The last island we visited on the cruise was Santorini. In a way it's great that this destination was saved for last on the itinerary because the views are so spectacular and panoramic. The town is built into the side of a cliff of volcanic rock. The Perla was too big to pull up right into the bay, so we had to disembark by boat slip, just like in Patmos. I love that ... it feels like such an adventure. Once at the shore we took these speeding cable cars up to the top which was kind of thrilling. The town itself is divine, but the island is much bigger than we expected and there are whole other townships and regions (including some nice beaches) on the other side. We settled into a cliffside cafe and had drinks while enjoying the breathtaking view of the volcano and bay. It would be fun to rent a house or apartment here for a couple of weeks in the warmer season.
We walked down using the donkey trail! It's this huge zig-zagging trail of small stone steps. (The only way up to the top of the cliff is via cable car or on the back of a donkey. We didn't have the heart to use the donkeys -- felt sorry for them) Naturally the trail is covered in donkey shit. When deciding whether to take the cable car back down or walk, the boyfriend asked, "but what about the donkey shit?" to which I added "we can just step around it". That strategy lasted for about 5 steps -- there was just too much of it ground into the stones to avoid. But we went through it anyway .... it took us about half an hour to get all the way down to where the boat slips were at the shore. Along the way we passed a herd of donkeys. We were nervous about getting kicked as we had to squeeze behind some of them to get by, but we passed without incident.