The Fira to Oia walk is the best thing to do on Santorini and the one most visitors skip. It runs 10km along the caldera rim, takes three to four hours, and the view changes continuously the whole way. Start at seven in the morning and you will have most of it alone.
The route
Leave Fira northwards along the rim through Firostefani and Imerovigli, which is the paved and easy first third with a cafe every few hundred metres. After Imerovigli the path leaves the villages behind and turns into a proper trail: dirt, loose stone, and a long climb over the ridge behind Skaros.
The middle section is the reason to do this. No buildings, no people, and the cliff dropping several hundred metres to your left the whole way. Then the trail descends into Oia past the abandoned chapel at Agios Nikolaos.
Doing it properly
- Direction matters. Fira to Oia puts the sun behind you in the morning and finishes somewhere with buses and food. The reverse does neither.
- Start at 7am in summer. There is no shade at all after Imerovigli and the middle section in midday August is genuinely dangerous.
- Take two litres of water each. There is nowhere to buy any for two thirds of the walk.
- Proper shoes. The trail is loose scree in places and people attempt it in sandals every day.
- Get the bus back. Or stay in Oia for dinner and travel at 10.30pm when the sunset crowd has cleared.
The villages nobody sees
Pyrgos was the island’s capital until the 1800s and is still the most complete village on it: a Venetian castle at the summit with concentric lanes wrapping the hill below, and a view across the entire island from the top. Twenty minutes from Fira and largely ignored.
Megalochori is smaller, with bell towers and a handful of restored mansions built by 19th century wine merchants. It has one square and it is the right one.
Emporio has a kastelli, a defensive quarter where the outer houses form a continuous wall with no windows facing out, built against pirate raids. The lanes inside are a genuine maze and there are no signs.
Ancient Thera
On the ridge of Mesa Vouno between Kamari and Perissa, 360 metres up, sits a Hellenistic and Roman city that was inhabited for a thousand years. It is reached by a switchback road or a steep path from Perissa, and almost nobody goes because it is not on the caldera.
The site has streets, a theatre facing out over open sea, and a view down onto both beaches at once. Go early; there is no shade at all.
What this page is
A walking and village guide. This agency works in Athens and Mykonos and has no presence on Santorini or anywhere else in Greece. Nothing on this island can be arranged through us and nobody represents us here.
