Day 9 - Santorini!  This is one of my most-anticipated days for the cruise.  We woke before sunrise to find ourselves anchored beneath the cliffs on which the town of Santorini (its actual name is Fira, but Santorini persists in common usage) is perched.  Many of the Greek towns are perched high above the sea as discouragement to the many pirates that frequented the area.

The lights of the town twinkled in the pre-dawn and the town was slowly revealed as the sun came up.  The white buildings and beautiful blue domes of the churches shone in the sunlight.  What a magical experience.

We tendered off the boat and boarded a van to the little port town of Vlihada.  Bob and Betsy joined us on our adventure.  In Vlihada we boarded a beautiful catamaran for our cruise around the island.

Cute little fishing boats

 There were only 10 of us on board, with plenty of room to spread out.  We claimed a spot near the bow and settled down to enjoy the beautiful, sunny day.  We sailed past Red Beach (red sands and cliffs), White Beach (white cliffs and sand) and amazing rock formations.  The water was a beautiful blue and the temperature was perfect.

Bob and Betsy decided to reenact the Titanic scene on the bow!

We entered the volcano caldera formed by an eruptions centuries ago.  Mike, Betsy and I decided against going swimming in the hot spring and chose to just dip our feet in the water to say we had been in the Mediterranean.

We sailed back to port and boarded the van for the trip back to Fira.  We wandered around town a bit, found some gelatto, then rode the cable car back to the docks and caught the tender back to Riviera.

Mike was excited to find black vanilla gellato!

The mule trail up to Santorini.  We rode the cable car!

Another beautiful day.....  More Trivia tonight, and another attempt by Dick to thwart our waiter!