Santorini - Hiking to Ia

Breakfast again on the patio and then we checked out of the Astra. We had a full day on Santorini before our flight left, so we stowed our luggage in the office. We told Electra, the concierge, that we would walk to Ia and spend the day there. She seemed impressed at either our fortitude or foolhardiness; I’m not sure which. Apparently, not that many tourists walk to Ia.

It did turn out to be quite a hike. After we got outside of Imerovigli the path turned to dirt with a lot of rock and gravel and wound up and then back down two large promontories. We hardly met another person on the whole walk. We did overtake a German woman and her two children along the way, all of whom had backpacks. One of the children, a teenage girl, was sobbing and crying the entire time we were within earshot. This, apparently, was not her idea of a fun Santorini activity.

It took us two and a half hours to get to Ia, and by the time we got there I was getting pretty sunburned. As soon as we hit the outskirts of the town, I found and bought the first sunscreen I could find. It cost 16 Euros. Wow.

We found lots of fun shops in Ia. Other than the sunscreen, things seemed reasonably priced. Kathy was happy with the variety of “cute puppies and kitties” wandering the streets. At one point there were seven dogs lying in one spot on one narrow little street.

Ia (not to be confused with Iowa)

We had pizza for lunch at an outdoor rooftop café. The pizza was great—thick crust with feta cheese, tomatoes, and olives. The pack of cats hanging out there scored big at our table with pizza handouts.

Late in the afternoon, we stopped for ice cream at a little café. The proprietor told us “I have the best ice cream in Europe!” It turned out to be Hagen Daaz. As we were eating our ice cream, we noticed clouds moving in from the horizon. They darkened and produced thunder and lightning as they neared us. While we had originally planned to walk back to Imerovigli, we decided that being on the path in the rain, or worse, on one of the promontories during a lightning storm, would not be a good idea. So we paid 1.20 Euros for the bus ride back.

It did start to rain while we were on the bus. When we got back to Imerovigli, we holed up in a little café—not quite indoors, but under an overhanging roof. We had coffee and read the Herald Tribune until the rain tapered off. Then we took the walking path to Firostefani and had dinner at another good café, Remni. I had cheese stuffed peppers and spanokopita, my last meal in Santorini.

We caught the shuttle to the airport and flew back to Athens. Heavy rains in Athens delayed our flight, so we stayed longer in Santorini than we had planned. Unfortunately, the small, Spartan terminal was not the pinnacle of Santorini ambiance.

It was becoming clear that Greece was entering the rainy season. It had rained in Santorini after we had been told by the locals that “it never rains here.” Athens was experiencing heavy rains, and central Greece, where we had been a week before, was getting torrential rains. Floodwaters washed out a bridge that we had no doubt recently crossed on the main road between Kalambaka and Athens. We, fortunately, seemed to stay one step ahead of the rains.

Our plane finally arrived and we flew to Athens, and then took a taxi to the Holiday Inn near the airport where we spent the night.