Why That Santorini Church Looks So Familiar

My last post showed a couple of images of a church on Santorini that has had a lot of film, pixels, and professional travel photographers and photo editors dedicated to it over the years. If you've looked into traveling to the Greek Islands before, there's a good chance you've seen this church prominently highlighted in several travel guides and articles. 

For example, it made the cover story of Conde Nast Traveler magazine in July 2008...

And the left cover image of National Geographic Traveler's 2nd edition on Greece...

And Lonely Planet's cover shot for an older 'Greek Islands' travel guide...

(You'll find the latest LP publications on Greece here.)

And a Dorling Kindersley (DK) guide book on the Greek Islands... 

These are excellent sources of information on Greece and the Greek Islands, and I recommend them all. But I do hope that this beautiful little church on Santorini somehow gets a little compensation for being the star of the show here. It clearly must be helping these publishers sell guide books and magazine issues.


(The images above are the property and copyright of their respective publishers, and I include them here for informational purposes only.)

A Classic Santorini Church and Sunset

This Greek church landscape scene on Santorini is the subject of countless travel photographs (including travel book and magazine covers), but it's not that easy to find unless you know where to look. I stayed here for about an hour or so, taking lots of shots before and after sunset. This one was just after sunset - around 8:15 PM.

The cruise ship is now leaving port, having done its job of giving its passengers one last look at a sunset panorama that they will not soon forget.

And here's the same scene in a vertical format, showing more of the blue dome and more of the sky. I think I like the vertical shot better. 

[Click on the photos for larger views.]

 

I toyed with the idea of brightening up just the blue and white of the church in these images, but the reality is, this is pretty much exactly how I remember this scene - everything was getting darker by the minute at this point. Within a few minutes of taking these images, I was packed up and heading back to our hotel.

Santorini Sunset - Dinner on the Caldera Edge

I came across this scene while on my way into town on Santorini one evening near sunset. I was on a mission to secure cat food for this cat, and stopped along the way to grab some shots of anything interesting I could find. (With camera in hand, even running a mundane errand can be interesting.)

What's interesting to me about this image is the visual suggestion that the restaurant is literally hanging over the edge of the Santorini caldera, and the repetition of lines in the middle and background of the photo. And of course, the two young women totally engaged in their conversation, seemingly not very interested in the incredible sunset about to occur across the water.

Santorini Sunset Cruisers Returning to Port

This was the typical post-sunset scene every evening outside our hotel balcony on Santorini. Two 'sunset cruise' ships quietly returning to port after showing their guests one of the most amazing sunsets in Europe, in the large water-filled caldera of an ancient undersea volcano.

For us this was a very relaxing part of the day, accompanied by a cool Mythos beer or a glass of local white wine, local cheeses and olives, etc. A great way to transition between daytime activities and a late dinner at one of the Greek restaurants in town.

The Santorini Coastline

Before I get back to the business of posting more cat-centric images in this blog, I thought you might like to see a litttle bit more of the western coastline of the Greek island of Santorini.

Here's a view looking to the northwest, taken from our hotel room balcony. This image shows the central portion of Santorini's main town of Fira. The diagonal 'switchback' path in the lower center is used by hard-working donkeys (and people on foot) to reach the small lower port area (out of view to bottom left). There's a short cable-car ride that accomplishes the same thing a lot faster, and without all the donkey-infused ambience and sweaty exertion.

This second shot is from the north side of town, looking south. Visible in the background just to the right of the church is the southernmost part of Fira, home to our hotel - the Hotel Keti.

I have several more good landscape images from Santorini, but will save those for a little later. Back to the cats soon.

On Santorini - One Room, Great View, Free Greek Cat Included

Question: What's better than a nice room with a great view on the Greek island of Santorini?

Answer: A nice room with a great view, and a free (hotel) cat for a few days.

Here's a shot that shows a little more of the Santorini town of Fira in the background, as seen from the balcony of our room (looking approximately northward). Our favorite 'hotel cat' has stopped by for a proper dose of head-scratching attention. Naturally, my wife was more than happy to oblige. No language barriers here!

On Santorini - A Room with a Great View

This image illustrates a bit of the scale associated with the Greek island of Santorini. My wife is looking over the edge of our hotel balcony at the Hotel Keti, with the main port village of Fira built into the rocky hillside in the backdrop. The water and the volcanic caldera are outside the frame of this shot, far below and to the left.

Much, much further to the northwest (well beyond the background of this image) lies the village of Oia, which is where people go to see the most spectacular views of the Santorini sunsets over the caldera.

But as I'll show in future posts - and as you can start to see here - the view from this vantage point is pretty spectacular already!

(And yes, the cat from my previous 'Hotel Keti' posts liked to hang out with us on this balcony. Who wouldn't? More on that later.)

The Cat and the Cruise Ship

This image is from the back of the Hotel Keti on the Greek island of Santorini. The cat here is the same pregnant female I highlighted in an earlier post.

It was late afternoon, and my wife Melissa and I were relaxing in preparation for what was sure to be another glorious sunset over the water-filled volcanic caldera that fronts the main town on Santorini. Along came the female cat we had befriended earlier - hungry for a little attention, and as it turned out, for food as well.

Melissa implored me to go into town and get some cat food. So I did - climbing up, up, up, and up some more to reach the main town level. I was back in 30 minutes or so, and we popped open a can of food for the cat. After all, she was eating for many, not just herself. She consumed an entire can of food in less than a minute, and the picture you see here is basically 'cleanup' time.

Now for the cruise ship in the background. What you can't really get a sense for in this photo is the scale of things here. That rather large ship is hundreds of feet below the level of Hotel Keti. Just beyond the cat is a fairly sheer dropoff to water level.

In later posts I'll add a few non-cat photos to provide a better sense for scale and context about the 'Santorini experience.'

Cat on Steps in Late Afternoon Sun

This cat - a pregnant female - was a 'resident' at the Hotel Keti on the island of Santorini. She was very friendly from the start, and soon became our hotel companion during the several days we spent here.

These steps lead out the back of the hotel, which has brilliant panoramic views of the blue water and volcanic caldera that make Santorini famous. I took this particular shot about an hour or so before sunset, lending the image the golden glow you see here.

I'll add more good shots of this cat later, but for now, consider this an introduction.