Day 33... A RED BEACH?!?!?!?!?

Day 33, July 17th:

Greece Day 4!

Today we reserved the day to explore the southern tip of the island.  We slept in a little bit and then drove off on our ATV in search of the Red Beach and the lighthouse.  Both spots were about a 25-minute drive from the hotel.  The ride was very beautiful, since the road runs right along the coast.  Once we finally arrived at the parking lot near the Red Beach, we parked the ATV and hiked around the end of the rock cliff to find one of most unique beaches ever!  The beach was nestled down along the shore underneath a huge rock cliff overhang.  It was very small and definitely a hike down to the beach from the top of the island.  You must really want to go to the beach to get there!  It was very beautiful though.  The sand was soooooo dark red.  Red Beach earns its name from the iron-rich sedimentary rocks in the cliff-face towering over the beach.  Very unique!!! 

Near Red Beach, we passed a small roadside stand that was selling local produce, including sun-dried tomatoes.  On the island, there were several stands along the road with cherry tomatoes sliced in half topped with various spices sitting out in the sun drying.  There also were a lot of grape vines on the island; however, they are not like the vines I have seen in Ohio, as these were laying on the ground in more of a cluster of plants.  I finally was curious as to what these plants were, so I stopped the ATV to check it out.  I was stunned to see that they were grapes.  There also were supposed to be several olive trees in Greece; however, I never got to see any of them.  

We then explored our way to the lighthouse about 15 minutes away from the Red Beach.  It is situated on the most southern tip of the island on top of many jagged rocks and provided an amazing view of the entire crescent shaped island.  You felt like you were on top of the world here!  The white and green painted lighthouse was not as nice as I expected, nor was it painted in the traditional white and blue.  The views definitely made up for the decrepit lighthouse!  I of course took millions of pictures and I can’t wait for you all to see them!

We then went to get some lunch in the small village just outside of Akrotiri.  For those of you that are interested, Akrotiri is a roughly 3,500-year-old Minoan town preserved in volcanic ash like Pompeii.  It is currently closed to visitors, but the locals said it should reopen sometime soon.  We ate at Taverna Plateia.  I had rice stuffed vine leaves and a chicken souvlaki pita.  We then rode the ATVs back to Fira to do some last minute souvenir shopping before heading back to the hotel to pick our bags and take the shuttle down to the port for our return trip to Piraeus. 

For the return trip, we took a high-speed ferry for 58 Euros.  It took us about 4 hours to get to Piraeus, as we were literally flying on the water.  We were moving so fast!!!  We arrived in Piraeus around 23:00 and went straight back to the ship for a shower and some sleep.  Santorini was so AMAZING and I can’t wait to visit again sometime soon.