We got up a bit late and had a couple of hours on the beach before catching the local bus to Fira (the capital aka Thira). The bus was 2.40 Euro per person one way from Perissa and we took the last seats available. Siggy sat beside a local looking woman and initially I was standing until I spotted that there might be room for a small one on the middle seat on the back row.
This might have been the case, however my ass has been growing in a more or less linear relationship with the number of cakes I’m consuming at breakfast, so I sandwiched myself between the sweaty thighs of two strangers and we shared a rather asexual nay uncomfortable half hour or so in each other’s company.
It was a relief to get off. We found that the main bus station is little more than organised chaos in a car park. We had brought a free fold-out map of Fira with us but we just followed our noses and found the main tourist area. As it turned out we maybe should have paid more attention to the layout of the streets.
The main tourist bit of Fira was very similar to Oia with different views – in this case of the port with three cruise liners at anchor off shore. Again the views are amazing and the cruise ship tourists are awful.
We walked down the zig-zagging path that you can ride a donkey down to the port. The paths are covered with donkey shit and stink. I saw a couple of donkeys in bad way – covered in sweat and shivering despite the ridiculous heat. It was sad to see.
We had lunch at Captain Nikolias cafe restaurant right be the water and watched the shuttle boats ferrying people to and from the huge behemoth cruisers. I had a pork gyros platter and Siggy had a ham cheese toastie. Very basic stuff at monopolistic prices.
While we were there an American woman off one of the liners was chatting to a crew member at a nearby table. She was proud of the white Greek style dress she had bought with matching sandals. When she was looking at the menu she said to the guy ‘why is it all in Russian?’. Good lord.
Then we queued for the cable car – not as long as expected given the size of the queue before lunch. It costs 6 Euro per person one way and is a far better option than walking back up the stinky path or being a burden to the donkeys.
We mooched around looking for photo opportunities and went in and out of various souvenir shops and cafes. Eventually we ground to halt at a place heavily advertising the Donkey beers of Santorini Brewing Company where Siggy had Mythos and I had a Yellow Donkey – the mildest of their brews.
We went to Da Costa for dinner. The waiter advised me against ordering the seafood salad I was going to have, so I had beef rocket and avocado instead. Siggy went for spaghetti carbonara. The restaurant is right on the cliff edge overlooking the volcano island (Nea Kameni)and Thirassia in the background. A nice cool breeze was blowing sea mist up the cliffs. A few tables were reserved at the front probably to sit and watch the sunset later.
The avocado in the salad was cut up into tiny bits. Lots of sesame seeds and honey and soya based dressing gave the salad an oriental flavour which overpowered the rocket. We had a splendid banoffee pie for dessert.
I overheard an Australian customer asking ‘please may I have…’ which was such a welcome break from the whiney nasal Americans saying ‘I’ll get the…’. I feel like I’m bitching a lot about Americans in these posts, but really, if you’d been there you’d like be doing like literally the same thing.
We stopped for a cheeky couple of Volkan beers at a bar further along the cliff edge pathway – I had a Santorini Blonde again and I suggested Siggy try the Santorini Grey which is a fruity tasting, cloudy and sediment heavy white beer. Both are excellent.
Then we took a shit load of sunset photos with lots of other photographers all lined up on the path along the cliff edge. Once the sun had gone, it was like when a football match finishes in a pub – everyone up and left as quickly as possible.
We knew that if we were spritely there was a bus we could catch back to Perissa on the hour, so we boogied on back dodging various sluggards and donkeys. And got a teensy weensy lickle bit lost.
After various bad choices of locals to ask ‘do you know where the bus station is?’ We finally found one who gave us directions back whence we had come and we confirmed we were on the right track by asking a girl handing out flyers for a nightclub.
The bus station was now organised chaos in the dark, complete with a ticket booth that doesn’t actually sell tickets and crowds of confused holidaymakers. I was provided with a solid piece of misinformation by the ticket collector who would ultimately be on the bus home with us to the effect that the bus to Perissa had gone. Strange that five minutes later we should be sat on the bus to Perissa giving him our money. Something got lost in translation perhaps.
Back in Perissa we had Radlers in the Beach Bar, cocktails in the sweltering The Magic Bus bar on the corner right at the end of the strip and then to Yazz for some more Yellow Donkey beer and live music – same duo as the previous night doing eighties/nineties tunes such as ‘When Doves Cry’, ‘Fame’, ‘I Feel Love’, ‘Do You Think I’m Sexy’, ‘Sing It Back’ and ‘Need You Tonight’.
Celebrity lookalike tonight was Lee Mack.
couchmagpie 