If you missed part 1 – you can check it out over here – it covers my quick stay in Athens along with some details about flight costs to Greece, etc.
Last week I left you with that ferry trip from Athens to Santorini, so that feels like a good place to kick off again. Leaving one of those gigantic ferries kinda feels like being in an post-apocalyptic film, where the last remaining people on earth are being shipped to a “safe location”…

Just as a reminder: We left Athens at 07:25 and got to Santorini at 14:50. So it’s a long trip, but at least they serve wine onboard!
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Email: info@fantaseatravel.gr
FYI: We didn’t have the guts to drive in Santorini, but a lot of people rent quad bikes instead of cars. You’ll find rental places all over, very easy to spot.
For our 3 night stay in Santorini we found a small little hotel in Fira called Anemomilos Villas which we booked through booking.com. While doing research about Santorini Fira & Firostefani came up as great locations in order to catch the beautiful sunsets that Santorini is well known for. Fira also happens to be the capital of Santorini, so location wise it was very central. Firostefani was only a 5min walk away and the Fira town centre about 10min.
Our room was a standard triple room (was the last room left), but had air-conditioning and a small balcony, which we loved. The total booking cost was 316.80 euros (about R5080) which worked out to about R850 pp per night.

Oh and they also have a pool – which is a must. The beaches in Santorini are composed of volcanic sand and pebbles which doesn’t make it super comfy to lie on. We opted for pool time instead and left our beach exploration for the other islands on our itinerary…

And as an extra bonus… there’s a little pathway just behind the hotel which is used by the guys who offer donkey rides across the island (a bit of a vibe in Santorini – although there are a lot of blogs/websites advising against it as the donkeys are put under a lot of strain and in some instances badly mistreated, so we opted to give it a skip).

The restaurant is split into two levels – both with views of the caldera. We opted to go topless (of course) and absolutely loved the opportunity to dine under the stars…

Also a special note about the wine that the sommelier recommended… We found the wine in Greece to be pretty acidic and in desperate need of A LOT of ice. But this dry white from Hatzidakis Winery really was lovely… at 22 euros a bottle it was a little pricey, but we ended finishing two!

Santorini Perfumes is a great stop for pretty smelling gifts… I got a Santorini signature perfume and some pretty soaps that smell so good you’ll want to carry a bar on your person…
Another popular activity is a wine tasting at Santo Wines. It was a quick 15-20min bus ride from Fira centre, only problem was that we couldn’t figure out where the return bus stop was afterwards (and no, not because we were dronk), so we ended up walking for about an hour to get back home again. But hey, all part of the adventure right?
Santo Wines has 3 “wine flight” options: A 6 wine flight @ 14.50 euros, a 12 wine flight @ 26 euros & an 18 wine flight @ 36 euros. Our waiter recommended that we share the 12 wine flight to get a bit more bang for our buck – couldn’t argue with that logic: I would also recommend something to snack on. A cheese platter will set you back 23 euros, or you can be slighly cheap (like us haha) and opt for the Santorini Traditional Platter for only 10 euros: What did we think of the wine? I dunno… I think as South African’s we are super spoilt. I mean our wines are freakin’ incredible. We definitely found that ice was needed – for both the white & red wines. But hey, the place is beautiful and we really enjoyed chilling on that sexy deck, so I would still recommend this as a worthwhile visit.On the walk home, I made friends with this little guy:
Our final “must do” activity was to visit Oia to get what I had started referring to as the “money shot”. You know the one… the one from every, single Santorini postcard… I needed that shot…Oia is very pretty in general as you’ll see:
But to get THAT shot, you need precise directions, otherwise you’ll end up getting completely lost within all the small alleyways. I found this blog post to be super helpful. Lisa’s directions are spot on and we found it in no time. The only thing they don’t show you on the postcards is that there’s a little wooden gate that normally stops you from entering the stairway towards the blue domed church… #blegh Luckily for us, someone had left it open and unattended… With little hesitation, I took that opportunity the universe had (clearly) blessed me with and got my shot:
Oia also has lots of very pretty restaurant options. Like this one (sorry, forgot the name!) which had great views and served some really delicious mussels: So yeah, lots of eating, drinking and pretty pictures awaits if you’re planning a visit to Santorini. It was a bit pricey, but I really loved it. Also the pebble beach vibes didn’t really get me down because we had a pool and we were still going to visit two more islands with lots of beach opportunities. Overall, I give Santorini a double thumbs up.From Santorini we hopped onto another ferry to get to our next island destination: Paros. Next Thursday I’ll tell you all about this incredibly cute island which really blew us away… so do keep an eye out.
xxx