Travel Guide – Santorini, Greece

In the summertime, my Instagram feed is filled with the white buildings and blue domes of Santorini, and this year I finally got to go! Luckily, it lived up to its name. Santorini was the highlight of my Honeymoon (yes – MY) and encompassed everything that I pictured Greece to be. The pristine, cliffside, white buildings with blue domes were even better in person and I took so many pictures that I  won’t be able to go through all of them… but I tried just for you.

The two ways to get around in Greece are flight and ferry. I figured that we should take the ferry at least once, for the experience. Also, there isn’t a direct flight from Mykonos to Santorini so the ferry was actually the quickest option.

You can book your ferry tickets in advance from FerryHopper.com for around $75 per person. Overall the ferry experience is a complete cluster-fuck. Everyone is waiting around in the hot sun and then it’s a stampede to the ferry when it docks (and you’re carrying your luggage). We ended up playing ‘every man for themselves’ and just meeting on the ferry, and it worked out. Once you’re on the ferry everything is fine and there is AC so that’s a huge plus. 

It’s definitely cheaper than flying just make sure it doesn’t take 3x as long! I might make a blog post someday on the pitfalls and perks of the ferry !

We stayed at Anteliz Suites and it was an absolute dream. I had a couple of check points that I required for this hotel and it checked off every one of them!

1. Not in Oia,
2. Suites with infinity pools
3. Complementary room service breakfast
4. Stunning views of the sea, non-obstructed
5. Close to restaurants
6. Available to use Chase Ultimate Rewards points

You can checkout my full hotel review (including more pictures), here.

V Lounge Café & Cocktail bar

Ammoudi Fish Tavern

Kastro Oia

The Good Heart

Kapari Wine Restaurant

Aktaion

Lucky’s Souvlaki

Get lost in Oia & shop

Much to my surprise, Oia is a lot smaller than it appears. There is one main walking road that takes you from North to South of Oia town. All the restaurants and shops are long this road and there are little alcoves where you can see views of the cliffside city and the famous blue dome cathedrals. Most of the side roads and walkways are blocked off to residents who actually live in Oia (you can be a rebel and venture off but we are rule-followers especially in a foreign country).

ATV around Island

We rented from Tonys Rent – A – Car and Moto – ATV because it was within walking distance of the hotel (and recommended to us by the hotel staff). When we rented our ATV we didn’t just drive around aimlessly, Santorini is small but it’s not that small. We made sure to hit the following attractions:

• Akrotiri Lighthouse
• Swing View of Caldera
• Heart of Santorini
• Red Beach
• Anastasi Church
• Skaros Rock
• Timiou Stavro (Church of Holy Cross)
• Perissa Church of Holy Cross

We ended up using the ATV a lot more than we originally planned because Uber and taxis are not available on the island, so the ATV was the only way to get around without walking.

Hike from Oia to Fira

This was something we originally planned on doing but ended up relaxing in our hotel pool… because a 6.5 mile hike didn’t sound fun 🙂 If you’re not staying in Oia, I would recommend taking a shuttle to Oia first thing in the morning then take the hike from Oia to Fira. Distance is 6.5 miles and takes an average of 2-5 hours, depending on how often you stop.

Church of St. Stylianos

Church of St. John the Baptist

Three Bells of Thira ( Aghioi Theodoroi/Virgin Mary Catholic Church)

St. Gerasimos Christian Church

3 Blue Domes of Oia 

Byzantine Castle Ruins 

Amoundi Bay

The only international airport in southern Greece is Athens, so we had to go back there for our flight back home. If you’ve been following my previous posts, I was looking for every reason to fly and not take the ferry. Luckily, we were able to fly back to Athens on Aegean Air for around $80 per person, including fees, checked bags, and extra legroom seats.

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