Greece - September 6 - Phew!

We burned some serious calories today... A taxi picked us up in the morning to drive us to Fira, where we walked around for a bit and explored some shops. Might go back tomorrow for some glass artwork. Then, we took the cable-car down to the Old Port to jump on a boat that took us to the Nea Kameni Volcano. When the boat stopped, we were told that we could hike to the top of the volcano. What the didn't tell us was how long and how high the volcano rim was. We got some great pics at the top though...and then had to slog our way back down. The boat also stopped at an area with natural hot springs, where you could jump off the boat and float around in the hot springs for a bit. (We actually opted out of that and just relaxed on the boat for a bit...because we knew what was coming next...or thought we did.) When we got back to port, we rode the cable car back up to the top of the cliff and then set off on the Fira to Oia "walk", which was billed as a ~3 hour walk along the rim of the caldera from Fira (the main city on Santorini) back to Oia (which is where our hotel was located). What is actually is is a 10km hike up with quite a bit of up and down climbing and descending. For the most part, other that the climbing, the terrain wasn't terribly difficult, and parts of it were even "paved" - as in cobblestones. But, it was a hot, sunny day. Nevertheless, we attacked the challenge, and we made it back to our hotel in 2 hours, 34 min. (Drop the mic.) We were pretty exhausted at that point and I was completely drenched in sweat. However...we had enough time to freshen up a bit before heading to the hotel spa for the hot-stone massages that we had scheduled. OMG!!! Nancy has done these before, but this was my first professional hot-stone massage. I can tell you that it won't be my last. It was exactly what we needed after our trek. After the massage, we walked into town (Oia, not Fira) and had a fabulous dinner at a restaurant called Roka. What a day!