Santorini (Greek: Σαντορίνη, [sandoˈrini])
The island is officially called Thira (Greek: Θήρα [ˈθira]) and in classic Greek Thera (English pronunciation /ˈθɪərə/), lies in the southern Aegean Sea, about 200 km (120 mi) southeast of Greece’s mainland. It is the largest island of a small, circular archipelago, which bears the same name and is the remnant of a volcanic caldera.
The Greek islands are awesome, especially Santorini (I don’t really know about the other ones). I took the ferry from Athens which by itself already is a great experience, stopping by a few of the other islands and performing a variation of the internet-famous “drift 180 giant ferry parking throw” perfect every time. The island itself is kind of a giant half moon shaped rock falling straight off into the sea on the one side and falling off rather gently on the other, allowing for houses, fields and villages. I stayed for 4 nights in Thera in the islands center. Oia is the more scenic town, but the walk over from Thera was definitely worth it, even though the bus is a lot faster, ideally walk one way and take the bus back. It was off-season in Santorini so the island was basically deserted, only running on 5-10% of it’s capacity according to my talkative host. So a lot of the hotels, restaurants and tours were closed or not operating and the best thing, most of the white elegant cliff-side homes in both of the islands villages were not occupied. So it was possible to move freely from terrace to terrace, house to house, climb up and over all the walls and so leaving most places around the villages accessible. I saw videos of free runners taking it to the extreme afterwards, they pushed it a lot further. I Could relax pretty much next to any pool or sit on any terrace, felling like the millionaires staying in those places during summer (just the weather wasn’t worth the millions, at least from a holiday tourist’s point of view. For me it was great, especially for the photography aspect, no people in the shots, moody weather, late sunrises and an all area free pass, what more can you ask for? I can only imagine the amount of people that visit the place in the summer, not for me.
Looking through the images I shot in Santorini about two years later I have to say Santorini is awesome. The winter months made it easy to shoot both sunrise and sunset, the lack of other tourists made for great accessibility, as there were no “private” terraces and no crowds in the images. I was very motivated as well, just got the new camera, all in all I am very happy with how this turned out, especially considering I only spent a short amount of time on the island.
Dog waiting for work, November 2017, Santorini, Greece
If you hike between the villages, one of those guys might come and walk with you. I guess they are “working” self-employed dogs, i.e. waiting for food, but they stick to your side, even without payment, but might just ditch you for the next opportunity. That being said, I quite enjoyed my dogfriends and made sure I always had some cash on me.
