Hike
Walk the caldera rim from Fira to Oia
A path of about 10 km follows the rim through Firostefani and Imerovigli, past Skaros and over the hills to Oia. Allow 3–4 hours, start at dawn, and end with breakfast in Oia before the crowds.
Fira to Oia
Santorini · Things to do
Things to do in Santorini
Beaches, trails, festivals, food and wine: the experiences that make this island its own.
Experiences
Our favourite things to do
Ideas for every kind of day, from a lazy swim to a full-day hike.
Hike
Out to the rock of Skaros
Take the steps down from Imerovigli and the path round the rock to the little chapel of Theoskepasti, with the caldera all around you. Best early in the morning.
Imerovigli
Nature
Sail the caldera to the volcano
Boat trips cross to Nea Kameni to walk up to the craters, then swim in the warm, rust-coloured water of the hot springs off Palea Kameni. Sunset cruises are the romantic way to end the day.
From Athinios, Fira old port or Ammoudi
Food & wine
Taste wine in a cave
Walk through the Koutsoyannopoulos wine museum underground, then taste Assyrtiko and Vinsanto on a terrace above the caldera at Santo Wines or Venetsanos.
Vothonas, Pyrgos & Megalochori
Culture
Walk the streets of Akrotiri
See a town that stopped 3,600 years ago, then drive down to the Red Beach under its cliffs of red volcanic rock.
Akrotiri
Food & wine
Lunch by the water at Ammoudi
Walk the steps down from Oia to the little harbour of Ammoudi, eat grilled fish by the water, and swim off the rocks at Agios Nikolaos.
Below Oia
Beach
Black sand at Perissa
Spend an afternoon on the long black-sand beaches of the east coast, and walk up to ancient Thera on the mountain between them.
Perissa & Kamari
Beach
The Red Beach
A small beach under cliffs of red and black lava. Admire it from the path above, as rockfalls mean the beach itself is often closed.
Near Akrotiri
Only on Santorini
What makes Santorini different
What makes Santorini unlike any other island in the Aegean.
Villages on the rim of a volcano
The villages of the caldera are built along the top of cliffs that drop 300 m to a flooded crater, many of their homes dug into the soft volcanic rock as cave houses.
A Bronze Age town under the ash
Around 1600 BC the eruption buried Akrotiri, a rich harbour town with ties to Minoan Crete. Its houses still stand, and its frescoes are among the finest paintings of the ancient world.
Vines grown as baskets
To protect them from the wind, the island's growers twist their vines into low baskets called kouloures. Phylloxera never reached the volcanic soil, so many roots are very old.
A volcano you can walk on
In the middle of the caldera, the black islet of Nea Kameni has grown out of the sea in eruptions since 1707. Boats take you there to walk up to its steaming craters.