Travel Diaries – Santorini, GR

Hi friends! Continuing our Greece travel series with the first island we traveled to – Santorini! All the Instagram photos y’all have seen from Santorini are real, y’all! It really is a blue & white domed dreammmmm.

Arriving at Santorini:

As I mentioned in my overall Greece blog post, we flew directly into Santorini (airport: JTR) from our layover in London, which was great to skip over Athens on the way there. This helped us avoid having to book a ferry or possibly a separate flight from Athens, and saved us a little bit of travel time also.

JTR is a pretty small airport (you de-board directly onto the tarmac), so the overall process was fairly quick. Our luggage took awhile to come through but there was no real “customs” or anything – just checking our passports and passenger locator form (PLF) that we were required to fill out and have the QR code in hand, prior to arriving.

Santorini Hotel:

We stayed at Ducato di Oia, which, as suggested by the name, is located in Oia. There are several areas, or “villages”, on the Santorini island, and Oia is among one of the popular villages that has the caldera view. Fira, Imerovigli, Firastefani are the other areas that also have this stunning view. We had been recommended to stay in Imerovigli or Oia, as Fira (Thira) can tend to be even more ‘touristy’ than Imerovigli and Oia. These two areas tend to just be more crowded during sunset hours. After staying in Oia, I definitely felt like this was the case – mornings and the afternoons we witnessed there were certainly a little more quiet than the evenings, when tons of people would come to have dinner and drinks, and watch the sunset from restaurants in our area. Unfortunately we didn’t have a chance to visit Imerovigli during our stay, but we did do a day trip to Thira, and as it is the capital of Santorini, it was very crowded, and busy even during the day. Just something to keep in mind when figuring out what part of the island to stay in!

If you followed along on my Instagram stories, then you’re probably aware that we were a little disappointed in our stay at Ducato di Oia. The service and everything was great, but the room itself was a little deceiving based on the photos we had seen online. We had heard most of the hotels in this area are “cave-like” to help keep them cool since the island is near an active volcano. The hotel structures are cool, and a lot of hotels we saw have some sort of semi-private pool or jacuzzi outside as well, so we opted to pay extra for one. But our room itself wasn’t anything special, especially for the price we paid for it. For example, our bathroom didn’t have a normal ‘shower’ – it was basically a showerhead hose that you had to hold while showering, and without a tub or any sort of water barrier, so the water went everywhere in the bathroom. And the cherry on top – cold water. Even though the hotel staff insisted the water was getting warm, it wasn’t. Overall, our experience wasn’t the “wow, that was great!” we were hoping for, but they did have a decent breakfast included and the views were certainly amazing. I think that’s why most people stay in this area anyway 🙂

Santorini Restaurants and Bars:

• KooKoo Bar Lounge – somewhat fast casual restaurant in Oia, but it has super cute vibes and the service was great. The chicken souvlaki was really good here!
• Zafora Restaurant (Thira) – we only grabbed drinks here while visiting Thira for the day but the views were incredible! I can only imagine how beautiful the sunset views are like here so try to make a reservation if you’re visiting!
• Terpsi N Oia – we had sunset drinks at this restaurant in Oia and it. was. amazing. We somehow scored an amazing walk-in table with the perfect view but we had to walk around awhile looking for a place that had a walk-in table available – so I’d highly recommend making a reservation if you can! Sunset drinks are popular in Santorini so all the restaurants with a view book up quickly when golden hour hits!
• Alkyona Sunset Restaurant – we had dinner here and thought it was decent! Ronak got fish (as it’s very popular in Greece) and he liked it! I got the vegetarian mousaka (a popular Greek dish, but not always made vegetarian!) and I thought it was really good. 🙂

Santorini Must-Do’s:

• Flying Dress Photoshoot – if you’re ever in Santorini, and want to truly capture it’s beauty in the most unique way, I *highly* suggest booking a flying dress photoshoot. I think these photos captured some of our best memories of Greece, and I’m so happy with how they turned out. We worked with Flying Dress Santorini, and I cannot recommend them enough! When I was researching Santorini prior to our travels, I saw these flying dress photos EVERYWHERE. I was obsessed with how beautiful they were so I knew we needed to do one while we were visiting. Dimitri was incredible to work with – so fun and professional, but also helped me relax as these photoshoots can be a little intimidating haha we did the shoot around 8:30-ish in the morning, and let me just say – there were TONS of other people out in these photoshoot locations getting photos at the same time. Golden hour(s) really is the best time to capture pictures in Santorini! p.s. Dimitri was wonderful enough to give my readers and followers a 10% discount if you book with him and use my code ‘GENUINELYGOPI10‘! If you’re visiting Santorini – trust me, this is a unique MUST-DO!

• Sunset Catamaran Caldera Cruise – a sunset catamaran or private boat is definitely a MUST in Santorini! We booked ours through Viator, which is an incredible website where you can book experiences and excursions around the world! It also had the most reasonable pricing that we saw for the sunset catamaran cruise in Santorini, which is why we booked through them. Our boat experience was from 3:00pm to about 8:30pm, and we had unlimited beer and wine, as well as a DELICIOUS Greek meal on board. The staff was so nice and fun, and we got to meet some other fun couples on board visiting Santorini as well! We’d highly recommend this experience!

Getting Around Santorini Island

Unfortunately, getting around Greek islands isn’t as simple as ordering up an Uber and hopping in. Most of the islands are extremely limited on taxis (most only have about 30 taxis across the entire island…), and private transfers through hotels are generally pretty pricey as well.

I stumbled across a semi-private transfer company in Santorini through a blog post prior to our travels, and wanted to share their WhatsApp number with y’all – +30-697-000-0704. Being able to communicate and book a transfer with them directly from the airport prior to us arriving was amazing – and I highly, highly recommend doing this. They are pretty much a flat €35 for two people, to go anywhere on the island. So from the Santorini airport to Oia, €35 wasn’t bad for both Ronak and myself. We also used them when leaving Santorini and needed to get dropped off to the ferry port. They’re extremely punctual and safe. However, they only take cash (despite telling me they’d accept credit card when I booked), and they’re also only semi-private, which means they’re usually transferring others as well. But they have a strict mask policy, so we didn’t find it to be too bad and rather convenient.

Besides this private-transfer, we either walked places, or used the city bus! The city bus was surprisingly easy to use, efficient, and CHEAP. It was about a 20-25 minute ride from Oia to Thira, and only €1.6 per person, one way. So Ronak and I were able to travel roundtrip from Oia to Thira for just €6.4, significantly cheaper than the €70 round-trip semi-private transfer would’ve been! Also, the city bus has pretty convenient bus stops all around the island, so you can easily just look up where the closest stop is to you, or ask your hotel/locals.

Our Eat, Drink & Be Merry Recommendations:

Eat: Alkyona Sunset Restaurant

Drink: Zafora Restaurant (Thira)

Be Merry: Flying Dress Santorini photoshoot! use code ‘GENUINELYGOPI10’ when booking with them 🙂

I hope you found my Santorini island round-up helpful and maybe even inspiring to plan a trip 🙂 It is truly a breathtaking island and so worth it. be sure to stay tuned for my other island and Athens round-ups as well! let me know in the comments below if you’ve been to Greece, or if you are planning your trip there now! 🙂

xo,

gopi

pin this post for later right here!

— shop my Greece outfits here —

— shop my favorite travel products and essentials here —

*Disclosure: Please note that some of the links in this post are affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase I may earn a small commission. Keep in mind that I link all of these companies and their products because of their quality, and my genuine appreciation for them, and not because of the commission I may receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.*