Greek Island Santorini

This summer we decided to support the Greeks and visit the island of Santorini. I have already been to Crete which is quite a big island. I had heard of Santorini before and heard that it is actually the best island to visit.

Santorini airport

Tower at Santorini airport

When you arrive at Santorini you realise how small everything seems to be. We took a bus from the plane to the airport which seems more like a bigger bus station. The conveyor belt has no signs whatsoever showing the planes arriving. You just wait and see if you find your bag. The sanitary conditions at the airport finally reminded you that you are in Greece in case you had not realised that yet. The airport tower was rusty and seemed like it was going to fall apart soon. Reminded me of some place in deep Russia only difference being that you do not step out of the plane and go through the gates of the airport right onto the main road of the city/town.

Mediterranean Royal Hotel

Hotel Beach

We had booked a tour and had a bus take us to the hotel. This was ok, because or hotel was only 2 kilometres away from the airport. Now you may think that this will be a very noisy area with planes flying all the time, but it was not. In fact it was never loud with plane flying, which happened about twice an hour during the day. The only loud planes are the military planes, which seemed to be flying from a military base located on the island of which we learned later. The hotel was ok. It had two pools and a beach. We stayed at the royal

Sea

Beach at the hotel

Pool bar

Hotel area, bungalows

The hotel was at the beach. The beach was some kind of black pebble sand. It was better to lie at one of the pools. The sea water itself is actually quite cold and the beach is a stone beach. You need rubber socks/slippers to go into the water. This is something the tour guides don't tell you. It was ok after a while though. The island itself is quite windy. If the weather gets a little worse, it gets even windier blowing the towels away. That was something I did not expect and it was a little annoying.

Winery

We rented a quad bike one day and decided to drive around. Not far away from our hotel, there was a winery. As I am interested in wine, I did want to find out what Santorini has to offer.

As you may expect from a hot climate, Santorini wines would be quite strong from the sun they receive. This is not really the case because of the simple cultivation. 

Wine museum

Winery

 When you get to the winery, you can have a tour and go to the wine museum. We skipped the tour and bought the ticket in order to go straight to the wine tasting. The reason for this is that I have been to many vineyards and did not expect to learn anything new about wine in Greece. Getting back to the simple cultivation, I would like to say that the Greeks are even simpler than Italians in some regions, whereas the reason for Italians making simple wines is usually that the conditions are good enough for making good quality wine with the grapes and conditions they have. In short, most Greek wines in Santorini are kept in steel tanks for 6 months maximum and are then bottled. The only wine which is kept in oak barrels for 24 months or more is the Vinsanto which is a sweet wine. Actually it is a sherry. They mainly use Greek grapes. I will not go into detail because I do not think it makes a difference.

Tasting area inside the winery

Obviously, with the methods the wine makers in Santorini use, you can not expect any high quality wine. This is why I only drank white wine, maybe some Rosé. The higher price ranges are also not in any way better so you can stay with the mediocre wine or otherwise drink beer.

Oia

Oia apparently has the nicest sunset on the island. We had the quad and drove there. It took us about 45 minutes. The roads are small. The maximum speed everywhere is 50 km/h. It was very windy that day and my sunglasses were almost blown off driving. I would also like to add that the Greek attitude towards maintenance of vehicles or bikes is different to ours. In short, that fixed brake did not work the way it should have when parking. The quad drove off once and hit Vespa. I could pay the owner 15 Euro for his broken mirror and he was fine with it. In Oia I parked it in front of a big rock. When we came back The quad was stuck onto the rock, which was better then it falling off the cliff into the sea.

As in most places, Santorini has a tourist attraction which everyone has to see. This is the sunset in Oia. When you go there, it seems like the whole island, or all tourists on the island are on the way to see this famous sunset. When you walk up the steep narrow paths you try to make your way through and see people sitting on the streets crowded like ants.

View from the top of Oia

In Oia you can see the typical white Greek buildings with round tops which are sometimes blue.

Typical Greek buildings in Oia

Crouds waiting for the sunset

In order to see the sunset, we made our way all the way up and decided to go into a restaurant (see Santorini food and restaurants). This is recommended as you at least have a place to sit then. The stairs and were crowded and there were almost not places to stand or sit to see the sunset.

Oia sunset

We saw the sunset. It was a sunset. What can I say. I doubt that it is very romantic with the crowds there. You can go there once to have a look but there are better ways to experience the sunsets in Santorini which I will get to later.

Kamari

Kamari was a five minute drive away from our hotel. A taxi to Kamari, like any ride cost about 10 Euros. 

In Kamari there are loads of shops on the way to the beach. You can even rent rooms. There are also a couple of restaurants and bars. They are mainly restaurants though.

In the souvenir shops you can buy almost anything. We bought fake sunglasses for 10 Euros for the beach as well as sun hats. Everything was quite cheap.

There is not that much to see but some bars have live music. There is even karaoke in some bars. We found a karaoke bar which was fun. If you want to go for a stroll and a couple of drinks, it is ok. 

Fira

Fira is the capital of the island. It is filled with all sorts of shops and restaurants. There are many gold and jewelry shops as well.

When we had the quad, we drove to Fira during the day as well walking up the narrow and steep paths at the edge of the mountain village. 

View of other island and volcano

View from the top of Fira

There are several bars in the higher part of the village facing the sea. Many of them have a good view. Cacti grow on the hills. We actually tried a cocktail with cactus juice, which was a non alcoholic one. They were  small and cost 10 Euros, so we drank them and left.

Donkeys going up to the top of the village

The only way to get up to the top of Fira is by foot, as driving up is not possible or allowed except with scooter which is also not possible everywhere. This is why they still use donkeys to bring supplies up to the top of the village. There is also a cable car. From the top of the village you can see a small port. It seems that most visitors coming with cruise ships take the cable car up the village or ride up on donkeys.

Sunset in Fira

We went to Fira one evening and went to Tropical Bar and could see a beautiful sunset which was definitely not worse than in Oia and much nicer to look at. We could comfortably sit in this small bar just for the sunset and wait.

Overall I would like to say that Santorini is a beautiful island. Service and quality on the whole is mediocre. If you are going for a holiday and you want to be at the beach and this is enough for you. Then it is good enough. There is almost no night life which is why I did not mention it. There are 2 or 3 so called clubs which are just bars and some crowded Irish Pubs playing house music. I liked the island very much and most of the people there as well. Everybody tried hard everywhere we went to make our stay more pleasant. Some might say that the Greeks have to try harder because they need the money right now, but who doesn't? That's not an argument for me. They all tried hard and were quite nice. They are not the quickest of all people which is why you have to tell them everything 2 or 3 times, but then you get what you want. If you have visited Eastern European countries you will probably understand the mentality. All in all, I would definitely recommend Santorini for a summer vacation and I would consider coming back.