Europe Day Fifty Five to Fifty Eight - Santorini

   We got onto the ferry around 7pm and got a nice seat in the lobby. The ferry wasn't overnight, just until 1am, so we didn't get a room this time. This ferry rocked around a lot and within an hour Mom and I were sea sick. I didn't throw up but my stomach was a bit queasy. The ferry ride stretched on for what seemed like forever and I was quite excited when we docked in Santorini. We got a taxi ride up the mountain-like island to the city of Santorini. The taxi dropped us off at the entrance to Santorini because you can't drive cars in the town. A woman met us and led us through the walkways to our cave house. Once we got there we went right to bed as we were all so tired from the ferry ride.

The next morning we headed out to explore Santorini. We saw all of the white houses that were carved out of the cliff on our way to breakfast. We ate at a little cafe with a view of the turquoise waters at the bottom of the cliffs.  We had some really good crepes and omelettes for breakfast before heading out to the streets again.

We admired all of the art and decorative plates everywhere and were thinking of what to get everybody for Christmas. We got some groceries and had some lunch at the cave house and relaxed for a few hours until sunset when we tried to get some sunset photos from the temple that was just ten steps from our house.

After the sunset Sage put on a puppet show with her toy Unicorn from Edinburgh and her wooden duck from Barcelona. After the puppet show we watched a Christmas movie on the TV. Once the movie was over we went to bed.

The next morning we had some breakfast and Dad went to pickup a rental car so we could go to the red cliffs. The new rental car was a bit bigger than the Death Car and had a higher roof so that no one hit their heads on the way there. Once we got into the parking lot Sage wasn't feeling good after the bumpy car ride and threw up on Mom. Once Mom changed her shirt we went down to the red cliff beach.

We walked across the dried seaweed that covered the beach, back up the cliffs and got back in the car. Then we drove to a little town on the edge of the cliff. We checked out the market and bought a few Christmas presents then got some lunch before going back to our cave house in Santorini.

We went to Mom's favorite market shop and got some Christmas presents. We had them shipped back to Canada since we didn't have any room in our backpacks. Once the sun was about to set we got ready to take some photos of the windmill.  We walked to the windmill and climbed up on a gate way to get a good angle. We got some great photos and headed back to the cave house for the night.

The next morning we decided to attempt the cliff jump that we had heard about when we were researching Santorini. It turns out the the cliff wasn't far from our cave house it was just a few hundred stairs down the cliff.

Once we got to the bottom we navigated the rocky path across the cliff side to the giant rock that was sticking out of the water 10 meters out. Once we gathered the courage to get in the cold water Zaddek, Kaden, and I swam out to the rock and rock climbed up the side. There was a small concrete platform at the edge of the cliff side.

Zaddek was the first up and he wanted the glory of going first so he got a running start and launched himself off the platform.

After I made sure Zaddek was safely out of the way I jumped off the platform. Kaden calculated that the cliff was about 30 feet tall and it felt like you were flying once you launched yourself into the air.

Once you're at the bottom the cold water hits you abruptly and it stuns you for a second or two before you swim back to the cliff side. After Kaden took his first jump Zaddek and I took two more turns before we had to go. Kaden was the last one to go and he said he was going to attempt a flip. He jumped off and did a full flip but couldn't stop and overshot his flip and did a belly flop.

He made it back to the rock and took a few minutes to catch his breath before I helped swim him back to the cliff side where Mom, Dad, and Sage were waiting. We made the long trip up the mountain, packed up our stuff and headed to the airport saying goodbye to the beautiful cliff city, Santorini. We got on the plane and flew to Athens then we slept the night in an Air BnB and the next morning we got on a flight to Egypt.

Total ferries: 1

Total planes: 1

Total cars: 1 small one

Total miles walked: 15.4 miles