Hi I'm David Robert Hogg of SantoriniDave.com. Check out my site SantoriniDave.com. It's a full
guide to Santorini, one of my favorite islands. I love Santorini. This is just an overview video
of Santorini and sort of give you some tips and the layout of the island. First off looking from
above down on Santorini here, we'll see Oia here, Imerovigli here over to Firostefani and Fira. The
beaches are back on this side of the island and down on the south side a couple as well.
So this is the caldera, with what you'll hear a lot of, and you know that the volcano blew here
and blew this essentially blew this all out was a round island at one point. So this is Thirasia
and Palea Kameni. Here is an island and Nea Kameni here. I'll touch upon those later and you can see
some ships here that are docked these are probably that's probably a cruise ship and I'll touch upon
that how how you get from the cruise ship to Fira. The port is over here where more where the ferries
arrive and then you get from there up to Fira or whatever town you're you're going to. So moving
along we're just going to start over at Oia here and then look down into the caldera and slowly
move around the caldera down to the south of the island here. So let's just take a look at some
some pictures. So this is Oia. Here you're looking out on the you know sort of looking south into the
caldera once again you'll see some cruise ships waiting there and the dial and out in the center
of the caldera. Let's keep going. This is more from Imerovigli looking south. Once again you can
see that shape of the caldera all the way around here and then once again ships out in the center
there. Getting closer to Fira, still looking south here. Once again ships down in the water you'll
see there. Closer pretty much in Fira here. Down here you'll see the Firaf port and the ferry port
is around the corner here, you can't quite see it ,but we're looking out into the caldera once
again. Then this is in the south of the island looking north, so now we can see from a different
direction here's Fira, Imerovigli, and Oia up here, the islands Palea Kameni and Nia Kameni
here and Thirasia out there. This is looking up at Fira from out in the middle of the caldera,
and you can see the the walkway here leading up, so if you're arriving by a cruise ship you would
get a boat from your cruise ship to the port, and then have to get up by either cable car or
walking or their donkey rides which are not very popular with some people for the treatment of the
animals but they do exist. So this is Fira looking out into the caldera. Some back streets of Fira,
it's a pretty neat little town. The main town of the island where you'll find most
of the restaurants, or I shouldn't say most, but a large number of restaurants. It's the
biggest town on the island, certainly the most nightlife is here, lots of hotels,
and it's the central hub of bus transportation around the island. So if you're going from Oia
to Kamari you'll have to stop and change buses in Fira. I was looking out into the caldera from
Fira and this the old port once again of Fira of where you arrive by cruise ship but not by ferry,
that's a different port. That's Athinios south of Fira. This is Firostefani. You'll see the Greek
up there above the English. It's sort of handy delete learn the Greek characters if you have a
chance. It makes reading signs easier, although in this case it's in English too, but it makes
reading signs you know really easy, and it doesn't take much. I mean you can do it in a day or two
of looking through the characters. Firostefani looking south - so this is pretty much part of
Fira but you know north of Fira, technically separate, Iquieter, not as many restaurants,
not as many hotels, but easy to get to Fira. A very short walk, so you can sort of enjoy Fira
and be a bit removed from the crowds. You know it can be pretty busy in July in August. Imerovigli,
so this is farther north from Fira looking out into the caldera. This is where you'll find the
best sunsets on Santorini. Sometimes the island out here can block the block the view of the
sunset from Fira, and that tends not to happen in Imerovigli. Imerovigli looking south into the
caldera, and here's the sunset from Imerovigli. You can see you got a pretty straight shot of it.
And this is Oia, sort of quiet, romantic town, lots of fun to wander around. Beautiful town,
one of Oia's best hotels, and you can see that you know the better hotels have pools that overlooked
the caldera. I shouldn't say better but you know very the expensive ones, if you're on the caldera,
they're going to be the most expensive ones, and you know most of the luxury ones do have pools.
That's Oia, you can see, this is sort of looking north, and here is we'll see it from another shot,
Amoudi Bay, just around the corner here and now that's looking down on Amoudi Bay,
and this is a great swim spot. There are no beaches around Oia or Fira or Imerovigli.
Any of those towns on the caldera side of the island do not have beaches, so the beaches are
are on the opposite side, the east side of the island. But there is a swim spot here,
and it's a great swim spot. So you just walk down to Amoudi Bay, and go off to the left
and you know you'll find it. You might have to ask a few people, but a great spot to sort of
jump off rocks and swim out to a little island. It's really wonderful, but as I say no beach.
