Recalling Santorini - Part II (Houses and Temples)

Oia (northmost point of the island) is wonderful in terms of landscape and sunset (Above pic was taken by my colleague). It is considered to be one of the renowned picturesque places of the world. I have posted some pis here.

The small houses, carved into the rock, the mansions with their stairways and
their neoclassical architecture, with white and ochra as their dominant colors,
the walls decorated with small stones, the roads paved with flagstones, and the
flowers, form a harmonious total of the impressive picture of the Oia village.

The houses in Santorini are typical in architectures as it is not made up of concretes and cements; kind of mud is used for cementing the walls. The reason being a dormant volcano is situated close to the island, which can erupt anytime. I was reading in one of the books that tells..

“Excavations have shown that the island was inhabited in prehistoric times, during the cyclic period (3200 – 2000BC) …. The island reached its apogee during the ensuing period (2000-1550BC), which was cut short by the eruptions of the volcano in 1500BC.”

I have posted some pictures of traditional orthodox Temples in this post. The picture below of a temple, is taken in front of a film studio. Santorini is famous for film shooting and “Chalte Chalte” one of the famous bollywhood movies was shot here. So Greece is now quite interesting place for Indians :-)

The fascinating view of the houses in the cliff hypnotized me in first glance.

Recalling Santorini – Part 1 (views from the Hotel)

As my assignment in Greece is almost in an end, I have had a nice time here and it’s the time to pick my favourite 3 places in Greece which I would like to visit again and again.

One of the obvious choices is Santorini, a wonderful island with stunning geomorphology, nice beaches, typical Greek churches and the dormant volcano.

View of the Volcano from the Hotel

Here I posted about the journey in Sea. In this post I wrote

"I was also skeptical like others about what makes it special. A Volcano? So
what!!But once I have seen it first time; it indeed appears marvelous. The whole
island (called Thira) is situated in an extinct volcano and a dormant volcano
(called Santorin) is nearby. The unique geomorphology, sedimentations of rocks
and picturesque landscape in the Aegean Sea made if completely different from
other islands of Mediterranean."

It was very refreshing journey in the boat and then enjoyed the captivating beauty of the island.

Our room in the Hotel

I have already posted this one with some details of that hotel and some of the views of the cliff. It was one of the good hotels from the position point of view, facing the breath taking landscape. We had a nice time there.

View of the cliff from the hotel (Above) and from the Ship (below)

Have a nice weekend

(Click on the pics for bigger view)

A Small Boat Ride in Nafplio

Nafplio - Sea view

I have been to Nafplio, an old city of Greece few months back. It was a wonderful experience and I posted some pictures of the place in this post. That time I was not well connected to blogosphere, so many of you may not have seen my previous post on Nafplio.

The view of the Harbour

I enjoyed the place. Nafplio is very different. It was the first Capital of Modern Greece. I was captivated by the nice old architectures of houses, Castle up above the mountain and hypnotizing sea landscape. Thus I thought to share some of the pictures I had taken in a small boat trip to Bourtzi (The castle of Bourtzi is located in the middle of the harbour of Nafplio) .

On the way to Castle

The boat ride was quite adventurous. It was a small private boat, something like the boats in Indian rivers but machine driven (otherwise it would have sunk in the sea). The waves in the sea made it more interesting. The boat was swaying in the sea dangerously, as if it can topple anytime. My friend was scared and tightly held my hands. We were wet. But I was enjoying it thinking its just a ride and if anything happens I had nothing to do. Both of us do not know swimming. Thanks to the boatmen(see images) we finished our journey to Bourtzi Castle safely.

Bourtzi Castle

(Click on the pics for bigger view)

Weekend Photo Upload: Rafina - Sea in Greece

Rafina is a beautiful town in the east coast of Athena. It has a big port which connects to the east Aegean and east Cyclades islands of Greece. But what I found best is the beaches, very unique, sandy and full of big waves.

I lost the way when approaching Rafina from Athens due to lack of navigation or may be because of I like bit of adventure in long drives. So we landed in a hilly area after crossing Kiffisia. I posted a photo of that place in this post, where I played with my sunglass. To be specific with the goggles are of my friend. I have spectacle in my eyes and can’t enjoy the Sunglasses for long time.

But finally found the way to the small coastal town through a mountain. The landscape was breathtaking and I enjoyed the drive.

Here is one of the pictures taken from the mountain.

Left pic: This is a fisherman in Rafina (Greece) who is busy in catching fish in the sea.

I have taken this picture in the same fashion, keeping the Sunglass in front of the Camera Lens. I liked this one as it is facing the Sun. The reddish touch reminds me some kind of masks professional photographers use. I have seen people using circular polarizer to eliminate the haze of bright sunlight, blue polarizer to make the sky bit more blue.

The following is an original picture which I took facing the Sun just before leaving the place. I love this one. Wish you a nice weekend ahead.

Collages of Pics by Picasa

This is one super imposed shot, so don’t be astonished to see the para glider in front of the Church. I am not very sure how it is looking, but I really enjoyed playing with collages.


Making Collages is now very easy using software. I use Picasa and the following steps will show how easy it is. Download Picasa, a standard Google product.

Select pictures with which you want to make the collage picture and click the Collage button as shown in the above picture.

Now you have 4 options.

1) Picture Pile – The picture will look like this one.

2) Picture Grid - The picture will look like the last pic of this post, of my university.

3) Contact Sheet - The picture will look like this one and this one.

4) Multi-Exposure - The picture will look like this one, this one , this one and the next picture below.

You can save it to the current folder or in a special folder.

The following one is created using Contact Sheet option. I found it extremely interesting, you also can try.

Fire and a face

I was thinking about capturing some Greek face after the fire, but I have not got the opportunity. Fortunately I had this danish pondering face which resembles to the situation. So posting it.

Some update on Greek Fire. These Links tell how the fire was broke out. who has done it.
Some article was published in local Bengali news paper Anandabazar Patrika.

Weekend Picture Upload: Street lights in Scandinavia

Some of the pictures of Street Lights I have taken in Denmark,Sweden and Norway in 2005. These lights of different shapes and colours, reflect the cultural trends of Scandinavia in general. Here goes the link.