Santorini
Today we learned that history is anything but dull.
As a child I was, just like many of the younger passengers we have on board now, fascinated with unsolved mysteries. The Bermuda Triangle, the disappearance of the dinosaurs, and maybe the greatest one of them all - the myth of Atlantis. Well, today we visited the island of Santorini, and we were offered one possible way to explain the Atlantis myth.
Santorini got its characteristic shape from the large volcanic eruption that took place around 1450 B.C. (experts still argue about the exact date). It used to be a circular island but the volcano blew out the middle, leaving a huge crater, or caldera. More recent volcanic activity has also created a few more islands around the crater, some of which are still volcanically active.
We started the day rather unconventionally. We entered the caldera at around 7 in the morning, and Expedition Leader Michelle had promised us that being up on deck around that time would be a great experience. And it was an experience indeed. What exactly happened? You have to ask those who were there to witness it…
After this rather different beginning of the day we were picked up at the ship by a tender boat and got taken to the bus which drove us up along the winding roads to the town of Oia where we had a guided tour by Ellie and Eleni as well as an opportunity to take some amazing pictures. After this we drove south and went to lunch at a lovely family-owned restaurant called Aeolus who served us not only great food, but also a spectacular view of the caldera.
Our buses then took us to the main town of Thira where we toured and visited the local museum as well as some shops. To get back down to the ship, the less brave (me) took the cable car down, while the more brave (some of the children) rode donkeys. In the afternoon we enjoyed a swim followed by a recap and a great BBQ dinner that our chefs had put together while we were ashore.
Oh, I almost forgot, what does Santorini have to do with Atlantis? Well, Santorini is involved in several possible explanations to the myth of Atlantis. One idea is that the Santorini, at the time of the eruption, was a great place, a utopia, and its disappearance was the lost city – Atlantis.
Another explanation is as follows: The disappearance of the Minoans, Europe’s first great civilization that lived on Crete Island some 5000 year ago, has long been a mystery. Today, general consensus is that the Santorini volcanic eruption might have caused a giant wave, a tsunami, so big that it took out the whole habitation on Crete, spelling the end of the Minoans. And this great civilization with all its riches, swept into the ocean, might have been the origin of the idea of the lost city of Atlantis.
Now who said history was dull?
