When the wind and rain kicked up on Santorini, my dad an I chose to hide inside the Archeological Museum. We were lucky to see more Akrotiri wall paintings along with ceramics and other painted artifacts. It’s amazing they are 3,600 years old. Most vessels have extraordinary design, rhythm, color, and look as though they could’ve been created today. Although, these were functional vessels back then, today they are beautiful works of art.

This painting is a collection of vessels that were located throughout the museum. Some museums in Greece wont let you draw or take pictures in them. thankfully, the Archeological Museum on Santorini didn’t seem to care.

Later in the afternoon, when the weather had calmed down, my dad and I took a walk. We headed north, outside the usual tourist zone and saw everything from single family homes to cave dwellings carved in rock. We also saw plenty of the blue domed churches that are scattered all over Santorini. I love the contrast of the deep blue dome with the white stucco of the building.

My main objective while painting the island of Santorini, was to capture the island’s unique quality of light. By focusing on the shapes of shadows, I made use of the white of the page and defined the composition with washes of color. If I had used black lines to describe the buildings, I would have lost Santorini’s uniqueness.

Seeing Fira from the top of the caldera, and looking down at the Aegean far below, is an even more powerful experience than was looking up at it from the ferry. Most of the small city streets are free of cars and barely wide enough to handle two-way pedestrian traffic. My favorite street, which is narrow enough to be called a path, traces along the edge of the caldera for several kilometers. Homes, restaurants, and hotels line this street, and all have extraordinary views. Fira’s white buildings, brightly painted doors, and overflowing baskets of flowers make this a unique place.

I spent a day walking through the streets of Fira along twisting, winding paths, up and down steps. There wasn’t a corner I turned that wasn’t worth sketching.

Fira’s white buildings, brightly painted doors, and overflowing baskets of flowers make Santorini a unique place to sketch and paint.

Map of the Greek Cyclade Islands showing the route we took to Santorini, Mykonos, and Delos.

We exit the cab at the port town of Paraeus, grab out bags, and walk over to the ferry. Its still too dark to see the Aegean, but I can smell fresh fish and seawater. As we enter the ferry and queue up to hand over our tickets, the enormous steel structure brings back childhood memories of a carnival ride. We carry our bags up the steps and search for a seat. The boat is crowded, but eventually we find a place near Goody’s, the Greek version of a fast food restaurant. Thankfully, no smoking is allowed inside the boat–a big plus. We park ourselves in the seats, our luggage close at hand. But the atmosphere in here feels stale and the lack of windows, claustrophobic. Even though smoking is allowed on the decks, I’m willing to put up with it for open space and a view. We grab our bags and climb stairs to the upper deck. At the front of the boat we discover, to our satisfaction, many seats available and few smokers. A gentle sea breeze provides fresh air and keeps the lingering smoke at bay. Early morning light illuminates tiny islands with low, fog-like clouds as we ferry out into the Aegean. To pass time, we pull out a map and guess the names of the islands as they come into view. Most appear uninhabited, barren, with just the occasional touch of green.

After many hours at sea, with two quick stops along the way, my excitement builds as Santorini comes into view. Passengers with cameras gather in anticipation on the port side of the ferry. We also ready our cameras and find a good spot along the railing. At first, Santorini looks like many other shallow islands we’ve seen pushing up from the sea. But when we get closer, I see a mountain looming large on the far side. Where the land meets the sea, sharp cliffs rise up a thousand feet into the blue sky. This is the caldera, where the central part of the volcano broke off and collapsed into the Aegean. Striations of colored rock, stone, sediment, and lava make the island a lopsided layer cake. As we ferry closer, the white city of Oia covers the top like frosting. The city contains no storied buildings and gathers close to the earth to avoid slipping off the caldera.

As we sail into the center of the five volcanic islands that make up Santorini, the top of the caldera rises above us. Quarter-moon shaped Thera is the largest of the islands. The city of Fira comes into view and I’m amazed that it’s so high up. The famous switchback trail, which takes travelers by donkey to and from the port below, is visible snaking along the cliff.

I’m glad we’ve finally arrived. I feel as though I’ve been out at sea a week. The ferry spins around, as it did in Naxos, and backs into to the port. We dock at Athinios and stand on the aft deck watching the gangway lower. During the boat ride, we scoured our travel guides for lodging and chose four possibilities. Pension Petros is the most promising, but we’ll be satisfied just to have a roof over our heads tonight. We certainly don’t want a repeat of our problems upon our arrival in Athens.

Our guidebooks say it’s possible to take the donkey caravan up the switchbacks to the top, but we don’t think much of that idea. Many proprietors are at the dock holding up handwritten signs for their hotels and pensions. We look for anything referencing Pension Petros, and finally see a middle-aged man holding up a sign for the place. He is, in fact, Mr. Petros himself. We get into his van, and he drives us up the switchbacks along the side of the caldera to Fira and Pension Petros. Along the way, I notice how Santorini, with its white buildings and blue-domed churches, differs from Attica.