Ένα πληρέστατο κείμενο – ρεπορτάζ για την Σαντορίνη
φιλοξένησε φέτος το καλοκαίρι (27.5.2014) η δημοφιλής βρετανική εφημερίδα independent
το οποίο.. εξακολουθεί να διαβάζεται ακόμη και να προβάλει την Σαντορίνη, όπως άλλωστε
μαρτυρά η διαρκής επισκεψιμότητά του..
Το κείμενο υπογράφει ο Samuel Muston ο οποίος στις αρχές του φετινού (2014) καλοκαιριού επισκέφθηκε την
Σαντορίνη με αφορμή την έναρξη νέων απευθείας πτήσεων charters αλλά και προγραμματισμένων
μεγάλων εταιριών, από το Heathrow του Λονδίνου στην Σαντορίνη.
Ο Samuel Muston στο κείμενό του αναφέρεται
στην ευκολία πρόσβασης στην Σαντορίνη μέσω των επιπλέον απευθείας πτήσεων, στα
αξιοθέατα του νησιού, στις υψηλού επιπέδου αλλά και προσιτού κόστους υπηρεσίες
του, αλλά και στην ολοένα και πιο δημοφιλή σε ολόκληρο τον κόσμο δυνατότητα του
νησιού να παρέχει ολοκληρωμένες υπηρεσίες διθοργάνωσης και υποστήριξης γάμων
ζευγαριών απ όλο τον κόσμο.
Σύμφωνα με το δημοσίευμα , http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/europe/santorini-walk-down-the-isle-9441194.html
Santorini: Walk
down the isle
The romance of
the Greek island of Santorini is now even easier to savour, with new flights
from London
SAMUEL
MUSTON Author 27 May 2014
Santorini is the
sort of island that everyone wants to get married on. And indeed most of the
world does seem to be getting married here, or at least having its picture
taken in a wedding dress. Wedding packs, some with as many as five brides, roam
the streets, followed invariably by a Brangelina-sized group of photographers,
making it something of a necessity to duck and dive as you pass through.
Marriage, my guide informs me, is a major industry here.
It is
unconscionable, as you walk through the tiny jewellery-shop-lined streets of
the main town Fira – newly serviced by two weekly BA flights from Heathrow –
amid the clicking cameras and clip-clopping of donkeys carrying tourists up the
steep escarpment from the ferry port, to think that this island has been shaped
in geography and temperament, and even in its food, by tragedy.
A Minoan sailor
returning to his prosperous and, judging by the frescos rather merry, island
home in late 1650BC would have found the place he left a month before very
different. Akrotiri, as the settlement was known, was eviscerated by a vast
volcanic eruption sometime in that year. The innards of the island rose up like
a heaving chest and then collapsed again much deeper, leaving a crescent-shape
land mass with a small outcrop of land within its embrace called Thirassia. The
place was coated in volcanic ash. The buildings all razed or sunk. The only
thing that grew here for centuries was the myth that it was the lost city of
Atlantis.
Room keys have
letters rather than numbers Room keys have letters rather than numbers The
Iconic hotel, in the up-scale village of Imerovigli, has been entirely carved
out of a cave. The rooms, each assigned a Greek letter instead of a number, are
cut into the cliffs. The effect is a hotel on about a dozen levels, each room a
fraction higher than last, so you feel like they are unfurling into the sea. It
can get a little difficult to navigate, but as one of the unfailingly-friendly
staff says, “it adds to the adventure”.
The hotel has
all the usual boutique amenities – the Aesop toiletries, the Coco-Mat beds,
reliable Wi-Fi and wireless stereos, showers as big as London flats – but its
real draw is the sheer head-lolling beauty of the surrounding.
The gods may
have got fed up with Atlantis-Santorini a few thousand years ago, but they have
toothy grins today. Brilliant blue skies fight for space with clouds and the
deep greys and browns of the granite cliffs form a frame around me. Bobbing in
the infinity pool it feels, through artful design, like it is just me and the
ocean. This, it occurs to me, is a place to wallow in.
A 15-minute car
journey south and back down to sea level brings us to the beach at Perissa
where the slate-coloured sands lead onto more beach bars than it is possible to
count. Though, if you want to experience the nightlife available on the island,
Fira is the place. Here the bars are perpetually in “happy hour”.
In Oia, where
the streets are paved with marble, things are quite different. A hippyish town
at the northern end of the caldera which has the feeling of somewhere that has
just woken up after a long lie-in, it is a treasure trove. Its white and blue
houses are piled one on top of one another on the cliffs like sugar cubes. Its
shops sell silks and art, rather than tourist trinkets. The restaurants serve
light and simple Santorini tomato salads and plates of moussaka for between €10
and €15.
It is here you
will also find Atlantis, an English language book shop of astounding range,
which opened a decade ago and is staffed by bookworms who come to work here in
exchange for board and lodgings. It’s hard not to leave without having made a
friend of the shop cat or else with an extravagant pile of books. I am in love.
Back at the
hotel, staring out onto the endless sea, my books safely stowed, the beaches
and the vineyard seem far away. I feel as if I am the only person in the world,
an island on an island. I have chilled out on a volcanic rock – and I feel as
contented and happy as any one of those roaming brides.
Το πλήρες κείμενο μπορείτε να το δείτε εδώ : http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/europe/santorini-walk-down-the-isle-9441194.html