This is Pyrgos, this is out in the center of the island and
one of the more picturesque towns in Santorini.
This is Perissa, so this is one of the popular beach resorts,
Perivolas Beach. And this is looking north. This big rock here, we'll see it again in the
next picture is here. So this is on the other side of that big rock. This is Kamari Beach,
a big resort. These places have lots hotels, lots of restaurants, and are great spots. But
you're not getting the caldera view from this side, you're over on the, where the beaches are,
on the east side of the island, opposite from the caldera. So some people have a hard time choosing
where they want to stay, you know if you want a nightlife it's Fira, if you want the beaches,
it's pretty easy to get back and forth, but you know it is a trip on the bus,
or a taxi every day. So you might as well stay in the part you're more interested in. The beaches on
Santorini are not the best in Greece, they're very interesting. They typically have volcanic rock,
whether it's in this case ed at Red Sand Beach or the black volcanic rock at some of the other ones.
But they're not the sort of idyllic Greek beach that you may be thinking of, you know Crete or
Mykonos, or some other islands, or most of the other islands all have wonderful beaches. Not
quite the same on Santorini. This is, lots of wineries on Santorini. This is Santos,
probably has the best view of any winery south of Fira looking north. So here are those cruise ships
again that dock. They don't come right up to the shore in Santorini, so you get tendered to shore
by a small boat. So here you can see the people boarding a small boat from a ship to get to shore,
and they dock at the Thira port, just below Fira, once again different from where the
ferries arrive. The ferries do not, the ferries come right into the port so you don't do this
if you're arriving by ferry. Easy to book ferries once you get to Santorini, and you're moving right
on or going to Ios, Mykonos, Crete, so if you can book your ferry tickets, if you have, you know,
whether it's a little bit of flexibility, or some days in Santorini before you have to leave,
it's far easier to book your tickets once you get to Greece then booking them in advance. Of course
sometimes if it's high season, you're on a really tight schedule, then you'll need to book them in
advance, but if you can wait it's the best way to do it because it's just so much easier. And
it's easy to do that, they rarely sell out. But you know rarely is different than never,
but it is pretty that you can't get a seat on a ferry. It's different if you need a cabin,
or if you're ever taking a car, then you definitely would want to book in advance.
So that's a high speed - this is like a high speed catamaran style. They go to a couple
different destinations from Athens for one. You know, a very common route Athens to Santorini,
and they're faster than the bigger car ferries, like that one. But these ones are more stable
so if you're prone to seasickness the bigger the ferry the better off you are. And there are some
Sea Jets that are even smaller than that high speed ferry that we saw in the first picture
and they can be really rough so you'd really want to avoid those if you were prone to seasickness,
they can get really rough. And these are the buses them that move around Santorini. They're
air-conditioned. lots of room for luggage. They cost about two euros depending where you're going
and there are schedules posted you know at any of the stops so they're pretty good pretty good
pretty reliable. This is Thirassia, of one of those islands out in the middle of the caldera
there. and you can take day trips here there are tours that go to Thirassia, and the the other
islands in a community and Palea Kameni. So this is the Nea Kameni and this is volcano island which
sometimes referred to so you can walk up to the volcano, don't be expecting too much. Some people
are disappointed although the best usually the biggest compliment you'll get about the tours are
the views looking back at Santorini. So they're really impressive, the volcano not quite so much,
but it's still interesting. And this this is the hot springs on Palea Kameni so you jump in
the water and swim over to the hot springs and the water is sort of cold when you first enter, and as
you approach the hot springs, it gets warmer. You know it's not for if you're not a okay swimmer,
it's probably not the best idea. When the when everyone starts coming back and getting on
the boats, it can sort of feel a little crazy especially if you're not a great swimmer. You
know you sort of have that feeling like you know you're waiting for someone to drown a little bit,
it sort of has a scary feel to it. If you're a strong swimmer, then it's it's no problem, but you
know just something, especially if you have small kids, something to sort of think about before
you jump in the water. And then that's back to an overview of the island, once again looking, Oia up
here which we looked at, here's Thirassia, Ne Kameni, the caldera here and the towns
along the caldera. You have the old port here where the cruise ships arrive, and then farther
south is the port where the ferries arrive, and then over on the opposite side are the beaches,
down here a bit that's that big rock that divides Kamari up here and Perissa down here, and then
Red Beach down here. So that's Santorini. It's an awesome Island. I hope this was helpful take care