Santorini - a Day Trip from Crete

The sheer scale of this place is unbelievable and probably up there with Delphi in terms of life-changing experiences. Cue a corny link......Delphini..

When you take the very early-morning ferry from Aghios Nikolaos in Crete you will see dolphins swimming alongside the ferryboat. The ferries motor along, so the speed of the dolphins and their agility are staggering to witness. You can watch them on TV and in films but to see them for real is spectacular. They appear to be smiling constantly which is ridiculous, but they're huge too. Amazing.

When you dock at Santorini you have choices of transport, walking.....not good in the heat........donkeys.......thrilling but not for the faint-hearted........or the funicular.....foon what?!! Yes, there's a railway up the cliff-face. Top banana. Brilliant idea and it takes very little time.

On the return I'd recommend walking down, though. The view is awesome. But when you hit the top of Phira the view is exactly like the books, the travel agents' brochures and all the posters ever printed. However, the scale is impossible to put into words. The enormous ferries which you can see below appear like tiny fishing-boats. The caldera opposite (the newly-evolving volcano) is quite a distance. For that to have blown and left what remains is hard to entertain. The explosion is supposed to have been 10 times bigger than the eruption of Krakatoa in the Far East, the only known volcanic biggie in modern human memory, sort of....Anyway, you wouldn't want to be around if this place was to blow again.......Try not to think of volcanic activity when you're there.

Those bars draped over the cliff (with their defiant swimming pools) seem ludicrous, considering the impending doom. How anyone can dare to live like that under the constant threat of earthquake and eruption beggars belief.