Day 3: Santorini

Santorini was absolutely INCREDIBLE! We disembarked the boat at 3:30 and began our first actual excursion. We began our day with a bus ride up the very steep side of Santorini to the top to enjoy a wine tasting. Santos wines is the winery we stopped at and got to enjoy three different wines. Santos is believed to be the oldest winery in the world! We purchased two bottles of wine to put in our collection of wines that will be opened at a later day. We are currently up to two bottles. :) I really wish I had gotten some pictures of the winery, but is was very hectic and we were only there for 45 minutes which isn't a lot of time for tasting and purchasing.

We left the winery and made our way to Oia Village (pronounced via). It was as picture perfect as the pictures you see on television. The island of Santorini is built on what is left of an ancient volcano. This volcano is also believed to be what caused Atlantis to disappear. When the settlers inhabited the island they were very poor and could not afford building materials for their homes, therefore most of the homes were built into the sides of the actual volcano. Now, of course, Santorini is a thriving tourist attraction and the home to some of the most beautiful sunsets the world has ever seen.
Most everything in Oia Village is white. You need a very good pair of sunglasses to keep from being blinded when the sun hits the village. Every building with a blue dome is a church. This tiny island is the home to 400 churches. This church is the most important church on the island. Not all the churches are used every Sunday, there aren't enough inhabitants on the island, or priests for that matter, to need to use all the churches every week. Instead, like we would celebrate a birthday, once a year the church is celebrated on the day of its founding.
Micah and I with a view of the ocean from the top of the island.
It's truly incredible that the villages are build on the side of the mountain. There are cable cars to take you to the top or you can ride a donkey. Micah and I really wanted to ride the donkeys down the mountain, but when the sun set it got really cold.
Another view of Oia Village. You can see one blue dome church and how steep the mountain is.
Here is the other side of the mountain and if you look close beneath the white village is the remains of what looked like an old fort.
There were some incredible views.
I mentioned earlier that the island was home to beautiful sunsets. I tried to capture one, but as you can see the cloud cover wasn't allowing that to happen.
The cable cars we rode down.
And here is Micah at the bottom of the island while we waited for our tender to pick us up and take us to the boat.