Daily Life in Italy: Fira and Donkey Rides

Today we explored Fira. Fira is the capital of Santorini. The town was founded two centuries ago. Fira has approximately 2,100 residents and his the largest town on the island.

After a great breakfast in the hotel, we caught the bus to Fira.

Fira has a promenade that sits along the edge of the caldera, overlooking the sea and the new volcanic cone.

Today started out as a foggy, overcast and humid day. This view is from Fira looking back towards Oia on the north end of the island.

Beautiful mosaic over the doors of the main chapel in Fira.

I also loved the patterns in the plaza around the church.

Many hotels on the caldera cliff side had these 'open' doors framing their entrances.

The new volcanic cone sits in the caldera

Katrina works on getting a specific shot.

Tourists in Fira...ha!

Real tourists in Fira.

We wanted to go down to the waterfront. There are three ways down the steep cliffs: 1) Walking down the steep path, 2) by gondola, or 3) by donkey. You can see what Katrina and Brandon chose. I walked and took pictures. 5 euro each for the ride down.

They made it to the bottom safely, although a bit shaken from the nerve racking ride. I couldn't keep up!

Waiting for riders to go back up.

We had lunch at the marina and took some pictures, then rode the gondola back up to Fira. I think we spent another hour of so wandering the exploring, taking pictures and shopping a little bit.

This afternoon we headed back to Oia. We all agreed that Oia is a much nicer little town. We had hopes of seeing a magnificent sundown, so we found a cafe for dinner. Instead of entrees, we ordered Greek appetizers, one at a time over the course of two hours, along with a few glasses of sangria.