Cliff Jumping

I had the amazing opportunity to go to Santorini again. The group went for a lovely 2 nights. I bunked with one of my friends, and the next thing we knew we were taking Santorini by storm.

The first night we walked around the town of Fira to get aquainted with our surroundings. Then we had a large group dinner where, like always, I was astounded by the Greek Cuisine. I then went back to my room read a bit, and energized myself for the day ahead.

We had a choice between a boat trip or a hike around the entire half of Santorini. I choose the hike. Me, and 4 other people, including our professor set out to see Santorini and it's surroundings by foot. It took us over 4 hours to complete, most of which was uphill, or downhill at a very steep slope (exhausting but worth it).

The highlight of the hike for me was a mountain we winded around and were able to climb up. This mountain which at one point was a the capital of Santorini and a husting and bustling part of the island. Now the once capital, Skaros is just rubble. The city was ruined by an earthquake in 1960. It was very tragic and many people died. Now all that if left is what looks like a large mountain. At some points wh

en I was walking I could see remnants of old houses. They would appear as holes in the ground and as I would peer in a little closer i saw that I was looking into an old house, and was actually walking on a roof top. There was a point where some of us decided to get a little 'dirty' and rock climb (no ropes) we made it to the top and saw an amazing view of the Grecian land around us. Off to the distance was a volcano, behind us lied the island Santorini. . .We could see where we came from (Fira) and where we were heading (Iia). It was beautiful, I felt as if I was the 'Queen of the world.'

The entire hike was amazing, ever step you saw a new view of Santorini. If you can imagine a C- shaped island, with villages and buildings only found at the tippity-top of ginormous cliffs changing with every step of your 7-mile hike. Beauty.

And the end of our hike we met up with the rest of the group and we went cliff jumping. It is said that the cliff was about 30 feet, but I didn't have a measuring tap :). Just so you believe I did it, here's a picture... Geesh, I don't even believe I did it.

After we all jumped off a cliff (I love saying that) we headed back up the 500 step path and made it pack to our hotel. We all showered and then went out for the night. We came back, slept, went to the museum in the morning and then we headed back to Paros on the ferry.