of the locals live, but in truth there isn’t an economy in Santorini other than tourism so I am sure even they are there only for the summer. The streets are medieval in that they are sinuous and wind unpredictably.
Grilled calamari, Santorini style
Three days in, I was blissfully, spectacularly happy (and a wonderful shade of dark brown). Days were spent imagining ancient Greek ships sailing across the horizon and at night we would go to the festive strip of bars and restaurants a little distance away to party with the other revelers.
On our last day there we went to Oia to see the sunset, which is the village on the cliff on the other side of the island from us. This is the village with the blue domes, white houses and meandering steps overlooking the caldera that you see in movies and magazines. Beautiful seems too small a word to describe it. I encourage you to see it once in your life, if only to come up with your own description. Like most that possess beauty, Oia knows it. Everything there is four times the price of anywhere else, and the small impeccably clean stone streets are dotted with high-end stores that sell Dior swimsuits for $4000.
It all seemed a little too clean, actually. Turns out the volcano that is below Santorini is, for all intents and purposes, still very much active. As recently at the 1960s there was a massive earthquake that destroyed pretty much every major building on the island and the reason Oia is so picturesque is that the Greeks built the city from scratch in order to maintain a tourist destination.
I saw the sunset there, an indulgently fiery two-hour spectacle that is without precedent, over a plate of grilled calamari and Santorini wine.
