Nisyros Island

Mandraki
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We arrived at Mandraki on Nisyros at around 6 PM.  We found a nice room to rent with a balcony overlooking the sea.  Mandraki was small but was very charming.  Lots of little lanes to explore, white-washed buildings, a monastery overlooking the town, and no restaurant hosts trying to drag you into their restaurants.  We tried out one of their local drinks called soumadas.  They're made from almond extract and were very good.

The next morning we got on a tourist bus to take us up to the volcanic crater.  Nisyros is pretty small so it only took about 20 minutes of zigzagging roads to make it into the caldera.

Volcanic crater
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There are five craters in the caldera and there's a path that you can walk down into the largest one, Stefanos.  Once we were in the crater we noticed how hot it was.  There were lots of yellow fumaroles (sulfur) emitting steam.  The whole area kind of smelled like rotten eggs.  The surface of the crater was very soft and chalky to touch.

After the bus took us back to Mandraki to visit the small monastery overlooking the tower.  It's perched on top of a cliff and took 128 steps to reach.  We did get a nice view at the top though.

Later that afternoon, we caught a ride on an excursion boat to Kos Town which we're using as a stepping stone west to Santorini.