Day 21 - Monday 14th September

I went for a walk before breakfast to the top of the hill in Firostefani. It's great to be able to wake up to such spectacular views on a bright sunny morning.

For breakfast we took our trays down next to the hotel's pool. They have built a bench along the edge of the pool area and have positioned the seats so you can look out over the caldera for an uninterrupted view as you eat and drink. It's an incredible spot to have breakfast.

This morning we had booked to go on a 3-hour boat cruise to the volcano island in the middle of the caldera. At about 10am we walked down the pedestrian walkway to Thira and caught the cable car down the cliff to the port.

We had about 30 minutes spare to look around the port and to admire the ships. Three large passenger ships were moored in the caldera and were ferrying passengers to and from shore in small boats.

Suzy noticed that the Galileo was tied up there. This is the motor yacht that she originally considered for our island cruise. It is owned by the same company as the boat we went on in the Ionian Islands. The Galileo is a bigger vessel and tours the Cyclades Islands.

Our boat for today's cruise left on time at 11am and sailed to a bay in Nea Kameni, the island in the middle of the caldera. They dropped anchor so we could go for a swim to the hot springs on the shore.

Having already been robbed once in Greece, I wasn't prepared to leave our backpacks (including my wallet and camera) unattended and so Suzy went in for the swim while I stayed on board. Originally we were going to take turns but there was not enough time to do so before the boat set off again.

The next stop was a jetty in another bay of the island. There wasn't enough space at the jetty for all the boats that wanted to moor there and so we tied up to another boat and then had to walk through two other boats to get to the jetty.

Next we followed our guide on a 20-minute walk up to the top of the volcano. There he gave us an enthusiastic and knowledgeable explanation of how the islands and the caldera were formed. He is Greek but he managed to explain it in English that we could understand.

The views of the islands and the caldera were spectacular - lots of great photo opportunities.

We made our way down the volcano to the jetty where we were to meet a different vessel to take us back to Thira. Initially we thought there were only two yachts and neither had the right name.

Then Suzy noticed that there was a third yacht tied up to one of the yachts and so we climbed through the first yacht and found that the far yacht was the one we were told to use. Others who had also been waiting patiently on the jetty then twigged as to where to go and eventually one of the crew made an announcement to the others who were still on shore.

Back at the port in Thira, we had lunch in one of the cafes along the port and relaxed as we watched the passing traffic of people and boats. We opted for a light lunch today because we felt that the large lunches we have been having for the last couple of weeks might be starting to add to our waistlines.

To get back up to the top of the cliff, we took the famous donkey ride. There were more donkeys than I had expected - possibly 100 in total - of which only a handful were in use at any one time. I had to hang on tight to make sure I didn't fall off as the donkey made its way up the hill. My donkey seemed to like travelling near the wall at the edge of the cliff. I was afraid that he wanted to throw me off over the edge. The trip took about 10 to 15 minutes. It was quite an experience.

Back in the town at the top of the cliff, we had a look at some of the shops and pedestrian alley ways that we hadn't seen previously and then made our way back up to our hotel for a swim in the pool.

At about 6pm, we went to the hotel reception to pay our bill because we will be leaving early in the morning. They booked a taxi for 5:30am for us to take us to the airport. Then we walked down to Thira to find a restaurant for dinner. The restaurant we decided on was OK but not as good as the one we'd gone to on the first night.

We had coffee on the way back to Firostefani and got an early night ready for a big day tomorrow. Suzy was feeling very tired from all the walking we'd done today.