Santorini dreaming – part deux

Welcome back to Part 2 of my Santorini adventures 😀 As mentioned in my previous post, I didn’t think I could do this place justice with just one post so here goes!

Cliff-side hike

Picking up where we left off, on our third day on the island, we decide to do the walk/hike along the cliffs from Fira, past Fira Stefani and then to Imerovigli. The views were genuinely amazing! It was probably my favourite part of the whole trip.

I’m pretty sure you can walk around the whole island if you want, following the cliff paths, but we decided to stop at Imerovigli, particularly as the weather started to take a turn and became extremely windy. If you come to Santorini, I would highly recommend doing this walk – remember to wear good walking shoes as the paths are cobbled and it’s uphill in many places.

Oia

After lunch in Imerovigli, we headed to the bus stop to go to Oia. The buses are usually every half hour (though probably more frequent when it’s high season) and cost around 2 euros per journey.

Oia  is a gorgeous town on the northern tip of the island and is famous for its beautiful sunsets. If you’ve ever seen any photographs of Santorini, it’s most likely that they are of Oia. It’s basically the place with all the blue domes and colourful buildings. Although the skies were really cloudy when we got there, around the time for sunset, the sun made a miraculous appearance and it was perfect.

To get the best view of the sunset, head to the Byzantine castle ruins – you’ll know when you’re there as there will probably be loads of other people waiting too.

Volcano hike

For the next day, we’d booked a volcano hike as well as a tour to some hot springs and the island of Thirassia. If you do decide to do a boat tour, make sure to check that it’s not windy, particularly if you’re prone to getting sea sick.

In my honest opinion, I really enjoyed the volcano hike but didn’t think the hot springs and Thirassia were worth it. You spend a lot of time on the boat going between places and there wasn’t much to actually do on Thirassia. So I would recommend just doing the volcano hike, unless of course you want to try out the hot springs.

Kamari

On our last day, we headed to Kamari beach which is a black sand beach – there are other similar beaches as well but Kamari also has some restaurants and shops on a small promenade. Buses go to Kamari from Fira and were every 45 minutes to an hour.

Top Tips:

Travel – Buses go from Fira to all parts of the island (around 2 euros one way) which is why I think Fira is the best place to stay. Remember to take note of the bus timetable at Fira’s main bus stop – you can find them at the information desk. This really helped plan how we managed our time. You can also hire ATVs though we didn’t do this.

Shopping – Santorini is an expensive place for shopping and most places are quite tourist orientated. For souvenirs, I’d recommend getting these from the smaller towns where they are a lot cheaper.

Food – if you didn’t already guess, Argo was my favourite restaurant – we went there about 3 times! Everything from the service to the food was amazing. On one of the evenings, the waitress noticed that we were feeling a bit chilly so she bought us blankets. Just small touches like that made us want to keep coming back. The quality of the food was also great – I would recommend the vegetable moussaka and the chocolate brownie for dessert – they were delicious!

To be aware, restaurants along the cliff-side are a lot pricier. Having said that, Argo was reasonably priced so another reason why you should go 🙂

And that was it guys! All in all, a great holiday.