Greece Summer 2025 - Part 2 Santorini Fira

 Santorini!

Is it touristy? Yes!

Is it expensive? Yes!

Is it worth visiting? Definitely yes!

To be honest, when I was planning this trip to Greece, I wasn’t too excited about Santorini. I had heard that it was very touristy, very expensive, and overhyped. Even so, since it was our first time in Greece, we decided to go and see it so we can at least say we’ve been there. It turned out that even though it was touristy and expensive, we had a great time and we loved it!

Before I tell you more about what we did, here’s a more detailed itinerary on Santorini. You can see the general itinerary of our trip in the previous post.

Day 1 - Stayed at Delion View Hotel Fira

7:00 am - Arrived in Athens

10:05 am - Flight to Santorini

10:55 am - Arrived in Santorini Airport

Transport from airport to hotel in Fira

Checked-in to our hotel in Fira

Gyro/souvlaki pita lunch at Lucky’s in Fira

Explore Fira: Metropolitan Church, Cathedral of St. John The Baptist, Panoramic View Fira

Early dinner at Theoni’s Restaurant in Fira

Enjoy sunset from hotel

Day 2 - Stayed at Delion View Hotel Fira

6:00 am - DH went to old port and back

8:00 am - Breakfast at the hotel

9:30 am - Start our Fira to Oia walk. Our stops include: Three Bells of Fira, Firostefani Square.

2:30 pm - Finally arrived in Oia

3:30 pm - Pita lunch at Pitogyros in Oia

Explore Oia

Oia to Fira by bus

Enjoy sunset from hotel

Dinner in Fira

When we arrived in Santorini, our pre-arranged taxi had been waiting outside the tiny airport. The taxi cost 30 Euros and it was an extra large Mercedes-Benz van. It was a pretty short ride, and the taxi driver dropped us off at a meeting point because the hotel was not accessible by car. Actually, a lot of hotels in Santorini require some walking to reach. A very tall young man was already at the meeting point waiting for us. He introduced himself, grabbed our two medium-sized suitcases and carried them on his shoulders up and down the stairs like they were nothing. Meanwhile, I was struggling with the stairs with just my purse! The streets and stairs of Santorini were made of stones. They were uneven and slippery. Even in good weather, we needed to be pretty careful with our steps. 

Our hotel, the Delion View Hotel is located at the tip of Fira, on a cliff, giving it a grand view of Santorini’s famous caldera. I had booked a suite with a view, and it did, but the view is actually nicer from their main balcony. We were able to check-in early and got a much needed freshening up before we headed out to explore Fira.

Our first stop was lunch. We went and lined up at Lucky’s. We each had a pita and they were good! Our favourite there was the chicken gyros pita.Yes, it was better than the pork version.

After lunch, we went to the Metropolitan Church, just a few steps away. We were just outside the church though and didn’t go inside.

We continued our walk weaving through the small cobblestone paths packed with souvenir shops. There were a lot of interesting souvenirs, but they were all overpriced. My recommendation is to not buy any souvenir in Santorini especially if this is your first stop in Greece, I had wanted a headband and it was 6 Euros in Santorini. I didn’t buy it, and I ended up buying the exact same thing in Athens for 1 Euro.

Santorini is very cute, No matter where you go or where you turn, there’s something to see. We walked to our next stop, the Cathedral of St, John the Baptist. If you noticed, the two churches we went to that day didn’t have the iconic white-washed walls and blue dome combination that Santorini is famous for. Well it turned out that the blue dome churches are a little further towards Oia. You will see several of them when we get to the Fira to Oia hike.

Even though the weather was very nice and the wind was blowing, it was getting really hot to walk around. So we walked to a panoramic viewing spot  nearby before taking a scenic but a bit challenging route back to the hotel.

We took a little break in the hotel, gathered some energy (remember, we just arrived by plane from Jakarta just that same morning), and then we headed back out. We only had two nights in Santorini and we wanted to make the most out of it.This time, we went the other direction from our hotel, and walked to one of the nearest larger supermarkets. Tap water in Santorini is not potable, so we bought a few litres of drinking water. And some snacks. We had planned to enjoy sunset from the hotel balcony and we wanted snacks for that. Before heading back, we stopped for an early dinner at a restaurant called Theoni’s. They claimed to have really good fresh fish and their specialty was seafood. So we had fish and squid which was nice, but DH said that Indonesian grilled fish is better because of the spices LOL.

We were so tired after sunset which was at around 8:30 pm. We retired to our room and that was our first day in Santorini! Originally I was going to talk about Santorini in a single post, but this is getting kind of long… so let’s take a break here and talk to you again soon!