FIRA-IA HIKE, SANTORINI

Every window is a picture. We stopped so many times to look or photograph, we doubled the time it took to hike the 12 k!

The start of the path along one of the most beautiful walks you can make in a pair of runners and with a few euros in your pocket. That said, it would not be a place I would recommend, because of its ecological restraints. Santorini is a great example of how armchair travel is the ideal way to see for some of our world's most beautiful places.

The low white walls framed every set of doors as a window to the sea

Fira, and my favourite sunset viewpoint, very close to our Hotel Athios.

Such a beautiful view to the center of the volcano. The Aegean Sea here is called the Caldera. It left Santorini with it's characteristic lava rock in red, black, yellow and white, but with no natural source of potable water. Very grateful for North American access to water without the need for plastic!

Signature Santorini, but like Venice, it's a skeleton emptied largely of natives and seasonally inhabited by tourists from around the world. Very sobering, with the vast majority workers from all over economically depressed Greece, mostly the mainland.

Markers at the junctions of trails to Fira, Ia, near Skaros 

Outcropping at Skaros. View out to the volcano center that formed the island.

The man on the right was a Georgian (the country) wedding photographer flown out for the occasion, and the people on the left were Canadians from Toronto who just had a perfect picture taken by him. I insisted he show them (he was very good at finding the moment) and then kindly consented to repeating the shot on their camera for them to treasure. My version is amateur, but I love the people you meet on a mountain. It's always more interesting than anywhere else.

Ruins of an ancient castle, we heard a tour guide say.

View back to Fira

View down to a church from around the other side of the trail

The rooftop of the church. Quite a work of determination and pilgrimage!

The modern hiker - cellphone and iced frappaccino!

Lava stone pathways make the path easy to follow from Fira

Spring flowers loving the wind and sun

First views of Ia

IA (OIA) sunset

Nocturnal lights on Fira