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Day 22: On our first full day in Santorini we took advantage of the tour offered by the Oia Youth Hostel, a five hour boat trip to three of the attractions on the smaller islands of Santorini.

Climbing down three hundred or so steps from the hilltop village of Oia to reach our starting point, the port of Ammoudi, we caught sight below of the boat that was to take us on the first leg of our journey.

There were good views back to Oia as we set sail for the volcanic island of New Kemeni.

The walk to the summit of the “volcano” was relatively easy. It was a bit rich to call this pile of volcanic rock a volcano but the last lava flow was in the late 1950s so I resolved to treat the hill with a bit more respect. There were great views back to the main town of Thira past the cruise ships that had pulled in for their passengers to explore the island.

Next stop was the hot springs close to the shore of Old Kemeni, where most people on board the ship enjoyed a dip for 20 minutes or so. The boat anchored just offshore the island and we jumped off the boat and swam a hundred metres to the hot springs, which, when intermingled with the sea water, were pleasantly warm rather than hot.

Final stop was Thirasia, the second largest island in Santorini, and actually part of the main island itself until separated by seismic activity shortly before the birth of Christ. Cruise ships now sail in the gulf where the islands were joined, which gives a good sense of the magnitude of the changes to these land masses which have taken place in the last 2000 years - a minute period of time by geological standards.

We had a quick lunch at one of the tavernas lining the waterfront and then recklessly made a dash up the hundreds of stone steps to the village on top of the hill to see what we could find. (While there were more great views, the village itself was very quiet.)

We were back in port by 3.45pm and, after even more steps to get back to Oia, felt that we had a reasonable day’s exercise.