Santorini, Greece: Part 2 (She Got Right On It)

Beautiful Santorini

This is Pat.  Bill had a cold and stayed on the ship for our stop in Santorini.  It’s a hard place to skip, since the white buildings, blue domed churches and the Mediterranean Sea make this a stunning place to visit. 

Why the white buildings?  Early on, the government used the local limestone to make an inexpensive white paint, which was provided free to the residents.  Why the blue domes on the churches?  By law, the church domes (only) are painted blue, and it’s beautiful.  And why so many churches?  Well, just like the US, the tax code plays a role.  Per our guide, if you have a “church” on your property, you don’t pay property taxes.  So even expensive hotels have a small chapel, and hence, pay no property taxes.  This helps explain Greece’s dire financial straits.

This was a sign on one of the stores.  Throughout our travels in Greece, we’ve heard from the tour guides that, although they have advanced degrees in antiquities or archeology, they can only get jobs as tour guides.  Unemployment, particularly for the highly educated, is around 25%.

We also noticed that many of the tree trunks on the sides of the road were painted white for the bottom 8 feet.  We asked our guide to explain.  He said that Santorini has only 6 policemen, and being Greek, they won’t work the late shifts.  There is quite a bit of night-time drunk driving as a result, so they paint the trees to illuminate them and help prevent accidents.  Our guide said he often needed the help of the “white trees.”

The island is what remains from one of the largest volcanic eruptions in history (1600 B.C.) and the villages are at the top of steep cliffs. 

Legends say that Santorini is actually the lost city of Atlantis.  Maybe?  I walked (and walked and walked) through two of the villages:  Fira, the capital and Oia.  Fira is very wealthy (a small home goes for $2.5 million).  The streets are cobblestone and wind around like a maze.  Pronouncing its main square (Plateia Theotokopoulou) was almost as hard as finding my way back to the parking lot.  Oia was quieter – an artist’s colony - and I spent a lovely hour with a glass of wine (or 2) at a local taverna.