Santorini Day Trip

26 September 2023

We were up even earlier this morning to catch the 8.00am ferry to Santorini. It was the same ferry “Alexander” which we had been on the previous day to Paros. It was looking rather overcast again as we left Naxos.

The ferry departed on time and cruised over to the small port of Pisso Livadi on the eastern side of Paros.

The ferry manouvered stern to onto the pontoon and took on more passengers.

The small port and marina looked very pretty. Most of the yachts on the pontoon were charter boats.

As we were continuing on down the east side of Paros to Santorini it was a pleasant ride and the sea was very calm with just a little side swell.

There was free WIFI on the ferry so Paul was content on his phone.

We passed Oia on the North and then entered the caldera and cruised past Fira and the donkey trail as we headed down to the far South end of the island. There were four cruise ships in the anchorage and we knew that it was going to be extremely busy up in the towns.

After a two and a half hour ferry ride we arrived at Athinios Port reserved for the ferries and it was very busy and chaotic with all the tour buses and taxi’s. Athinios port is too far from any town so transportation is necessary.

The road to and from the ferry port descends down the cliff in a series of switchbacks.

The ferry ticket included transportation by bus to Oia and Fira. There were two buses allocated to our ferry, we boarded the one for English and French speaking tourists and the tour guide lady, switching between the two languages, gave us all a running commentary about the history of Santorini along the way.

The buses piled into the parking lot along with all the other tour buses, then we were herded up to the Church where we were advised we had 1 1/2 hours free time to explore before meeting back at the bus at 1.30pm. We had visited Santorini six years ago on a cruise ship and luckily then, we had the entire day to explore the island. This trip it was going to be abit of a rush, but it was lovely to be able to visit Santorini again on such a lovely day.

At the Church we wandered off on our own to look around. The weather on this visit was glorious with blue skies but very hot. The seas below were glistening in the sun.

We walked along the ridge retracing our steps from when we did our cruise six years ago

After having abit of walk around we stopped at the “Flora” restaurant and managed to get a table on the upper level where there was abit of a slight breeze which was a welcome relief from the heat.

We shared a couple of dishes, tomato croquettes and garlic marinated mushrooms, very tasty. Of course we also had to have a glass of wine.

From our table at the restaurant we had a lovely view down onto the main path running along the ridge and out to the caldera.

From our table we also had amazing views out to the other side looking out to where the cruise ships were anchored in the distance off Fira.

After lunch we still had abit of time so we wandered partway along the other end of the ridge but we didn’t get all the way as time was running out.

We returned to the Church square and as we were descending down from the town Paul still decided to stop for an ice cream and bottle of water despite the time ticking close to 1.30pm. As we got to the parking lot we were unable to locate our bus, it appeared that it had already gone without us. Bugger.

This sounded a familiar pattern, we had missed a bus in Paris when we had climbed up to the very top of the Eiffel Tower some years back. We walked back up into the town and caught a taxi to Fira for 35.00 euros. An expensive ice cream for Paul!

At Fira we walked along the ridge, it was so hot.

On the top of the ridge we recognised the restaurant “Vulcan” where we had enjoyed lunch six years ago.

Back down in the main town area of Fira as we were wandering through the alleyways where all the tourist shops were, we spotted a young couple who had also been on the bus. We stopped and checked with them what time and where they were meeting the bus at the end of the afternoon. It turns out that the bus we had been looking for had been swapped and hence why we couldnt find it. What a relief. With this information we continued wandering around for a little longer.

At 4.00pm we made our way to the Church which was the meeting point for everyone. Once everyone was there, the tour guides lead us down to where the buses were waiting to take us back to the ferry port.

Our ferry is dwarfed by the huge Sea Jet ferry.

The bus was 5 minutes late arriving back to the ferry as there was so much traffic. Once everyone had boarded the ferry, the captain didn’t waste any time and was off. Too bad if you were still making your way back.