October 10th, 2002 (Thursday)
Up until this point, we hadn't heard many birds in Greece. We saw
lots of stray cats, but saw and heards few or no birds. Coincidence?
We thought not! Finally, we woke up to the sound of birds on
Thursday. It was really cool -- until Machelle figured it out, that
is. There were small bird cages in the back yard with captive birds
in them, singing. See the cages near the clothes line?
We visited the Archeological and Historical museums. We learned about
the geological history of the island and how it was shaped repeatedly
by big volcanic eruptions, including the one that was probably the
downfall of the Minoan civilization. During that earthquake, the
center of the island dropped into the ocean, leaving the caldera we
see today. There's some thought that Akrotiri (a major Minoan site on
Santorini) may have been the basis of the Atlantis myth.
The best part of the museum was the frescos that they found in
Akrotiri. As with all the frescos we saw in museums, only parts have
been found, and the rest has been interpolated by an artist. Akrotiri
was the site of the cool Blue Monkeys that we saw an artist copying in
New Orleans.
We spent a big chunk of the day on the fast boat to Mykonos where we
hoped to dive and see Delos. Mykonos has lots of traditional style
houses. The roads in the towns are narrow, twisty, and are confusing
by design, to thwart invaders -- like us!
