And, we’re off!  The first port of our 28-day B2B adventure on the Getaway.  Needless to say, we’re planning our adventures accordingly.  This ain’t the Quest and we have to deal with a completely different sort of clientele.  Since our volcano crater hike has been canceled, we have booked priority tendering and are off on the first tender (actually waiting in line before the exit is even open – is anyone surprised?).

It’s a short trip – we are on land and arrive at the cable car by 8am, missing the a departure by a minute, but managing to grab the first car (with the uninterrupted view back down to the water) of the next departure (since we are the first one’s there from the tender).  They have a limit of only 4 people per cabin, which presents a bit of an issue to the latecomers who seemingly refuse to listen to the operator as he tells them to a) put a mask on and b) only 4 to a car.  Sigh.  We are lucky, no one joins us, as we were completely ready to tell no-mask-man he wasn’t getting in this car without a mask.  Fortunately, we don’t have to have that altercation – at least not today.

The first car affords us with tons of photo opportunities, of which we happily avail ourselves.  The only negative is that we are at the bottom of the exit stairs, the last people out -which ordinarily wouldn’t be an issue…but…we’re speedy – these people are not. After what feels like an excruciatingly long climb up the stairs and walk outside the cable car station, we are finally free from the lumbering horde and on our way to the bus station for the 8:30 bus to Oia.  As buses on the island are notoriously late or schedule-challenged, we want to ensure we are on that bus – which makes us more impatient than normal (ok, ok, sort of more impatient!).

We successfully find the bus stop (it’s easy once you are out of the meandering little alleyways and streets of the old city…all the while avoiding the donkey trains) and wait with other locals for the bus. The first bus is going elsewhere and when we ask where the Oia bus will be, they don’t know.  Okie dokie!  Finally the Oia bus driver and ticket taker show up and direct all of us (now locals and 3 other cruise passengers) to the correct bus.  Then it’s all simple – hop aboard, pay the ticket (1.80 Euro each) and we’re on our way. This time of morning, it’s a fast drive – arriving at the Oia bus terminal in 20 minutes.  Nice. 

Again, we have nothing to do but wander here.  There is a maritime museum we want to visit, but it doesn’t open for a bit, so wandering it is.  We actually do reconnoiter the museum location, and find it fairly easily – they have directional signs everywhere – then back track back to some of the more “main” roads in Oia, making our way up onto the street that fronts the water with all the iconic views of white washed houses and the blue domed churches.

It is off-season, which makes picture taking great – there is nobody around.  But it also makes finding anyplace open for, well, anything, a little difficult, especially at this early hour.  Keeping ourselves happy and occupied climbing up and down little staircased alleys, snapping photos right and left, we finally come upon a café that is open.  And, bonus, has a fabulous terrace with million dollar views.  Time is not an issue now, we can afford to hang out with cappuccino and this yummy “traditional Greek cheese pie” (we found out later it is called Tiropita and we already have 3 different recipes downloaded to make it when we get home!). 

As I mentioned above, it is absolutely delicious, and the terrace a perfect place to hang out and stare out over the scenery as we wait for the museum opening time.  As we wait, we watch a photo shoot up at the top of walls by the church with a woman in a red chiffon dress.  Pictures didn’t turn out, but it was the best contrast in colors you could ever see.

Finished with our fabulous snack and cappuccino, we wander off along the cobblestone streets, snapping photos of each other with the stunning background, as we weave our way back to the maritime museum. 

The museum is a small little place, but packed with all sorts of maritime memorabilia.  Old ship equipment (the likes of which I’ve never seen and still don’t really know for what all the stuff was used!),  anchors, ship bells, rudders and a fantastic collection of figureheads (from the front of old sailing ships) – one dating back to the 1600’s!  Pretty cool.  But probably one of the coolest things was the periscope set up in the courtyard.  The guy running the museum specifically led us out there and showed us how it worked. Totally neat!  We could look through it and see all the way back to Thera and our ship in the distance – just like if we were on a sub looking at the world as the sailors would.

Finished with our visit, we decide it is time to head back to Thera for lunch. 

The bus schedule we have says the bus will be there on the 20’s and 50’s after each hour, so we figure we’re good on timing.  Wandering through the alleys, we try to go to a sunset terrace just for the views (duh, it is no where near sunset) – but are foiled by attack cats up on a ledge above the steps.  Holy cow!  These things were loud and not really hissing, but definitely pissed off.  Needless to say, we turned on our heels and got out of there toot sweet! (Actually, we think they were just kittens trying to get down off the ledge, but we didn’t really relish them using us as their way down – we could just see them jumping on our heads or shoulders on their way to the ground.  Uh, no thank you!)

So, back to the bus stop we go, where we sit on the wall in the sun and watch the parade of ship tours head back to the buses. Oh my. Free entertainment, yes it is.  And we get lots of it!  We probably watched every bus load of our shipmates arrive after their Oia wandering because…..remember what we said earlier about the reliability of bus schedules on the island?  Yep – we sat there for an hour before the bus finally arrived. I managed to find a new printed schedule hanging on the bus “terminal” (read: little shelter that looks like a chapel) that showed a very different schedule than we had in our hot little hands. Oh well – no biggie – we have the sun and really nothing else to do.  Plus there are taxis up here as a last resort if we need to bail on the public bus.

We don’t have to bail though, as the bus arrives (along with all the locals who actually are aware of the schedule) and we are back in Thera before noon.