| Santorini and The Legend of Atlantis Story and Photos by Glen Cowley |
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The island of Santorini, and the legend of Atlantis, had been a romantic image in my mind since I first read Professor Marinatos theory. Imagination conjured palaces brilliant under an Aegean Sun. Graceful triremes gliding through turquoise seas, serenaded by whirling gulls, sweeping down from the cliffs. Ladies and men adorned in revealing fashions fit for a Paris walkway. A civilization of peace and wonder. An idyllic world; an idyllic time. Our ferry, the El Greco, swung its hind quarters to face Athinios, floating like a golden torch in the surrounding blackness. The jetty was alive with waiting shuttle buses, taxis and humanity. A crowded chaos melting into guarded order as our ship loomed closer. We spilled out more than disembarked. Cars, trucks, scooters and passengers honking and weaving while, seemingly uninterested, ferry staff stood by. A cacophony assailed us at the gate. Name cards bobbing up and down like gulls on the water, names called out by hotel staff and taxi drivers herding us like border collies to their Mercedes. Safely arrived at our hotel we drank in dark serenity, the blinking lights of Fira to the north and the torch that was Athinios all we could see. We awoke to an eye smacking vista. Vision not awed by such a sight has lost its purpose. An immense, water- filled, crater ringed by Santorini and its smaller sisters Thirasia and Aspronisi, still thrust out barren tongues of its inner workings. The small volcanic islets of Palea Kameni and New Kameni held ominous court in the bowl's centre. What power could create a crater 87 kilometres in circumference? 3500 years ago this was one island. A jewel in a Minoan Sea, that during its Pax Minoa, reached heights of civilization unseen in Europe for another 1000 years. The world of King Minos, the Labyrinth, the Minotaur, Daedalus and Icarus. The vanguard of European civilization.
The Minoan civilization never recovered and fell before mainland conquerors. Still the tale of the cataclysm was not lost. The account of a great maritime empire, advanced beyond understanding, which sank amid ash and sea in a single day, became the Atlantean legend. Its truth crushed in cinders and time it was passed off as little more than myth. It was Professor Marinatos of the University of Athens who found the Pompeii of the Minoans, Akrotiri, and nurtured its story back into the light of day. A jostling bus
trip wound through island villages and deposited us at the covered The famed archaeologist began carving the site from the earth in the 1960's, revealing frescoes surpassing those found at Knossos in Crete. Ironically his life's work claimed Marinatos, as he died, on site, in October 1974. The excavations continue and he now walks with the ghosts of the Atlanteans to whom he credited the town and the Minoan civilization.
Fira is the epitome of Greece's embrace of the outside world. Even in May the streets teemed with tourists snapping pictures, searching out back streets and falling victim to hawkers. The glare of Sun on whitewashed buildings stung unshaded eyes and threw every other colour into sharp contrast. Chatter, aromas, hawkers and rumble of footsteps faded as we climbed a street hovering over the cliff's edge. Carved into the very face of the caldera, Fira strung endlessly along the edge and shone, fantasy-like, behind us. Far below, cruise ships spilled passengers, antlike, into waiting craft that took them ashore. There they took the cable car or boarded the long line of donkeys climbing, switchback, up the 600 stairs to the tourist den above. Fira, itself, faced the devastation of the earth's murmurings in 1956. It re-emerged, glistening pearl-like and drawing the eye of international tourists Prospering on the edge of cataclysm with the resiliency born of Greece's never ending love affair with the turbulent earth. Many cultures have washed over Santorini's shores and left their legacies. Many still come to laze in its Aegean charm and wonder of its past. Its people go about their lives between polite toleration and exuberant embrace of awe struck visitors. Sitting in a rooftop restaurant, sheltered from the pounding Mediterranean sun by gayly decorated awnings, we gazed upon the streets and the horizon. Timeless attraction on the back of a temperamental sea monster. Santorini calls with all the allure and beauty that is the Greek Isles and slowly yields clues to the great civilization that was once mighty Atlantis. About the photos: Top: Overview
of the town. Glen Cowley is a Canadian freelance travel writer, an author of two books on hockey and a recent book of fiction to be published. |
Like
hundreds of fireflies, twinkling lights cut the shrouded darkness of
the crater. Fitting, for fire and catastrophe destroyed what was and
still is, in the minds of men. 
In
a moment it was gone. Santorini's volcano exploded in an eruption greater
than any in recorded time, taking two thirds of the island with it.
Ash fell deep upon Minoan settlements strung about the Aegean. 700 foot
high tidal waves crashed far into the hearts of surrounding islands
and aftershocks buckled the homes of great and small. The tattered remains
of Santorini knew no inhabitants for 400 years, yet deep below the ash
its story slept. 
Our
return trip to Fira afforded panoramic views of the sea and surrounding
hills; dotted, liberally, with chapels and churches.