INFORMATION - ABOUT SANTORIN & KOS

SANTORIN

Santorin, which covers 132 km² and is located 127 nautical miles from the port of Piraeus, is the most extraordinary island in the Aegean. You sail into a strange, enclosed sea, shut off by the Burnt Islands. The volcanic cliffs of Santorin are red, brown or greenish, surmounted by a string of white villages. It is rather like a model of a monster’s jaw made by some infernal dentist; a sinister and alarming place, like nowhere else.
Jetting out from the deep blue sea its volcanic sheer cliffs topped with gleaming white village homes and churches, resemble snow capped mountains. The thunderous fury of nature left its mark on the island, the home of Greece’s last active volcano which still smolders today.
Santorin is a large cresent-shaped island enclosing a vast bay, the largest caldera on earth. There are also four much smaller islands called, Therasia, Nea Kameni, Palia Kameni and Aspronisi.

Fira Town is Santorini’s capital; it clings at the edge of a cliff, in fact on the rim of the crater. Fira offers amazing views of the volcano at about 56 broad zigzagged steps up from the port. You can either ride a donkey or a mule to get up there or alternatively use the cable car.
Fira is a modern town built mostly during the 19th Century, when the old Venetian capital at Skaros became untenable to earthquake. The architecture is a mixture of Cycladic and Venetian styles. Judging from the abundance of taverns, restaurants, cozy bars, café – some with Caldera view – night clubs, hotels and shops and the famous jewelry market, you can see that tourism has had an impact on Fira without however distorting in any way its distinct architecture.
The sunsets of Santorin, with the Burnt Islands in the foreground, the islet of Therasia behind, Sikinos and Folegandros farther off, and the great rock of Christiana, are among the most exciting aesthetic experiences that the Aegean can provide.
Fira’s Historical and Cultural Museum contains artifacts from the island’s excavations (especially of ancient Thira); a geometric red and black vases collection from the 5th cent. B.C. , plenty inscriptions and a certain amount of Minoan ware. Impressive frescoes and Hellenistic period sculpture, Byzantine works of art and some remains of prehistoric times. Also, sculpture and inscriptions from the Archaic to the Roman period; vases & clay figures, from the Geometric to the Hellenistic period.
Around the island can be found more or less 250 churches, from tiny ones as small as a room to larger ones; all with one thing in common, they are whitewashed and built in the traditional islands’ style.
The Cultural Centre “Megaro Gyzi”, since its establishment and particularly during the tourist period, annually organizes cultural events, such as painting exhibitions, concerts, music recitals, theatrical performances, photographic exhibitions, lectures and traditional dances, which attract the interest of the local residents and the tourists.

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KOS

Kos is located in the south-eastern Aegean Sea south of Kalymnos and north of Nisyros at the ancient Keramiko gulf (Kerme Körfezi) or Kos gulf, just 3 nautical miles from Asia Minor coast. From the prehistoric times it was an important channel of the sea ways that started from the Black Sea and along the shoreline of Asia Minor and the islands of Aegean and reached North Africa.
Kos is the birthplace of the father of medicine, Hippocrates, which was born on the island around 460 B.C. and founded the Great School of Medicine of Kos. The island is famous for its rich vegetation and its temperate climate and it was characterized by the Roman doctor Gallino as "the most temperate place in the world". The morphology of the ground varies and is the result of long-lasting geological changes particularly owed to the volcanic activity of the commonly known Aegean Arc (Nisyros, Thira, Milos, Methana). According to the latest geological studies seven volcanoes are located between Nisyros and Kos and one of them in the Isthmus of Kefalos is inactive today. The big explosion happened 160,000 years ago between Nisyros and Kefalos. As a result it covered half of the island of Kos, in the western part, with a layer of ash and kisiris thickness of about 30 meters. Kos’s ground fertility is a result of its volcanic origin, which had been known since antiquity and has left the proverbial phrase “whom Kos can’t nourish Egypt can’t either”.

Kos is an island of great beauty, lying in the centre of the Dodecanese chain in the Aegean Sea. ("Dodecanese" in Greek means "twelve islands"). Kos is north west of Rhodes and south east of continental Greece. It is the third largest island of the Dodecanese after Rhodes and Karpathos.
Apart from its natural beauty and its breath taking golden sandy beaches, Kos is filled with monuments, remnants of its glorious past, dating from antiquity, the Byzantine Era and Venetian times up to present. Kos is basically a large, long narrow plain and measures 290.27 square kilometers, not considering its mountainous region in the north west of the island. This region comprises of a series of peaks, the tallest of which is Dikaio Christo (which in Greek means "The Just Christ").One castle of the Knights of the Order of St. John still survives on one of the many peaks of Dikaio near Thimiana.
The shores are gently caressed by the waters of the Karpathian Sea. Kos' coastline stretches to 112 km. Kos is a Greek province which also includes the smaller islands of Nissyros, Giali, Pergoussa, Kandeliousa, Pahia and Strogili. The city also has a cathedral, one of the four in the entire Dodecanese. The islanders make their living from fishing, animal farming, and agriculture but by far the tourist trade has taken over. Kos has become a modern centre of extremely well maintained holiday apartments, hotels, restaurants, bars, night clubs and organized excursions. Kos has so much to offer that it can cater to each individual taste for an unforgettable holiday.