Awesome Adventure 2016: Santorini - Akrotiri and Red Beach

On Thursday, we caught the bus in Fira and after a 25 minute wait, another bus out to the Akrotiri archaeological site, where they are excavating a city that was buried by volcanic ash in 1660BC! It was amazing to see that they had special systems for collecting dew for drinking water (with gargoyles) and sewage systems. They had also established a bartering system with different households producing different goods - olive oil and wine containers, etc... The Spring Frescoes that we saw in the archaeological museum in Athens also came from here. The civilisation was probably Minoan in origin, initially from Crete - and they traded with Crete and Egypt! Only about half of the site is currently being excavated and it is massive! The find is considered by some to be as important as Pompei. The eruption led to the decline of the Minoan Empire. The priests in Crete had said that they could control the earth and were proved wrong. The ash from the volcano reached Crete and the world temperature apparently dropped by about 3 oC. The tsunami from the volcano also spread as far as Crete. Unlike Pompei, there weren't any people buried in Akrotiri by the ash as they had all fled 3 weeks beforehand by boat (once the volcano started rumbling), possibly to be caught by the tsunami.

We then walked down from the bus stop to Red Beach. We weren't sure what it would be like. There were warning signs for rock slides, so we didn't go around to the beach. We could have caught a boat but instead opted to attempt to cool off on a rocky beach. There were too many sharp shells on the rocks, so we left for home - via bus to Fira and then on to Oia. Red Beach looked spectacular from the distance as a landscape - but didn't look like a great place for a swim anyway. That evening, I managed to power through MANY loads of washing. Sophie is even going to wipe out her bag and start fresh for the remainder of our travels. We are getting used to the light covering of volcanic dust!