Day 19 Santorini

We dropped anchor about 8 am and then gathered in theatre to wait our turn to board the tender to land on Santorini  by 9am for our half day tour.Our first stop was at  the ancient site of Akrotiri (the Greek Pompeii).This was only unveiled in 1967 after being shrouded for over 3,000 years.It is remarkably preserved and offers a great insight into the island's history.Now that funds are tight here it looks like further work will be very sporadic. They have just spent 40million putting a roof over part of it( it's estimated that only one third has been worked on) as the previous one fell down!

Then the bus took the winding road  ( they are all winding) up to Mt.Prophet Elijah 2,000 feet above sea level for a panoramic view of the whole island but there was a bit of smog around and we seemed to be above the clouds.

It's amazing to see all the houses and buildings clinging to the sides of the extinct(?) volcano.On first sight it looked like glaciers spreading down the basalt rock.

Luckily the ship issued passes for us to come down on the cable car as there are 650steps or pay for a donkey ride which no tour operator was recommending ( ?insurance) so we walked through a lot of souvenir shops, purchased an ice cream and caught the cable car back to ship for a late lunch as Rob $ Trish had warned us about leaving it till later as it becomes very busy.So here we are sitting on the deck taking in this most interesting of  panoramas enjoying an iced water and a cool breeze. Ah! Spent the rest of afternoon on outside deck reading and watching the tenders bringing back passengers from Santorini. Then it was off to dinner and the Show in the theatre . As we were sitting down for dinner the ship set sail for Athens where we will be when we wake up in the morning .