Santorini cable car, Aerial tramway in Fira, Greece.
The Santorini cable car is an aerial tramway in Fira, Greece, linking the old port at the base of the caldera cliff to the town center above. The cabins travel along the near-vertical rock face, with open views over the caldera and the sea on one side.
The cable car was built in 1982 by the Loula and Evangelos Nomikos Foundation to create a faster link between the port and the town. Before that, the only way up and down the cliff was on foot or by mule along the steep zigzag path.
The cable car links the old port at the base of the cliff to the town of Fira perched at the top, giving riders a direct view of the steep path below where mule drivers still work today. Both ways of going up and down the cliff exist side by side, and visitors can choose between them.
The cable car can be boarded from the old port at the bottom or from the edge of Fira at the top, and both stations are easy to find on foot. Going early in the morning or later in the afternoon tends to mean shorter lines, especially when cruise ships are in port.
A share of the cable car revenue has been paid to the local mule drivers since the day it opened, as part of the original agreement made when the system was built. This means that every ticket sold also supports a group of workers whose trade goes back centuries on the same cliff path.
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