Santorini Donkey Tragedy

It’s just about 12 months ago when I was enjoying a fantastic cruise on Splendour of the Seas visiting some of the places on my bucket list. One of those places was the beautiful island of Santorini. You can read all about it here.

I have to say that it was just as beautiful as I had hoped, however the experience was marred by the awful experience of getting from the port up to the town of Fira. One option was by cable car, but as 3 large ships had arrived at the same time the queue was horrendous and it looked like a minimum of an hours waiting time. Another option was to ride a donkey up to the top, but we didn’t like the look of that, so decided to walk.

The problem was that the narrow, slippy cobbled path was also used by the donkeys. It was smattered with donkey manure which wasn’t very pleasant, but the worse thing was how close you were to the donkeys. They rushed up and down the path making us feel very unsafe and at one point there was a stampede which forced us to be pinned against the wall fearing for our safety. You may think that this may sound a little melodramatic, however it seems that our fears were actually well-founded.

Tragically last week a German tourist was trampled to death by one of the donkeys which had freed itself from its handler. The 67 year old was walking the treacherous path with her husband and another couple when the accident took place.

There has been much controversy over recent years about the treatment and well-being of the donkeys in Santorini and I wonder whether this tragedy will force the Greek government to act. I would love to return to Santorini, but would not go anywhere near the donkeys. I did find out afterwards that there is a speedboat that you can take from the port side round the coast and avoid both the queues and the donkeys, so that’s what I will be doing next time.

My thoughts go out to the family of the victim who must be completely bewildered & distraught after such an awful accident and I really hope something will be done to prevent anything happening like this in the future.