The lovely isle of Santorini was the first port on our current cruise which was one I had visited before. Nine years ago Julie, Ann and I had embarked on our first voyage together, and this island (also known as Thira; one of our tour guides–an ex-pat British gentleman retired to Kefalonia–claimed that the Greeks have at least two different names for every place and three different spellings for each of those!) had been one of our favorites then. I was eager to see if much had discernably changed. We arrived at midday and took a quick tender to the foot of the cliffs and from thence up on the cable car to the town spread across the rim of the caldera above. From the top it doesn’t take much imagination to look out over the bowl of the sea below and the circle of islands enclosing it and understand the geologists’ explanation for this modern topography. Once a mighty volcano stood here, and a cataclysmic prehistoric eruption blew the entire top off the mountain and allowed the sea to rush in (similar, though minus the presence of the ocean, to the eruption that created Crater Lake in my home state of Oregon). Some speculate that civilizations lost in the aftermath of that eruption gave rise to the myths of Atlantis. Much later settlements on the island were also destroyed in further seismic activity. I had heard of the excavations at Akrotiri (likened to Pompeii or Herculaneum) and had hoped to visit them, but they are currently off limits to the public. Never mind. There were fascinating shops to explore (there are PLENTY of purveyors of all kinds of beautiful jewelry here) and cafes perched on the rim just begging one to sit under the shade of an umbrella and drink in the view along with a cool beverage. Little seemed to have changed here since my last visit, although perhaps there were fewer tourists in the narrow lanes (we kept hearing throughout the region that tourism bureaus are predicting 25 percent fewer travelers this summer), and I felt as though shop keepers were more eager to draw me into their shops and spent more time trying to interest me in their wares than in the past. Ann and I found a quiet restaurant on the “backside” of town (away from the caldera’s edge, and therefore more reasonably priced) for a light dinner, and soon learned that our waiter had arrived here from Poland 20 years ago for a week’s vacation . . . and never left (who could blame him?). Tempting as that sounded, we made our way back to the ship, timing our departure to the sunset so that we could view it as we rode back down the cliffside (At that time there was no shortage of tourists crowding every possible vantage point and cafe table with a view so they could enjoy the sight of the sun sinking into the sea.). Later, during a late-night sail away party on the top deck of the ship, we enjoyed another incredible view. The evening was still warm, and only the lightest of breezes blew over the water. Overhead a mass of stars, finding little competition from man-made illumination, shone brightly over the dark sea. All around us, glimmering like the diamonds we’d admired in shop windows earlier in the day, were the lights of the towns strung out along the slopes of that ancient volcano and reflected in the water below. We lingered, stretched out on teak deck chairs, long after the ship got under way, gazing at the lights as they slowly fell behind us. It was hard enough to leave after only one day there; no wonder the Polish gentleman found it impossible to leave after an entire week under the island’s spell! — Patty Vanikiotis, proofreader