Travel Thursdays: Greece Part 2 – Santorini

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”…

Upon arrival in the port (known as Thira) we met George Ionascu from FantaSea Travel who offered us a combi / mini van ride to our hotel for only 10 euros each.  Getting a taxi on Santorini island is like finding a needle in a haystack, so this definitely seemed like the better option (unless you’re renting a car of course).  George ended up being so awesome, we sat in the front and chatted all the way to our hotel.  Such a lovely guy.  We ended up using him again for our return trip to the port, but you can also book them for all kinds of transfers and tours.  If you’re ever heading to Santorini, contact them on:

Mobile:  +30 697 971 0682 / +30 697 046 2925
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.

The best part about our location was that Firostefani, known for some of the world’s most beautiful sunsets, was literally right around the corner.  I mean just look at this place:

This area also has some really great restaurant options (all with fantastic views of course).  In fact, the best meal and best wine we had in the whole of Greece happened here at Mama Thira:

Right, so other than amazing sunsets and sexy dinners, what is there to do in Santorini?  Well we enjoyed a little wander around Fira centre…

Also found this awesome little garden restaurant called Pelican Kipos:

Oh and if traditional Souvlaki is what you’re looking for?  Obelix in Fira town is where it’s at:

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