Travel Photography, Writing and Photoblog from Matt Feldman

By noon, the gears of travel finally begin to grind. I head to the airport, but with a brief stop at the FedEx terminal to retrieve the new camera lens that had arrived this morning. With an uncharacteristic smoothness in my travel plans, I arrive at gate C8. I think – maybe – that I might even have brought everything I intended. It hasn’t happened yet in eight years, but without any glaring packing errors, I consider the possibility.

My contentment is short lived. Two hours and 200 miles later in New York City, another moment of panic. I reach the gate for the flight overseas and the screen behind the check-in counter says Brussels is 68 and sunny. No. Were all those weather sites wrong? Have the continent-spanning storms just vanished? Have I upended my plans and budget and committed to a totally unnecessary diversion? I start sweating.

Descending through the clouds in the morning light over Brussels, I've never been so relieved to see a thunderstorm.

The internal debate over the precise details of my Athens itinerary continues right through the airplane's descent into the city. Stay a night, see the sights then move over the horizon to the islands? Or pack in a days' worth of photography and hyperaggrivation and take an overnight ferry to gyros paradise?

My gut says to go with the known quantity. Stuff it in and get out. But with each visit to Athens, the progress is palpable. Things are cleaner, newer, more accessible. People swear at me in better English. Maybe it deserves another chance. I collect my bag from the luggage belt and head for ground transportation, still uncertain about what to do. Despite the overwrought analysis of the last few hours, I can make a case for both choices. I consider leaving my decision to fate (or, as some might call it, laziness), and taking whatever bus is waiting, be it to the city or the port. But beside the car rental counters, I pass an official Greek Ferry office. Maybe I should look at the options. As I unclip my pack, I see the schedules. A cabin bunk on tonight's overnight ferry to Santorini is only slightly more expensive than a night in an Athens hostel, putting me within striking distance of Lucky’s Souvlaki in time for breakfast. I had written a list of Athens hostels and directions. Decision made, I throw it away.

The bus swings onto the highway toward the city. Olive trees. Reddish rocks baking in the sun. Warm air coming in through the open windows. Major monuments on my afternoon schedule, an easy trip to Santorini set for tonight. This is better than gambling on dodging rain drops in Prague. I like this.

I awake to long blasts of the ship’s horn. Figuring the ferry is pulling into one of the first stops, I grab my camera and head above deck. Expecting to see Ios or Naxos, I instead recognize the rock walls and caldera of Santorini, the last stop. Passengers are pulling luggage through the halls and toward their cars on the vehicle deck. A family is applying suncreen at the stairs to the exit. It’s not yet 8 am but I'm not the only one salivating for gyros on shore.

It's great to be back. I give my bus fare to the same guy I've been giving it to for years and watch out the window as we climb the narrow switchback road up the cliff face. You can always spot the first-timers with their cameras bouncing against the glass, their eyes wide at the sheer drop to the water below. But the view this time yields something different and tragic: The giant circle of an oil spill containment boom. In April of last year, a 500-foot cruise ship with 1600 people aboard struck rocks here and sunk just feet from shore. All but two passengers escaped, in what was a very public spectacle seen by thousands from balconies and cafes in the town above and broadcast online. Passenger video of the evacuation showed just how close the ship was to the cliff wall before being towed off the rocks and into the caldera, where it sank later that evening. The location of the spilled oil leaves no doubt about the initial strike -- the ship was very close to the caldera wall, but just below the surface, the wall wasn't as vertical as expected.

The subsequent investigation would reveal a discrepancy between the actual location of underwater rocks and what was shown on the official navigational maps. The ship struck rocks that were not on their charts. But nonetheless, why would anybody bring a cruise ship that close to a volcanic cliff?

The bus unloads in Fira and I make my way into the main square. I guess I should find a place to stay for a few days.

It's busy. There’s hustle. Bustle. Bling, even. Outdoor cafes are full. Music is playing. Traffic is so dense that police are directing. I walk up the street, with an interlude at the amazing bakery, and deposit myself in the office of a family-run hotel that was a perfect fit on my previous visit to the island. I'm back.

The next few days embody vacation. A true retreat. Reading on the beach. Photography. Scuba diving. Eating a half dozen gyros a day. Yet Santorini has taken on a different character. It is an island fully in service of the cruise ships that now call here daily. The narrow streets of Fira are awash in jewelery shops, display cases of gleaming watches, souvenir trinkets and "Minoan" art. Big dollars. Big flash and big flare. And when the cruise ship-of-the-day departs, the real island returns.

I think back to my first visit to the island in June of 2001 and the white-knuckle bus ride from the port, standing jammed into a rickety, hand-me-down bus from western Europe. The island has seen much prosperity since then, in what I suspect is another example of the Olympic investment paying huge dividends. There were barely any backpackers here in 2001, all staying in the cave-like hostel north of the main square. Sometime after 2004, the hostel was bulldozed to make way for more shopping, and a local law was passed to prevent the construction of its replacement. Seven summers after my first visit, the only backpacker-oriented accommodation in Fira is a campground. They only seem to want the higher end tourists now and the fistfulls of dollars they might bring. When such a rising tide raises all the boats, it's hard to blame them. But still, power to my backpacking people.

After a few days of exquisite relaxation, with weather beginning to change in Europe, I book a cheap flight from Crete to Prague and plan to bring an end to this little sunny detour.