Some Greek Islands

So, we boarded the NCL Pearl on Saturday and have visited Santorini, Mykonos and Iraklion (Crete).

We had visited Santorini back in 2023 but all excursions were cancelled. We walked up the Donkey trail and explored the city on our own. This time we were lucky and the excursions happened. We visited Santo Winery for a wine tasting. The view was amazing...

 

... We liked 2 out of 3 wines...

Then we learned a little bit about Santorini. It is a volcanic island, this sets it apart from other Greek Islands. We visited the town of Oia (pronounced E-ya). We browsed some shops and had a snack of weird cheese with drinks.

From there, we went to Fira (the main town). The town is a labyrinth on a big hill, a lot of up and down and narrow "streets". There are almost zero motorized vehicles! Yay!

The view from the gondola ride down to the port.

View from Oia.

It was Carsten's birthday 🎉 what a great way to spend the day!

Mykonos was lovely, we had a guided tour which was basically a nice, informative walk around the town. We saw the iconic bougainvillea 

The Venetian windmills from the 16th century were used for grinding grain, etc.

The oldest building in Mykonos is this church by the gate. There are about 700 churches on the island, most of them are private. The private ones generally have a blue dome if the family made their living from the sea and a red dome if they made their living from the land. Public churches, like this one, are white. 

Little Venice 

Church near the Port

After the excursion was over we decided to have a snack and a shot of Ouzo.

A good time was had by all!!

Next up, Crete! Our excursion was called Taste of Crete. We went by bus up into the hills of the island of Crete. We learned about the famous Olive oil from Crete (and bought some) as well as the wines. We sampled some local favorites with wine and olive oil and it was very tasty. We had a second stop with more elaborate snacks and Raki (the local "firewater"). It is similar to Ouzo but made from the pulp of the grapes after the wine is pressed. 

The final stop was in a small town where we just walked the narrow streets.

No notes.

Our guide in Mykonos told us that the Greek flag has nine stripes to represent the nine years of the revolution in the late 1700s. The Iraklion guide said the nine stripes represent the nine letters that spell "freedom".

According to Wikipedia, they do not have any official meaning. 

So, there you go.

More from Greece in a few days!

Sheri + Carsten